Sanford mystery explained — Gov. admits affair

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted to an extramarital affair in a tearful, rambling press conference that put to rest the mystery surrounding his weeklong disappearance and effectively damaged his national political aspirations.

Sanford became the second Republican in two weeks to admit to an affair. But unlike Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who made a brief statement and declined to answer questions, Sanford gave a lengthy, disjointed statement before taking reporters’ questions.

{mosads}“I have been unfaithful to my wife. I have developed a relationship with someone who started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina. It began innocently, as I suspect most of these things do,” Sanford said, wiping away tears several times.

His admission followed a lengthy dissertation on the appeal of the Appalachian Trail, where Sanford was said to be, and an apology to the woman with whom he was involved before he apologized to his wife.

“I hurt her. I hurt you all. I hurt my wife. I hurt my boys. I hurt friends,” Sanford said. “I hurt a lot of different folks.”

Once considered a potential 2012 presidential candidate, Sanford watched his national aspirations crash to Earth. He said he would resign as chairman of the Republican Governors Association as he works to heal wounds with family, staff and advisers.

Sanford’s revelation did not come out of the blue. Preparing for the possibility of a confession of infidelity, several top South Carolina Republicans huddled late Tuesday to plan a response, sources told The Hill.

Sanford would not answer questions about whether he would resign the governorship. His term is up in 2010 and he is term-limited.

He said he had seen the woman, who lives in Argentina, three times in the last year, as the eight-year-long relationship blossomed into romance. The affair was discovered about five months ago, after which Sanford said he sought to figure out how to apologize. Further details about the affair have yet to emerge.

Sanford did not say the affair had come to an end. “I have spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina,” he said.

The governor, who initially disappeared last Thursday, returned to a ravenous press corps in a packed state capitol in Columbia and was forced to answer questions about why his press staff initially told reporters that Sanford was spending his time hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Sanford’s wife, Jenny, the couple’s four children and Mrs. Sanford’s in-laws are holed up at the family’s compound at Sullivan’s Island, on the South Carolina coast. Jenny Sanford did not appear with her husband at the press conference.

Jenny Sanford has played a prominent role in the burgeoning scandal, first telling The Associated Press this weekend that she did not know where Sanford was. On Tuesday, she told CNN she still had not talked to her husband.

In her own statement, released late Wednesday, Jenny Sanford said the couple has undergone a trial separation for several weeks.

“When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage,” Jenny Sanford said. “We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

{mosads}“This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.

“I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage,” she added.

Sources close to Sanford and familiar with his routine described the family-oriented governor’s behavior highly unusual. No matter where he is, the sources said, Sanford usually calls his four sons every night to check in, even if he still has work ahead of him at the office. He disappeared over Father’s Day weekend.

On Wednesday, a reporter for Columbia’s The State spotted Sanford at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. The flight from Buenos Aires landed around 5:23 a.m., and Sanford told the reporter he had come back through Atlanta to avoid the throng of press at Columbia’s airport.

Sanford’s affair is the second blow to conservative Republicans in the last two weeks.

Like Ensign, Sanford’s presidential ambitions are all but finished. Unlike Ensign, Sanford apparently sought to cover up the affair and misled the press about his whereabouts. Even close Sanford backers admitted the cover-up could look worse than the crime.

In the long run, experts said, that could hurt the GOP as a whole.

“If there’s political damage, it certainly hurts one of the party’s leading figures, and that’s not helpful to the party’s prospects in 2012,” said John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “A lot of conservative Republicans look to Sanford as the kind of leader they want to see more of at the national level.”

Sanford’s personal life “just draws attention to the gap between the ideals of social conservatives and the flawed behavior they sometimes display,” Pitney added.

But others said Sanford’s case is an individual speed bump and he is unlikely to come under continued fire for his actions.

“This will definitely cause considerable short-term public-relations damage, but this will eventually fade into the background,” said Jason Miller, a GOP strategist who managed Sanford’s 2006 reelection bid. “While a handful of questions remain outstanding, this only festers and continues to worsen if there’s some remaining issue of malfeasance, and I believe Sanford put that to rest in his press conference.

{mosads}“It was gut-wrenching to watch [Wednesday’s] press conference because nobody — nobody — saw this coming. This would be tough enough to deal with for a normal family, let alone a very public family that’s going to have this story on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper and leading every newscast,” Miller said.

Other Republicans are not so sure the scandal will fade away anytime soon. Strategists cited a number of loose threads, including questions about what the State Law Enforcement Division, tasked with keeping tabs on Sanford, knew and how it could let Sanford out of its sight for so long.

How Sanford paid for the trip and whether the affair was going on during a trade mission he took with the Commerce Department a year and a half ago also remain unaddressed.

“They cut the press conference off way too short,” said one Palmetto State Republican consultant. “I’m afraid they left a lot of questions unanswered.”

Those in Washington and South Carolina who are close to Sanford are privately distancing themselves even as they offer defenses of the governor. Several predicted that public defenders of Sanford’s behavior would be hard to come by in coming days.

Sanford has come under withering fire from fellow South Carolina Republicans, many of whom have an ax to grind with the governor. State Sen. Jake Knotts (R) has been the harshest critic, first raising questions about Sanford’s absence with South Carolina law enforcement officials on Saturday.

Knotts’s questions over the weekend prompted Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer (R), another sometime-Sanford rival, to call the governor’s office and request a phone conversation with Sanford. Bauer was told the governor would not be available.

Members of the South Carolina congressional delegation, a few of whom commented before Sanford’s press conference, did not immediately offer thoughts after the governor’s confession.

Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.), who is running for governor, released a statement that said simply: “We keep the governor and his family in our prayers during this difficult time.”