In interesting political news from South Cackalacky, Jenny Sanford has let it be known she will not be making an endorsement in the 1st congressional district special election pitting her ex-husband Mark against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch.
At Roll Call, which smoked out the former SC First Lady on this subject, Abby Livingston treated this as good news for Mark Sanford:
Democrats plugged into Palmetto State politics previously speculated that if she would endorse the Democrat in the race, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, it would serve as a death blow to her former husband’s campaign. But that scenario is not materializing.
Well, much as SC Democrats might have hoped for it, a Jenny Sanford endorsement of Busch was the longest of long shots. She’s still a big deal in SC Republican politics, and a Movement Conservative to boot; endorsing a Democrat, even against one’s snake of an ex-husband, is the political equivalent of the Sin Against the Holy Ghost, which is unforgivable.
It’s the alternative scenario that was more plausible to me: Jenny Sanford swallowing her pride and elevating The Cause above personal considerations by an endorsement (perhaps frosty and distant, but an endorsement nonetheless) of Mark on grounds that smiting the godless secular-socialist foe was more important than teaching that old dog a lesson.
What we will probably never know is whether an inter-Sanford endorsement was still a lively possibility until that moment Jenny turned on the tube on Runoff Night and saw her sons trapped into a Family Photo Pose with Maria Belen Chapur, Mark’s former undercover lover and current fiancee.
In any event, Mark Sanford’s going to have to look elsewhere for his “forget the sex and remember your ideology” validation.
