As many of you know, about three years ago now, the once promising political career of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford went up in flames when it was revealed he had been having an affair with an Argentine journalist, María Belén Chapur. Before this he had been considered a strong possibility to run for the Republican nomination in 2012. Given how heavily investigated and attacked Presidential candidates are, simply preventing the reveal is unlikely to allow him to make a big splash.
Instead, let's posit two potential PODs; in 2004, Sanford and wis wife met Chapur at a bistro in New York City, followed by two more meetings in New York which I do not know the dates of, and in 2008 he had sex with Chapur on an economic development trip to Argentina. He had first met with Chapur in 2001, but given how long ago this was this could cause too many butterflies. Let's say the New York meetings don't happen or happen differently and/or the meeting in Argentina does not occur. While Sanford still had a checkered romantic history, this means the scandal does not break in 2009, and if he still seeks counsel at The Family as he did IOTL it may go better. This puts him in a position to go for a Presidential run in 2012.
This same topic was discussed here a few years ago, but knowing what we know now about Romney's weakness as a frontrunner, the rather weak Anyone But Romney field, and the twists and turns of the first few months of primaries, how well could Sanford do? With no affair with Chapur, he has had infidelities but not gone nearly as far, so could he cover them up enough to keep viable until November, or if the story does break, downplay it enough? If Sanford captures the anti-Romney vote and pulls off an Iowa performance as good as Santorum or slightly better (A narrow win that is not annulled later as Romney's was IOTL) and then goes on to win South Carolina, where he was a fairly popular Governor, could he manage to do what Gingrich and Santorum could not and beat Romney for the nomination?