The Democrat, with her brother.

I was just talking this morning with Taegan Goddard of Political Wire, and looking at his site while we  spoke, I saw this:

Democrat Could Win if Sanford is Nominee

John Fund says that many believe former Gov. Mark Sanford (R) could lose the congressional special election — assuming he wins an upcoming runoff — “to a Democrat — especially a business-oriented woman such as Colbert Busch. Her platform is pitched perfectly toward moderates: protecting retirement benefits, an expansion of engineering and science education and reducing the deficit by eliminating waste.”

Said pollster Pat Caddell: “If Sanford is the final GOP candidate he could lose a 58 percent Romney district based on his weakness with women voters over the affair he had while governor.”

The Week: Is Mark Sanford vs. Stephen Colbert’s sister political gold?

… which just happens to be the very thing I was thinking about this morning.

Here are five reasons to think it’s possible for Elizabeth Colbert Busch to beat Mark Sanford:

1. She, too, has name recognition in the district (and outside of it). And none of it is negative, at least insofar as it would reflect on her character.
2. She’s a woman and a mom, running against a guy who’s famous not only for cheating on his wife in a spectacularly public way, but for deserting his four sons on Father’s Day weekend in order to do so. Not to mention being governor and disappearing from the state without telling anyone where he was going.
3. Another woman and Democrat came within four points of beating the incumbent Republican in 2008, largely due to Barack Obama’s coattails.
4. She’s touting herself as a businesswoman, while Sanford hasn’t been known to work in the private sector since the early 90s.
5. People in that district know Sanford better than people in the rest of SC. In my experience, the better people know him, the less likely they are to vote for him.

But here are three reasons to think the opposite.

1. Obama’s coattails weren’t enough in 2008 for that other Democrat to win, even against the lackluster Henry Brown — and they’re a good bit shorter now. In fact, except for Jimmy Carter, this district hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1956.
2. The district has been redrawn since 2008, and it’s more Republican now. And remember, no Democrat has been elected to Congress from the 1st since Tommy Hartnett rode in on Reagan’s tails in 1980.
3. Poll after poll, and yesterday’s vote, show that voters are remarkably forgiving of Sanford. And after all these years, they don’t seem to know him well enough for my number 5 above to kick in.

Those three may cancel out the five. In fact, if you forced me to bet right now, I’d bet on Sanford. But there are variables that could lead to a different result.

The almost-certain Republican nominee.