For the second time in two weeks, Congressional Republicans watched a GOP sex scandal take over the news cycle.
Just as Republicans were trying to put behind them Sen. John Ensign’s affair with a married staffer and get the public to focus on the pitfalls of the Democratic health care plan and its sweeping global warming bill, South Carolina Republican Governor, Mark Sanford’s took to the podium for a rambling televised admission of a marital affair in Argentina.
Word of the scandal quickly spread on the House floor, where lawmakers were in the process of voting during Sanford’s news conference..
Sanford was a member of the House from 1994 to 2000.
No one from the South Carolina delegation would talk to reporters, but other Republican lawmakers seemed resigned to the fact that the already marginalized party had suffered yet another setback.
Sanford, a conservative Republican, had been somewhat of a rising star in the party, having recently fought against accepting billions in stimulus dollars from the federal government. Ensign, of Nevada, had been the number-four Republican leader in the Senate and had recently travelled to Iowa, sparking speculation that he might jump into the 2012 presidential race.
Ensign has given up his leadership post, and Sanford announced his is resigning from his position as president of the Republican Governors Association.
Moderate Republican Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., said the party would have to wait for a leader to emerge.
“You would think out of the chaos would rise someone, but I don’t know who it is going to be,” said Emerson, who said she favored former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman before Obama tapped him to serve as ambassador to China.
Rep. Roy Blunt, the former House Majority Leader who is now a GOP candidate for Senate in Missouri, is no stranger to scandal, having gone through a public divorce and remarriage under the scrutiny of the press.
“This can be a distraction,” Blunt said of the Ensign and Sanford scandals. “But I think the issues are big enough that they will quickly overcome the distraction.”
Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., said he never thought of Sanford as a 2012 presidential candidate.
“He may have run, but I didn’t see him as likely to get the nomination,” Ehlers said. “He didn’t have the charisma.”
Emerson said the party should not start worrying yet, pointing out that President Barack Obama did not emerge as a serious candidate until two years before the race began in earnest.
“Perhaps that is what will happen with the next Republican candidate,” she said.
As of late Wednesday, the Republican Governor’s Association Web site showed no trace of Sanford. Instead, it featured a photo and video of Alaska Governor and former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly described the circumstances of Rep. Blunt’s divorce.
