The EconomistSeptember 21st 2019 United States 35N
owhere in americais more synonymous with rebellion than
Charleston harbour, where Mark Sanford launched his tilt at
President Donald Trump this week. Glinting in the sun behind the
veteran Republican—a two-term governor of South Carolina and
five-term congressman—was Fort Sumter, target of the Confedera-
cy’s first shots. Farther off, a blur on the horizon, was Fort Johnson,
where South Carolina’s state flag was first raised in defiance during
the revolutionary war. But Mr Sanford, who lives round the corner,
was keen “not to imply any symbolism”, which was understand-
able. His primary campaign, which he mounted with the aid of a
life-size cut-out of Mr Trump he found on Amazon, a fake card-
board cheque for a trillion dollars (payable to: “Burden of Future
Generations”) and a couple of volunteers to hold them, may be the
most doomed action the venerable port has ever witnessed.
The three state-wide rallies Mr Sanford held that day were at-
tended by a few journalists and fewer bystanders. South Carolin-
ians have little reason to notice his campaign. The state’s Republi-
cans, along with those in Arizona, Kansas and Nevada, have
already said they will not hold a presidential primary. The Repub-
lican National Committee, which has dissolved its primary debate
committee, is pressing others to follow suit. “In some countries—
with all respect to your mother country—they have coronations,”
said Mr Sanford in his stump speech, nodding sensitively to Lex-
ington, who had joined him earlier on a two-hour drive from Co-
lumbia. “But in the American system we have debate and elec-
tions. We need a debate on what it means to be a Republican.”
Mr Trump’s tightening grip on his party has probably spared
him the heavyweight challenger his conservative critics have been
longing for. John Kasich has no interest in a losing fight; Nikki Ha-
ley is keeping her powder dry; Mitt Romney’s rebelliousness is
confined to an occasional admonishing tweet. As things stand,
this has left the field to three lesser challengers: Bill Weld, the
moderate former governor of Massachusetts, Joe Walsh, a populist
former congressman from Illinois, and Mr Sanford, whose record
warrants most respect. A solid small-government conservative,
for whom a big future was once predicted, he is now best-known
for the calamitous denouement to his governorship and marriage
a decade ago. He was found to have snuck off to visit his mistress inArgentinaafterinforming aides that he was “hiking the Appala-
chian trail”. Yet an improbable return to politics four years later,
when he won his old congressional seat in Charleston, helped
mend his reputation. And so, in some quarters, did his subsequent
refusal to join his Republican colleagues in bending the knee to a
president most had previously denounced and still abhorred.
After criticising Mr Trump’s divisiveness, protectionism and pro-
fligacy, Mr Sanford was unseated by a Trump-endorsed primary
opponent last year. It was his first electoral defeat.
He says his refusal to genuflect was indirectly a result of his hu-
miliation. “I owed it to the people who gave me a second chance to
shoot straight down the middle.” His disgrace might even be a po-
litical advantage, he thinks: “There’s almost an added element of
relatability that comes with public failure.” His wrongdoing cer-
tainly made him more famous. Compared with some of the things
Mr Trump stands accused of, it also looks less serious now. Of the
three conservative groups he and his fellow challengers repre-
sent—moderates, working-class populists and small-government
conservatives—Mr Sanford’s is probably the smallest. Yet it may be
the most mutinous (most moderates having already gone Demo-
cratic). While he almost certainly cannot beat Mr Trump, it is
therefore not all that hard to imagine him embarrassing the presi-
dent sufficiently to hurt his re-election prospects. Of the past four
incumbent presidents to face a primary challenge, only one—Nix-
on in 1972—won re-election.
The debate Mr Sanford called is worth having, too. While he
glumly acknowledges how most Republicans have cheered as Mr
Trump abandoned free trade and fiscal restraint, the former gover-
nor clings to a hope that this shift will be temporary: “For 25 years
I’ve been out there talking to people, and the central premise of
this campaign is that all those conversations about the debt and
spending issue were real.” Mr Trump’s remaking of his party has
been exaggerated, he suggests, by the president’s eccentric perso-
nality and lucky timing. Republican voters picked him as a dis-
rupter and are now rewarding him for the historic growth cycle he
is presiding over, but: “I would argue the value proposition with
Trump evaporates the minute the economy goes down.”
In truth, there was never much evidence that Republicans
cared about the deficit (except in opposition, which doesn’t
count). Yet Mr Sanford is probably right that Mr Trump has not
changed their thinking for good on other issues. History suggests
relatively few voters care about trade, the president’s obsession,
for example. And as Mr Trump’s hold on power is less firm than his
hold on his party, this points to a great uncertainty about what Re-
publicans will stand for post-Trump. In some ways the party may
snap back. In others—probably including the president’s antipa-
thy to immigration, which Mr Sanford also deplores—it will not.
And no doubt that rejig will again be shaped by electoral happen-
stance and the character of the leaders that emerge.Cometh the hour, cometh Sanford
Which makes it worth underlining how unlikely Mr Sanford’s new
role as saviour of the republic would until recently have seemed.
The recklessness he displayed in his Argentine flit was not a one-
off. He was accused of squandering state resources: for example,
by commandeering a government plane to go for a haircut. His di-
vorce papers noted his habit of dive-bombing his children in a
family plane. Though agreeable to Lexington, he also has a mixed
reputation as a boss. That such a man could now seem so heroic
does not say much for the state of the Republican Party. 7Lexington Mark Sanford is back on the trail
South Carolina’s former “Luv Guv” looks like Donald Trump’s most serious challenger