 (image from Red Racing Horses; click for larger view) A survey released on May 2 found that his extramarital affair didn’t just cost him divorce, and his violation of the divorce settlement isn’t just costing him a trip to court two days after the election, either. Mark Sanford’s personal record could cost him the upcoming special election, too, the survey by Red Racing Horses found. The sum results found the Republican nominee in a 46-46 tie with Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert-Busch. Seven percent remain undecided. Were Sanford replaced by another Republican, however – state Sen. Larry Grooms, who placed third in the GOP primary – Colbert-Busch would only take 40 percent, RRH says, trailing Grooms’ 47 with 13 percent undecided. “The closeness of the race in the normally Republican district is almost certainly due exclusively to Republican ex-Gov. Mark Sanford’s personal issues,” RRH says in its poll release. In 2009, Sanford was caught traveling to Argentina to meet his then-mistress; he was later fined $74,000 for using state funds to pay for those trips, as well other violations. A recent charge of violating divorce terms by trespassing on his ex-wife’s property will be heard in family court on May 9, two days after the election for the 1st Congressional District. The poll finds Sanford to lead in the suburban Berkeley and Dorchester counties by sizable margins, but also finds a Colbert Busch advantage in the larger Charleston and Beaufort. The Democrat has a slight lead amongst female voters, and holds a considerable margin over Sanford in the opinions of minorities. The surveying company admits a Republican lean, it should be noted, as can be found in its tagline (“Candidates, elections, and politics from the right perspective") and "about" statement ("Red Racing Horses is a collaborative, Republican-oriented online community of politics and election enthusiasts."). Other polls on the race lean toward Colbert Busch, including the most recent by the progressive Public Policy Polling, which found her to lead Sanford by nine percent. PPP was rated most accurate in poll results regarding 2012 elections. RRH conducted its survey of 5,000 likely voters between April 29 and May 1, and says its findings have +/- 5 percent margin of error.
Buzzfeed recently noticed a similarity between the (non-homemade) campaign signs of Mark Sanford and the flag of Argentina. See both below: The light blue banners running across the top and bottom, with that white-colored center that hosts the logo/image, sure are similar, alright.
But doesn't that only bring to mind Sanford's infamous (and extramarital) excursion to Argentina? And which he himself only brought up all over again when his Argentine girlfriend joined him onstage for the night of the GOP runoff election?
Was the use of this logo on campaign signs a psychosomatic slip or Freudian error, or is it just Sanford's latest tongue-in-cheek?
Here's a merged combination of the two images:
 photo provided by Brad Woodhouse
While Sanford’s losing NRCC funding of advertisements, the campaign of Democratic opponent Elizabeth Colbert-Busch is picking up much ad support. House Majority PAC, a national committee that aids progressive campaigns and projects, today released a 30-second advertisement that criticizes Sanford’s use of state funds to pay for personal travel, including his infamous trips to Argentina. "He charged us $400,000 to travel around the world,” a narrator states in the sarcastic ad. | | The advertisement will run on local television stations for three weeks beginning April 18, the group says. A second video by a state progressive group began distribution today, too. Titled “ Remember,” the ad by South Forward includes statements made by both Republicans and Democrats from the state legislature who voted to censure Sanford in 2009. While he was already trailing Colbert-Busch by a slight margin in recent polls, this rising tide of negative news, loss of campaign funding, and increase in support and ads for his opponent should knock Sanford’s comeback campaign even further. | | The Colbert Busch campaign has declined comment on these recent incidents.
The special election for the 1st Congressional District is May 7.
 Google Trends for "Mark Sanford" from Jan. 1 through April 13, 2013 So what if he's running for congress?
According to Google Trends, so far this year websurfers have had more interest in Mark Sanford's personal life than his political aspirations.
Instead of searching for the "love gov" regarding his latest campaign, many more have searched for information on his girlfriend/fiancee and his ex-wife.
Folks have even searched the specific names of those two women (Maria Belen Chapur and Jenny Sanford) more frequently than they've looked for information on his born-again bid for congress.
Is that saying anything about his chances in the May 7 election?
 “I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]
“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]
"I've been unfaithful to my wife." [Sanford to the general public on national television: 6/24/2009]
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]
“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]
"I've been unfaithful to my wife." [Sanford to the general public on national television: 6/24/2009]
 (Davis Turner/Getty Images) After his recent runoff win, Mark Sanford may be manning the deck of his political campaign, but it seems he has no crew onboard. And no gas in the tank, either. No one of foundation is standing behind him or publicly supporting him, and he has no positive record to project to voters, either. For example, the only endorsements Sanford’s received from persons who’ve worked with him in government are: Tom Davis, who was Sanford’s chief of staff before being elected to his current role of state senator, Edie Rodgers, who only had one year of her term as state representative overlap with Sanford’s as governor before she retired, Barbara Nielsen, who was an advisor to Sanford after she ended her termas Supt. of Education (which she served before Sanford took the governor’s office), and Scott Richardson, a state senator from 2000 to 2007 until Sanford appointed him to be state insurance commissioner for $130,000 a year. Thus, no one who ever worked with (instead of for) Sanford has offered an endorsement. National media have taken note of these no-shows, too. Politico reported “Not a single member of the South Carolina congressional delegation has endorsed Sanford, an indication of his weak standing among his would-be Washington colleagues.” The reason he’s not getting support could be that Sanford’s never done anything to earn it. When he last served in Congress, not one of the 44 bills he sponsored ever made it out of committee, for example. That’s a good thing, though, because 10 of Sanford’s bills were attacks on Social Security. He wanted to let Wall Street handle those funds, where they’d immediately be subject to fees for brokers to collect, and where they’d have no insurance or guarantee. If Social Security had been handed over to private companies, imagine where seniors who retired in 2007 would have been – practically broke, due to the stock market crash that began that year. Sanford also accomplished nothing as governor. For example, instead of working with the State Assembly, he only tried to work against it, vetoing 106 budget bills in 2004 alone.
