Emails May Have Triggered Confession

posted by Alan Greenblatt

In its story today, The State of Columbia, S.C., indicates that although the paper had emails between Gov. Mark Sanford and his lover since December, they were unable to authenticate them. They sent a reporter to the woman's apartment in Buenos Aires yesterday, and she answered to the name in the emails, but refused to speak to their reporter once she'd identified herself as such.

When Sanford got off a plane from Buenos Aires, he stopped an interview with The State when asked if he had been with anyone in Argentina.

The State then contacted Sanford’s office and a former aide, explicitly saying it had e-mails between the governor’s personal e-mail address and an Argentine woman and thought them to be genuine.

Sanford’s office subsequently scheduled a news conference, at which time the governor confessed to an affair.

Late Wednesday, the governor’s office said it would not dispute the authenticity of the e-mails.

The State has published more emails, after the three excerpts they released yesterday. Sanford:

The rarest of all commodities in this world is love. It is that thing that we all yearn for at some level — to be simply loved unconditionally for nothing more than who we are — not what we can get, give or become. There are but 50 governors in my country and outside of the top spot, this is as high as you can go in the area I have invested the last 15 years of my life — my getting here came as no small measure because I had that foundation of love and support so critical to getting up in the morning and feeling you could give and risk because you already had a full tank of love in the emotional bank account.

Don't Miss the Emails

posted by Alan Greenblatt

In case you're joining us late, another link to the emails between Gov. Sanford and "Maria" at The State.

CNN Interviews Tom Davis

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Campbell Brown got an interview with Tom Davis, the South Carolina state senator and former top Sanford aide whom Sanford repeatedly apologized to during his confessional news conference.

Davis says he was unaware that the governor was cheating on his wife until earlier in the day, when he and Sanford sat down together for a long unburdening. That might explain why Davis was so much on the governor's mind during his public appearance.

He also indicates that it's not unusual for Sanford to take off for days at a time after session.

BROWN: Given that you probably know him better than anybody, how do
you explain his behavior, primarily the disappearance, without alerting
anybody to where he was going?

DAVIS: You know, it's -- Mark is a person that's very private and
Mark doesn't confide much. And the fact that he didn't share this
information with me, while not necessarily surprising, is shocking.

You know, as far as him, you know, leaving the past four or five
days, he's done that in the past. Back when I was his chief of staff,
after a legislative session, Mark would typically leave for about five
or six days, usually go to the (INAUDIBLE) farm, where his family has a
place in Beaufort County, or he would go hunting and fishing.

So, it wasn't out of the ordinary for him to take off after a
legislative session.

Sanford's Appreciation of Argentina

posted by Alan Greenblatt

DemConWatch notes that Sanford has traveled to and referred to Argentina quite often, including in two State of the States.

hat tip: Ben Smith

Sanford Lied to Staff

posted by Alan Greenblatt

From Sanford's post-news conference statement:

I apologize to my staff. I misled them about my whereabouts, and as a result the people of South Carolina believed something that wasn't true. I want to make absolutely clear that over the past two days at no time did anyone on my staff intentionally relay false information to other state officials or the public at large. What they've said over the past two days they believed to be true, and I'm sorry to them for putting them in this position.

Are Sanford's Enemies Working the Press?

posted by Alan Greenblatt

A theme in our coverage here and on Ballot Box has been that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has been the type of politician to make enemies and that's clearly not serving him well at this point.

Aside from angry comments in recent days, clearly someone is tipping off The State. The Columbia paper's site, as noted below, has already published several emails exchanged between Sanford and his lover.

According to the site, the paper obtained the emails last December.

And the paper had a reporter this morning who knew which flight Sanford was coming in on.

I'm not denying that the paper is covering the story admirably. I just wonder who might be helping them along.

Update: TalkingPointsMemo earlier today linked to a blog post from Will Folks, the former Sanford spokesman who blogs at Fitsnews.com, that suggested The State had material in its possession that would confirm that Sanford was having an affair. Whether that includes anything aside from the emails, we'll soon find out.

