When Mark Sanford, former South Carolina governor, officially kicked off his GOP primary challenge to President Trump in Philadelphia on Wednesday, he drew a crowd of one person.
Bill Quinn, 63, said his daughter had attended a seminar given by Sanford at the University of Chicago students. Quinn told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his daughter was a progressive Democrat who had become an “admirer” of Sanford “for his integrity.” The retired lawyer said that while he supported Sanford presidential bid he had no plans to switch party registrations and vote in the GOP primary.
This year, Sanford gave a seminar series entitled “25 Years in Politics & 8 Practical Lessons Learned the Hard Way” at the University of Chicago.
Sanford, 59, alienated Trump early in his presidency as a member of Congress when he did not vote in line with other House Republicans who typically supported Trump’s policies. Sanford lost his bid for reelection in 2018 after Trump endorsed Katie Arrington for the South Carolina seat.
“Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA,” Trump said before the 2018 GOP primary. “He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina,” the president also said, in reference to an illicit sexual affair that caused Sanford to abandon his duties as governor and flee to Buenos Aires in 2009. “I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!”
Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2018
The affair ended Sanford’s marriage, though his relationship with his Argentinian mistress was also doomed. He ended their relationship via Facebook not long after admitting to it. Sanford’s ex-wife, Jenny, with whom he has four sons, went on to pen a memoir about the affair and the media attention surrounding it.
Sanford, who claimed his 2009 absence from his elected leadership post was because he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail,” has long served as a punchline to jokes about politicians and sexual escapades. “He took a gun and shot me in the head,” Sanford said of the president’s tweet from his tiny campaign launch on Wednesday, “and that’s the end of that.”
Armed with a giant check for $3 trillion that he said represented the burden of national debt, he said that he understood why so few people came to his event. “Nobody knows me in Philadelphia. I get it,” he said to one of the few journalists present for the launch. Sanford said he intends to continue touring the country and spreading the message integrity and fiscal responsibility in the federal government, as well as “empathy and humility.”
He added: “If there’s an appetite in terms of people’s concerns on the financial realities of our country and the way in which we are at a tipping point, then there’s going to be some level of measure and movement with regard to the campaign. And if there’s not, there won’t be. And it will be short-lived.”
