Tag Archives: Elizabeth Colbert Busch

Sanford’s continuing with the Nancy Pelosi shtick

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Sanford cash

You would think that, after standing on a public street pretending to “debate” a life-sized photograph of Nancy Pelosi, Mark Sanford would realize that he had embarrassed himself in three ways:

  1. By making Rep. Pelosi his target, he’s doing exactly the same thing that he’s accusing Elizabeth Colbert Busch of doing — failing to confront his actual opponent. This “run against the national boogeyman (or woman)” shtick is the last resort of the desperate. It cries out that he has nothing relevant to say to the 1st District. It’s like the political equivalent of how the Tsarnaevs learned to be terrorists — they just got it from the Internet. It’s garden-variety, off-the-shelf, inside-the-Beltway partisan nonsense.
  2. By choosing MUSC as his background, he unnecessarily calls attention to the fact that he has always been hostile to the very idea of public research universities in South Carolina. If Mark Sanford had his way, institutions such as MUSC would not exist. It’s just not a good idea, for him, to remind voters of that.
  3. By standing specifically in front of a building named for Dr. James Colbert — the father of his opponent — he not only demonstrates a shocking cluelessness of landmarks in the main city in his district, but underlines the contributions that his opponent’s family have made to the community in which they are so strongly rooted.

After so thoroughly striking out with this shtick yesterday, you’d think Sanford would abandon it. But above you see a picture of him Tweeted by Stacy Jacobson with the ABC affiliate in Charleston. Her explanation of the picture:

Sanford holds up $1,000. Says Pelosi spent $600k to campaign against him

Sheesh. Never mind that, as an image, it evokes the photo that so embarrassed Mitt Romney.

That’s our former governor. When he finds a way to make himself look silly, he shticks with it…

So we have Mark Sanford for at least another five weeks

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My favorite comment on the results of yesterday’s GOP primary runoff in the 1st Congressional District came from my old friend and colleague Mike Fitts:

Let’s review why Mark Sanford wasn’t impeached as governor: Because we all assumed he would GO AWAY.

Yeah, well… nobody told Mark. Or actually, someone probably did, but as usual, he didn’t listen. But don’t blame him, right (in fact, as he keeps reminding us, we’re obligated to forgive him)? It’s the fault of those primary voters in the 1st. They had 16 candidates to choose from, and they insisted on the one guy who they knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was damaged goods.

If we thought, when he left the governor’s office, that we wouldn’t have Mark Sanford to kick around anymore, we reckoned without the fact that he is no Richard Nixon. Nixon had an inferiority complex. He hated the elites who disdained him, but acted as though deep down, he suspected they were right. Sanford, by contrast, is a narcissist. Big difference. Nixon always had Pat at his side. Standing next to Sanford in victory last night was María Belén Chapur.

And even Nixon broke his promise and came back. With Sanford, it was inevitable.

I see that Slatest is downplaying this race, saying the nation is bored with Sanford. I doubt that. I checked, and right now the hottest topic among political writers seems to be Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016, a story that lacks a certain… urgency. They need this contest between, as they see it, Mr. Appalachian Trail and the comedian’s sister. They won’t be able to leave it alone.

Down here, we know who Mark Sanford is. The unanswered question is, who is Elizabeth Colbert-Busch? She’s already tired, probably, of being her brother’s sister. At least, I gather that from this Pinterest post:

If the only things you knew about Elizabeth Colbert Busch were from the national media, you would think her home would be filled with pictures of her more famous brother, Stephen. While there is little doubt that her home holds plenty of pictures of the host of The Colbert Report and the rest of her large family, her home in a firmly middle class section of Mount Pleasant is what one would expect of a successful professional, mother and wife…

Now that we’re paying attention, how will she define herself? CNN’s Peter Hamby speculated last night, “how many times will Elizabeth Colbert-Busch say the word “Democrat” between now and May 7?” My guess at the answer to that is, if possible, it would be a negative number. That district’s been Republican since 1980, and after the last reapportionment is redder than ever.

But wisecracks aside, I’m all ears. I want to see if she can make a race of it, and how Sanford responds to that. He hasn’t have really tough opposition since 2002. It will be interesting to see what he does if the usual stuff fails to work for him, and she manages to make this competitive.

If she doesn’t, well… we’ll have Mark Sanford for a lot longer than the next five weeks.