“(I)n politics, you cultivate friends and create enemies. Sanford has done more creating than cultivating.”
There were quite a few enemies Sanford cultivated in his own party, too. It was Republicans in the State Legislature who tried to impeach him, and 61 GOP from the state House alone called for his resignation. They successfully voted to censure him. Even now- Sen. Tim Scott sent Sanford a letter telling him to resign. Add in the $750 million shortage in school funding due to the budgets he passed, the continuously rising rate of unemployment under his term as governor, his cuts that lead to even more lost jobs, and his attempt to refuse our own federal tax dollars for use in South Carolina (which took the state Supreme Court to correct), and it might seem like it can’t get any worse. But it does. Sanford’s record is chock full of hypocrisy, as his current campaign itself verifies. Sanford pledged to never serve more than three terms in Congress, and he upheld that promise when he left in 2000 (after six stale and non-productive years). But now he’s running for a fourth term? While in Congress, he voted to impeach Bill Clinton following the Lewinsky scandal, calling the circumstance “ reprehensible.” He also publicly chastised Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), whose extramarital affair was revealed about the same time as Clinton’s, and called for his resignation, saying “The bottom line … is he still lied.” But Sanford only went on to have his own extramarital affair. And lied about it. And then got forced to pay us back for his use of our tax dollars for that fling. By his public pledge for limited terms, combined with the precedents he himself set in the Clinton and Livingston situations, how he can possibly seek office now? This makes Sanford a hypocrite. He has no support from elected officials in his own party. He’s flip-flopped on his own standards, both political and moral. But he still has the audacity to ask for our vote? Sorry, Sanford, but your ship’s about to go under on May 7.
Mark Sanford promised he'd be a financial conservative. He wound up having to pay the state back for the funds he used for personal expenses, along with fines. He promised he'd only serve three terms in Congress. Now he's trying for his fourth. And South Forward, a non-profit PAC, isn't going to let him or anyone else forget about those and other broken promises with its new advertisement. "Mark Sanford made a lot of promises and broke them all. Now Mark Sanford says he's 'learned' from his mistakes. The real question is: Will we?"
 “Why is Curtis Bostic’s campaign telephoning me?” I wondered Monday night when I got the call, which included invitation to participate in a teleconference with the Republican candidate.
Although his intentions may have been to broaden his appeal to moderate voters, who seemed to make up the majority of the participants, Bostic may have only painted himself into a far-right corner.
On the evening of March 25, his campaign organized a conference call by robodial invitation. Interested persons were allowed to submit questions; Bostic’s team selected some for the Republican candidate to answer directly while all participants listened.
In his opening address, Bostic asserted that his stances were non-partisan, and that he was interested in “working with Democrats” and “crossing the aisle” as the 1st District’s representative in order to achieve results. That supported my initial assumption that he was trying to build up support from the other side.
For the rest of the 90-minute teleconference, though, Bostic gave some responses that were not only very far-right, but factually incorrect, too – even bizarre.
When asked for his position on gun control, for example, Bostic said “When the Revolutionary War was over, the Founding Fathers said ‘Take your assault rifle home with you.’”
 Actual assault weapons – selective-fire rifles that shoot mid-sized cartridges from detachable magazines – were not developed until the 20th Century, however. Bostic’s incorrect statement on history was compounded by a clear clash with public opinion, too. A 61-percent majority of Americans agree that type of weapon should be restricted, and even though he said he doesn’t support universal background checks, 91 percent of the country does. When closing this subject, Bostic suggested that assault weapons only be addressed in the home and not in the House, saying “family is a key solution to the problems we have today.” Another standout statement from Bostic’s teleconference came when he was asked about support for the military. He broke away from his “ stop spending” campaign slogan in this instance, calling for an increased defense budget. His argument for this premise is incorrect, however. “Most people don’t know this,” Bostic said; “military spending since 1976 is actually down, almost two percent, and despite two wars.”
 Total military spending for the current fiscal year exceeds $750 billion, however (totaling $852.2 billion when including veterans’ benefits). That’s roughly two and a half times greater than the 1976 budget, even when consistently applying current dollar values. Other teleconference comments issued by Bostic included his support for privatizing Social Security and cuts to Medicare, an end to the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Dept. of Energy, and “Congress needs to be bold enough to defund (the Affordable Care Act).” Aside from the one senior who made it clear she didn’t appreciate any risk to Social Security (it’s her money that she paid for herself, she pointed out), other participants who got to ask questions seemed filtered – plants, even. That’s quite common, though, says Lachlan McIntosh, campaign consultant and proprietor of McIntosh Consulting. “It’s not unusual for insecure candidates who fear questions out of their comfort zone to try to tightly control who gets to ask,” McIntosh says. Bostic needs to gain considerable support for the April 2 runoff election, according to a recent poll which found him to trail Mark Sanford 40 percent to 53 percent. Bostic only scored majority approval from voters who declare themselves to be “very conservative,” and still trailed Sanford even though the former governor had no majority approval from any category. But Monday night’s teleconference didn’t do Bostic any good. While he may have attempted to pull in moderate support, all he did was push us away.
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