The Uncandidate
BARNES, FRED
The Uncandidate South Carolina's Mark Sanford succeeds by breaking all the rules. BY FRED BARNES Columbia, South Carolina \ THE PECULIARITIES of Republican Mark Sanford's bid for ^^ governor of...
...The vote-rich Upstate is solid Republican territory...
...Meanwhile, education spending has doubled in the past 25 years, but SAT scores in South Carolina remain stuck at 49th or 50th among the states...
...This is especially true in his case...
...This is a person who, if you're lucky, comes along once in a political lifetime," Rainey says...
...While income V' has lagged, Sanford says, the state government has metastasized, growing more rapidly than the federal government or nearby state governments...
...Since Sanford won the GOP runoff on June 22, Hodges has aired an estimated $2 million worth of negative ads—many on education—that declare Sanford "wrong for South Carolina...
...There's an upside to all this...
...We don't have to settle for that . . . help us bring a different approach to politics in Columbia...
...Sanford was intrigued...
...Mark is the most unorthodox politician I've ever bumped into," Quinn says...
...He consulted two former governors, Democrat Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Republican senator George Allen of Virginia, who assured him governor was the office with the most leverage...
...His bill passed...
...Six years seemed like an eternity," he told me...
...So were many Republicans who'd backed Bush over McCain in 2000, a contest whose traumatic effect on the GOP still lingers...
...As House minority leader in the state legislature in 1995, Hodges pushed for extending kindergarten from a half to a full day...
...Besides his personal attractiveness, Sanford has a geographical advantage against Hodges...
...Peeler ran a TV spot showing a Sanford lookalike stripping a soldier of his rifle, uniform, and wallet...
...Referring to Hodges's ads and speaking directly to the camera, he said: "I trust you will see those attacks for what they are...
...The coast and Lowcountry are home to Sanford...
...in the runoff last June for the GOP nomination for governor, he overwhelmed Lt...
...Rainey knew Sanford only by reputation, but he felt San-ford was the only political figure who could disrupt the inertia in Columbia...
...Sanford, 42, is far and away the most interesting conservative running anywhere this year...
...Bob Peeler, who was backed by most of the Bush forces in the state...
...This is: He wants to eliminate the state income tax (top rate 7 percent...
...Now he is trying to bludgeon San-ford on the issue...
...Earlier, Quinn had produced anti-Sanford ads for his candidate, Attorney General Charlie Condon...
...He backed John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary in what turned out to be a strong George W. Bush state...
...When the state Republican chairman wanted to speak to him without his wife on the line, Sanford hung up...
...He cited a passage in the New Testament, Luke 12: "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required...
...That leaves the middle of the state...
...Sanford may do that, but what he won't do is broadcast rebuttal ads on TV...
...He also favors a school voucher program 1 \ similar to one enacted in Florida , by Gov...
...Five weeks after the runoff, Bush showed up for a Sanford fund-raiser that had been scheduled before the election, when Peeler, the Bush candidate, had been expected to win...
...There's no San-ford gang of allies in the legislature or GOP hierarchy...
...The governor, wrote Lee Bandy of The State, "is boxed in from the north and south...
...He campaigns on the notion that he's a departure from politics as usual...
...But the McCain link didn't hurt Sanford, except to underscore his image as a different sort of politician...
...Sanford faced no opponent in his last two races, but nonetheless honored his promise to serve only three terms and retired in 2000...
...Republicans sneered that this was glorified day care, but Hodges's proposal was wildly popular and he forced Republicans to back down...
...Now he has an even or better chance of ousting Hodges...
...His wife Jenny is his campaign manager...
...We pounded him," says Quinn...
...For Hodges, it's his most powerful issue and one on which he has credibility...
...His speeches are seldom scripted...
...Not a bad spot to be in for a candidate who likes to wing it...
...It provides "a stronger playing field for Democrats than Republicans, even on your best day," Sanford says...
...After working up his ambitious economic and restructuring plan, Sanford announced...
...All Sanford has to do is split the vote there and he wins...
...Sanford says this means money isn't getting to teachers and classrooms...
...Education, however, is Hodges's issue, not Sanford's...
