Sanford Family Learned Of Affair Amid Stimulus Battle
During a gripping press conference carried live on national cable, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) acknowledged having been unfaithful to his wife for the past year, and also misleading his own staff and through them the state about his whereabouts in the past week.
"I've let down a lot of people, and that's the bottom line," an emotional Sanford told a horde of reporters in Columbia.
As he asked for forgiveness, he announced he would resign as the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. The chairman of his own state party, Katon Dawson, did not rule out that there may be further consequences for Sanford, a polarizing figure even in his own state party, telling Fox News that the "chips fall pretty quickly in South Carolina."
Sanford revealed to reporters that he developed a strong relationship with a woman in Argentina eight years ago, ironically as he counseled her to stay with her husband for the sake of her children. Sanford has four young sons.
"It began very innocently as I suspect many of these things do, in just a casual email back and forth," he said. He sought her out as refuge from the pressure-cooker life of politics, where he said he found it hard to ever let his guard down.
"There was this zone of protectedness. She lived thousands of miles away and I was up here and you could throw an idea out or vice versa," he said.
But in the past year, "it sparked into something more than that," and he said he traveled to see her three times. Five months ago, this relationship was "discovered" as he put it. "And at that point we went into serious overdrive, where do you go from here," he said.
What's significant about Sanford's account is that it means a family crisis was unfolding just as the governor was taking a high-profile role in fighting the Obama administration's efforts to pass, and then implement a stimulus program. The Recovery Act was passed in mid-February, and when Sanford came to Washington weeks later for the National Governors Association meeting, he made opposition to the spending program a rallying point for Republican governors.
"I think the nation's governors are going through ... and doing what should have been done in Congress," he told RCP this February about his efforts.
Sanford's effort not to accept stimulus funds was waged for months, before he ultimately relented earlier this month. His staff had explained his "disappearance" this weekend as him getting away to clear his head after the bruising fight. Sanford today apologized for "creating a fiction with regard to where I was going."
"I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina," he said. "I'm committed to trying to get my heart right."
He also asked reporters for a "zone of privacy" for his family.
"There are going to be some hard decisions to be made, to be dealt with. And those are probably not best dealt with through the prism of television cameras and media headlines," he said.
The RGA has announced that Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) will be the new chairman.
"While this news is deeply disappointing, I also know it's important to remain focused on the future and Governor Sanford's resignation allows him and us to do just that," Barbour said in a statement. "The RGA has an important task over the next two years. I am committed to seeing it through and confident we will succeed."