Sep 02 2009
Mark Sanford doesn’t want to resign because God is on his side
The embattled South Carolina governor, trying to survive a scandal involving his widely publicized extramarital affair, recently suggested to conservative Washington Times reporter Ralph Hallow that a higher power was keeping him in office.
“I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life,” said Mark Sanford in the interview. “I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened.”
The governor has been facing bitter criticism for holding on to his position, often more from the right than the left. Not a single Republican has backed him in his fight to save his job. On top of that the governor is facing a new ethics probe over his travel and personal expenses.
“I think I now know what Sarah may have been feeling,” Sanford told The Washington Times.
Mr. Sanford was considered one of the rising stars of the G.O.P. and a potential 2012 Republican presidential contender. He gained national attention earlier this year by joining a handful of Republican governors who fought to refuse portions of President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program.
The 49-year-old second-term governor’s summer of scandal, starting with an embarassing extramarital affair with an Argentine woman and ballooning into an full-blown ethics probe, has dashed any of those previous presidential hopes.
