Former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford is the latest Republican to consider a primary challenge against President Trump. Though he’d still lose, he’d be a much better person to make the case against Trump than former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, or many of the other Republicans who have flirted with running.
Let’s get one thing out of the way to start — Trump is going to be the 2020 Republican nominee. He’s at an 89% approval rating among Republicans and has the ability to manufacture news cycles so that any other Republican who challenges him will be framed an ally of the fake news media and radical anti-American Left.
That said, some challengers are worse than others, and the pro-choice Weld, who was a liberal Massachusetts Republican, is easy to portray as a RINO.
Sanford’s history is a much different. He first came to Washington as a limited government conservative in the 1990s and held firm even as his party strayed. He continued pursuing small government policies as a governor, becoming a conservative folk hero early in the Obama era for rejecting stimulus funds. As Tea Party activists looked toward the 2012 election, Sanford was an early favorite among many, given that the candidates the movement helped elect in 2010 didn’t have enough governing experience to make a run, and he fit the bill.
Of course, any presidential hopes for 2012 were dashed after his governorship was roiled by an extramarital affair he had in Argentina, which was exposed after he mysteriously disappeared to South America to see his mistress, while his aides told the press he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He managed to rehabilitate himself enough to win a congressional race, only to lose it over his opposition to Trump.
As I’ve noted before, primary challenges to sitting presidents tend to come from the Right or Left, rather than the center. Any challenge to Trump from a liberal or centrist Republican would lump together opposition to Trump with opposition to conservatism. Sanford is somebody who has a solid conservative record who passes many litmus tests that Weld fails (such as on abortion).
At a time when Trump has helped push deficits back to a projected $1 trillion, Sanford would be able to credibly make the case against the president’s fiscal recklessness. The message would be welcome given that most Republicans will have abandoned any semblance of pretending to care about the mounting debt.
