Sanford Affair a Blow to GOP Values Brand
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's admission today that he had an extramarital affair strikes another blow to the GOP's brand as the party of family values, particularly in a region of the country—the Deep South—that has become ever more critical to Republicans, who've lost ground recently in the Northeast and the West.
Outside South Carolina, "Sanford is most well known in states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which are growing more competitive for Democrats," says Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked for Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee during the 2008 campaign season. "This is devastating for the Republican Party in the very region where it has to make gains."
Fast on the heels of an admitted affair by Nevada Sen. John Ensign—another emblem of the GOP's values brand—Sanford's announcement also makes it harder for the national Republican Party to maintain credibility with the values voters who've been most loyal to it.
"As far as the Republicans go, this raises the issue of how marriage is treated by political leaders," says Wendy Wright, the president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America.
Belcher, the Democratic pollster, says the recent string of Republican sex scandals is redolent of the run-up to the 2006 midterm elections, when former House Leader Tom DeLay resigned after being indicted in a campaign finance investigation and Florida Rep. Mark Foley was caught sending lewd text messages to young male congressional pages. Both were Republicans, and Belcher, who was then pollster for DNC Chair Howard Dean, watched the Republican advantage on values issues shrink from more than 20 percentage points to around 5 points over the course of the '06 election cycle.
The Democrats won 31 seats in the House, regaining control of the chamber.
Belcher says he has not conducted national polls since last year's election. "But at this point, when it comes to values, the Republican brand has deteriorated more, and their hopes of making gains in the coming midterms has to be dramatically undermined," he says. "My guess is that we've now gone from a tossup on values with the Republicans to [Democrats] having at least a 4- or 5-point advantage."
Sanford, who was considered a potential 2012 White House contender, has long been a darling of "pro-family" religious conservatives. In the 2008 election, Christian right activists who were unenthusiastic about the Republican presidential field tried unsuccessfully to draft him as a presidential candidate.
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Tags: Republicans | religion | Mark Sanford
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Reader Comments
burger
i'd like a burger
Marc Zimmerstien
"I would argue that big Willy, Mr. Clintons affair did the most damage of all these cases but that is for another day"
No, since you bring it it, let's make it for TODAY = ) hehe.
Honestly, it seems that the affairs of guys like Sanford (can anyoen NOT get the Sanford & Son theme stuck in their head everytime they see his name???) or Spitzer in NY had a direct effect on their jobs and interfered with their work schedule. At least with Bill it was an intern on the job. Hey, he might have been reviewing spending bills WHILE she....ah nevermind.
think it through
Marc:
I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to read all the way through my post. You obviously missed the important points.
First, I never said that what Bill Clinton did regarding his sexual infidelity was right. To me, Clinton's sexual activities were no better than the activities of Sanford, Ensign, or Gingrich (although, being a Dem, I'm not nearly as obsessed with other people's sex lives as the average GOP'er). They all violated their marriage vows and their wives' trust, and that's a terrible thing to do.
To help you understand my main point, imagine if Bill Clinton got up on a soap box and started shouting about how awful Sanford, Ensign, and Gingrich were because they cheated on their wives.
You know what the first three words out of your mouth would be? "What a hypocrite!"
Exactly.
But Clinton has never done that. Let's deal with what did happen.
Marc Sanford, John Ensign, and Newt Gingrich all said a number of nasty, insulting (and probably deserved) things about Bill Clinton because he cheated on his wife. Then each one of them did exactly the same thing.
Let's say it three times, one for each - "What a hypocrite!", "What a hypocrite!", "What a hypocrite!"
Now do you understand? "What a hypocrite!" is the sort of bumper sticker sized idea the GOP excels at, but those of us on the other side of the aisle usually aren't too comfortable with them. I'm hoping you get it now.
By the way, what "moral stand" does your party take? Ensign's still in office. Gingrich is on a rehabilitation tour, and I don't see him getting thrown out of Republican venues. Craig served out his term as though nothing happened. Sanford's still hanging in there, and it's obvious that political expediency rather than morality will drive his decisions.
The GOP has had dozens of chances to prove that there was a "moral stand" behind the Clinton impeachment, yet every time one of your own gets caught with his pants around his ankles, all you can say is "It's OK, Clinton did it, too".
When it comes to morality, nothing about the Republicans has changed since the 1990's, except, if anything, the hypocrisy has gotten thicker.
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