...His first TV spot of the general election campaign was a response, but hardly a point-by-point rebuttal...
...The point was to portray Sanford as anti-military...
...Sanford's limp response prompted Brad Warthen, the editorial page editor of South Carolina's most important newspaper, The State in Columbia, to urge Sanford to stop talking about parental choice and offer up a comprehensive plan for improving public schools...
...Back in Charleston in early 2001, Sanford was weighing job offers and thinking about running for Democratic senator Fritz Hollings's seat in 2004 when he was visited by a Republican businessman from Spartanburg, John Rainey...
...Jim Hodges, his Democratic opponent, Sanford declined to rebut the charges, thus violating a cardinal rule of electoral politics...
...No state has ever repealed its income tax (several states don't have one...
...In the runoff, Lt...
...Voters are captivated by Sanford's unorthodox style...
...He's unscripted...
...Richard Quinn, a consultant for a Sanford opponent in the primary, says Sanford's style and persona may make him immune to negative ads...
...name ID, he won a U.S...
...For Sanford, education reform is but one part of his plan for restructuring state government...
...Sanford would not do it abruptly, but over 18 years...
...He personifies that...
...In the last four years, our economy has gotten worse and our schools still rank at the bottom...
...He doesn't prepare for televised debates (and does poorly...
...Sanford settled on three terms...
...if he does, it's likely to be one of the few Republican pickups of a governorship this year...
...The rule of thumb in politics is that a charge left unchallenged has a good chance of being believed by voters...
...One source of his appeal is term limits...
...He once jotted down the text of a TV ad minutes before filming it...
...And it would give the GOP full control of South Carolina—the governorship along with both houses of the legislature...
...By rejecting a career in Congress, he acquired what he calls "the rarest of all political commodities in Washington . . . independence...
...The Christian right, strong in the Greenville and Spartan-burg area upstate, was leery of him...
...The ad ends with a slogan: "Mark Sanford, a leader, not a politician...
...He doesn't really have a consultant...
...He likes to wing it...
...In a short book he wrote in his final year in Washington, Sanford said, "If self-limits do nothing else, they afford a legislator the freedom to stand up for what he believes...
...But that's not jJ the radical part of Sanford's agenda...
...Still, he alone in the seven-candidate Republican field advocated it...
...House seat in the coastal Charleston area in 1994...
...With no previous political experience, no following among Republicans, and zero Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Outside Charleston, Sanford had no base of support...
...South Carolina has nearly twice as many state employees per capita as Florida...
...Sanford doesn't think so...
...Sanford has no statewide campaign organization or ancillary groups like Veterans for Sanford...
...By quitting after three terms, Sanford gained a reputation for keeping his word, a valuable asset for a politician...
...To lure investment and white collar jobs, Sanford would trim state government and reduce the tax (the top tax rate applies to incomes as low as $11,701) that supports it...
...I'm inherently distrustful of the inside of any political system," he says...
...The ad backfired...
...He rarely wears a tie...
...His message is mildly radical: slow the growth of government, overhaul the bureaucracy, attract investment, and create jobs...
...In his case, it meant championing sweeping Social Security reform, voting against highway spending, and rebelling against Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey...
...He now concedes the McCain endorsement was a "mis- take...
...BY FRED BARNES Columbia, South Carolina THE PECULIARITIES of Republican Mark Sanford's bid for ^^ governor of South Carolina are piling up...
...His appearances sometimes consist of a slide show (he travels with a slide projector...
...There's a real freshness about him...
...Hit this summer with a two-month barrage of attack ads by Gov...
...In 1994, his strongest opponents balked at self-imposed term limits...
...All Hodges says is that he won't raise taxes...
...Jeb Bush...
...When you find a good one, you've got to help him, and you've found a good one in Mark Sanford," the president said...
...The result was zilch...
...In his slide show, Sanford presents a sophisticated analysis of how SouthCarolina has fallen behind in personal income—or what he calls a "wealth gap" J ft of $5,800 a year between what people make, on average, nationally and what they earn in SouthCarolina...
...Unless the gap is closed, he says, young people will continue to migrate to other states...
Vol. 8 • September 2002 • No. 1