But as TPM suggests, this may help explain why Sanford decided to come clean and why he took five tearful days to call off the affair. This may not have been a break of his own timing or choosing.

Here Come the Emails

posted by Alan Greenblatt

The State has some of the emails between Gov. Sanford and Maria, the woman with whom he's had an affair. The paper has removed her last name and other personal information. A special correspondent for McClatchy went and spoke with her (her building is at right), but she declined to speak further after the reporter identified herself as such.

Sanford's office does not dispute the veracity of the emails, the paper says.

The paper promises more in tomorrow's print edition. In the meantime, it's posted two messages from him and one from her.

This is an excerpt from Sanford, July 2008:

Two, mutual feelings .... You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...

Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true - at the same time we are in a hopelessly - or as you put it impossible - or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure.

Sanford's Wife: We're Separated

posted by Alan Greenblatt

During his news conference, Sanford kinda sorta ducked the question of whether he and his wife Jenny are separated.

South Carolina's first lady has put out a statement saying they've been separated for a couple of weeks with a goal toward eventual reconciliation.

"When I found out about my husband's infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage," she said in her statement. "We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

"During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week."

Sanford Then and Now

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Mark Sanford was elected to Congress as part of the "Republican Revolution" Class of 1994. If you were a reporter, he was always great to talk to. He put less of a filter on his comments than most members.

That was in part, I'm sure, because he was a true believer. Unlike most of the other members of his class, he never "went Washington." He kept to the idea that he was there to shrink the federal government and he never got coopted by the lure of sending appropriations home.

He also kept to a self-imposed three term limit.

As governor, he was equally uncompromising. He was a true apostle of the down-on-spending school of Republican thought. He was a great one for vetoing budget line items and, of course, pulled that stunt a few years ago of coming into the statehouse with a squealing pig under each arm.

Although his party has controlled the legislature throughout his 6-1/2 year tenure as governor, he made plenty of enemies. He was always quick to characterize them as free spenders.

Here's something Josh Goodman wrote in a Governing feature on South Carolina's government structure last year:

Although Sanford has been the strongest advocate of restructuring, he has also, in a sense, been its greatest enemy. He has clashed repeatedly with his fellow Republicans in the General Assembly over even the smallest issues. He's targeted legislators' pet projects and pushed for spending cuts that virtually no lawmakers were willing to accept. He's continued to press for school vouchers in the absence of legislative support.

The legislature has overridden hundreds of the governor's vetoes during his six years in office. This year, Sanford thought the budget was wasteful, so he vetoed parts of it — then threatened to sue lawmakers for failing to meet their responsibility to pass a budget that was balanced. "I'm an unabashed conservative," Sanford says, "and sometimes accused of being a libertarian, to which I say, 'I'm guilty, I love liberty.'"

This tension reached its peak with his decision not to accept $700 million worth of South Carolina's share of stimulus funds. The legislature fought him hard on that, and eventually won, when the state Supreme Court ordered him to accept the money.

It's not that Sanford was heroic, but he was principled. And, given the nature of state politics, that led to lots of conflicts.

One commentator wrote earlier this year that Sanford is "a sanctimonious, rigid ideologue who puts policy before people."

If Sanford had lots of friends in Columbia, I'm not sure it would make much difference at this point. But it wouldn't hurt.

More Unresolved Sanford Questions

posted by Alan Greenblatt

If I were a reporter in South Carolina, I would be tracking down Sen. Tom Davis and some of the other Sanford friends that the governor got particularly emotional about during his news conference. I'd ask the old Watergate question -- what did you know, and when did you know it?

It sounded like some of these friends knew about the affair. What did the staff know? And if the friends knew, why didn't they try to put a stop to the "missing governor" line or the Appalachian Trail story?

Presumably they didn't feel they could act without Sanford's okay, which apparently they couldn't get while he was in Argentina.