Sanford declared winner
Mark Sanford has won back his old Congressional seat.
He’s certainly not my favorite politician, but if I lived in that district I would have voted for him over opponent Elizabeth Colbert Busch.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Sanford is a scoundrel, but he’s our scoundrel. Democrats are quick to rise above principle and vote for their party while Republicans want perfect candidates. Maybe conservatives are learning.
Yep.
Yuck, the adulterer versus the jailbird. Is this really what our elections have become?
Reminds me of that guy that got elected with a lengthy rap sheet for embezzlement. I was talking to someone about it and they were like, “but embezzling money is a qualification for office lolzzz” btw the elected guy was a Democrat.
Well, at least voters usually know what they are voting for. Not like ,say, with JFK; who was as big of a scoundrel as any of the current sex starved boy/men. We just didn’t know until long after his legacy was written. Now, folks just shrug, and say” well it puts an asterisk on his pristine legacy.”
The best part of this is that it pours some cold water on the idea that the Dems can win elections in conservative places by leveraging their domination of celebrity culture. I realize their candidate was merely the sister of a liberal celebrity and not a famous person in her own right, but from what I gather the Dems seemed to think the Colbert name would put her over the top.
Along the same lines, the decision of Ashley Judd not to run for the Kentucky Senate seat looks like another nail in the celebrity-candidate coffin. (I think it’s pretty clear she would have lost, and that’s the reason she didn’t run.)
We have two thresholds for revulsion, the one for Repubs like Sanford (hetero, 5 day fling, paid huge fine, lost job), and the other for Dems like Barney Frank (homo, ‘partner’ ran prostitution from Barney’s house, went on for years, no admission of even “oops”, stayed in House, hurt us all socio-financially).
Andy Borowitz provides some perspective:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport
Borowitz is very cute. I should have read the link more carefully before clicking on it.
He could have mentioned any number of other politicians who are in the population of world class liars; Slick, Hillary, Nancy, Barack Hussein. But, strangely did not. Only the Republican.
Refer to my post above. South Carolinians. at least, were well informed about their choices.
helvetica
Yuck, the adulterer versus the jailbird. Is this really what our elections have become?
Which reminds me of the 1991 Governor’s election in Louisiana when Klansman David Duke ran against Edwin Edwards. Among the slogans in the campaign:
As Edwards later spent nearly a decade behind bars, he WAS a crook. Also interesting that he campaigned with such slogans- a “catch me it you can” approach to corruption. It took a long time to catch him, as he didn’t go behind bars until he was in his 70s. To their credit, neither President Bush nor President Obama pardoned him. Had he been pardoned, Edwards would have run for Governor again.
Choosing whom to vote for in politics is usually choosing the lesser of two evils. It took me many years to come to that conclusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards
Sanford may be an adulterer. true, but he is an amateur.
Mark still has a long way to go before earning the Kennedy Family Seal of Approval.
Having read [part of one woman’s account of her affair with JFK, he went well beyond adultry and was abusive.
I’ve heard the argument about not being able to trust a man who’s wife cannot trust him, but I’m not sure it’s a great judge of anything. Maybe his present wife should keep it in mind, but I don’t know that it applies to his political integrity. If it did, the opposite should also be true — politicians faithful to their wives would be honest, virtuous politicians and leaders. You can make this case either. If marital fidelity were the only indicator of a vituous leader, it would be hard to explain why Obama is screwing Americans 3 ways from Sunday.
southpaw:
If it did, the opposite should also be true – politicians faithful to their wives would be honest, virtuous politicians and leaders.
Such as the POTUS, who by all appearances has been faithful to his wife and also a good father, but who has been anything but honest and virtuous in his politics.
Obama is a good father if your definition means someone who spends as much time away from home as possible. His kids are golf orphans every nice weekend and he’s broken the record for out of town fund raising events.
KLSmith – good point. Everybody repeats the mantra that he is, but you have to wonder when he spends any time with them.
Obama is a good role model for gay marriage, father or catcher?
So long as Sanford does a good job in Congress, he can bang everything that moves so far as I’m concerned.