I've avoided commenting on the race to fill the seat vacated in South Carolina's First Congressional District when Tim Scott was appointed to the U.S. Senate, but, now that the special election is in the history books, and since there has been a great deal of acrimony about Mark Sanford's election to the seat despite his moral failing that stained his last term as governor, I decided to weigh in with a postmortem. [As a disclaimer, I do not live in the First District, so I am speaking as an outsider who has not witnessed first-hand the mood "on the ground" during this election.]
The choice of Sanford in a Republican-dominated district does come across as hypocritical in light of the backlash among conservatives against Bill Clinton following his extra-marital affair and the subsequent cover-up during his term as president. I do not minimize that or try to excuse it. I simply intend to point out some factors impacting this election that should be kept in mind before unleashing some of the vicious rancor that has been directed toward South Carolina voters (I provide no links here due to the foul language included in many of these attacks).
Factor #1: The number of candidates and lack of any other "big names" in the Republican primary.
Sixteen candidates ran for the Republican nomination for the First District congressional seat. While several of these sixteen may have been excellent candidates, and some were even members of the State House or State Senate, none were as widely known as the former governor. State house members or state senators are rarely well-known beyond their own districts; county council and school board members even less so. This obviously can be overcome by a well-run campaign. However, in this case, and in fairness to the remainder of the field, this, being a special election, had a much tighter time constraint than would be ideal for most congressional campaigns (less than two months between closing of filing and the primary). A large field and the lack of widely-known competitors, plus lack of sufficient time to overcome lack of name recognition, is naturally going to favor the candidate familiar to the most voters.
Factor #2: Unfamiliarity of voters with the Democratic candidate.
I actually know Elizabeth Colbert-Busch from working with her on several projects, so I can personally attest to her intelligence and savvy. But, again (in fairness) perhaps in part due to the short time between the primaries and the general election, this went largely unknown to voters in the First District. Aside from being comedian Stephen Colbert's sister, I suspect that by election time, she was still largely an unknown to many voters across the district. This clearly works in favor of the more familiar candidate. In fact, it is actually quite impressive that Colbert-Busch was able to poll as well as she did in the days leading up to the election given this disadvantage. On the other hand, perhaps it was an indication of reticence on the part of voters to support Sanford.
Factor #3: Ideology matters.
The criticism made toward First District voters largely centers around the perception that they overlooked all else and simply voted for the one with the "R" beside his name. There may be something to this criticism, but let us not overlook one important aspect of this: ideology does matter! Voters were electing the person who would represent their district in Washington on actual policy matters, and, to put it succinctly, somebody had to win. Ms. Colbert-Busch, despite all of her qualifications, did represent a set of policy positions that largely does not reflect the preferences of the First District. Sanford, despite his past failings, does support and oppose many of the same policies as a majority of the voters in that district. For the voter on the fence, it's kind of a Sophie's Choice... vote for the candidate with the past moral failure, or vote for the candidate with whom you disagree on nearly every issue.
...Or just choose not to vote at all, which brings me to the reason I entitled this post "The First Congressional Catch-22". Had voters simply not turned out to vote, the low turnout would have them being criticized in the national media right now as apathetic. Either way, South Carolina voters get looked down upon.
Finally, a note on the theme of redemption that became a kind of theme of the Sanford campaign. We have indeed all had our share of moral failings; most of us are just fortunate that ours don't get broadcast to the world as did Sanford's. With that in mind, we need to treat Mr. Sanford with the same level of grace and forgiveness that we hope to receive ourselves.
But this is not an excuse. Grace, even in Biblical terms, does not always excuse us from reaping certain consequences from our actions. By way of example, a person who robs a bank is not beyond God's redemptive reach, but even the penitent bank robber will have to go to prison for his crime. The Biblical story of David and Bathsheba provides an excellent illustration of this; King David was forgiven by God, but he still bore consequences for his actions for the remainder of his life. Given the public trust that Sanford violated in some of his activities surrounding his dalliance, there certainly is a valid argument that he should never have held public office again; I certainly expected that to be the case. However, he has been given a chance to regain the trust of this state. I hope that he will be successful in doing so.
