As some of you may have heard, South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford is MIA. This quote, from over at Jeff Tompkins blog, sums up this unusual situation quite beautifully:
Meanwhile, with the Governor nowhere to be found, and no one running the state, residents of South Carolina report "no discernible difference."
(Hmmm...looks like they may have found him).
sounds like he is prepping to run for the White House, first you disappear, then you reappear- renewed and refreshed and all eyes are on you. in his case we should just look away...
Posted by: Janet | 22 June 2009 at 11:23 PM
Janet, a friend bets that he's having 'his eyes done' while he is out of town. Hilarious....
Posted by: Pam | 22 June 2009 at 11:30 PM
How bizarre!
Posted by: Pam/Digging (Austin) | 22 June 2009 at 11:41 PM
I just saw on the morning news that he has apparently been hiking the Appalachian Trail. Maybe he is a closeted tree-hugger and did not want his core supporters to know what he was doing. It still sounds a little bogus to me. Either way, I think his chances of getting the presidential nomination in 2012 just got lost among trees.
Posted by: Les | 23 June 2009 at 07:26 AM
Pam/Digging...yes, bizarre! Actually, many of us think this is just his natural attention-seeking nature after losing the stimulus funds battle.
Les, yep - he's on the Appalachian Trail. And I agree - this wasn't a particularly savvy move on his part.
Posted by: Pam | 23 June 2009 at 09:28 AM
Well, now there's confirmation that he is or was, for part of the time, in Atlanta at the airport: a signal from his cellphone detected there last weekend; the state vehicle found in the parking lot at Hartsfield. The rather chilly comments from his wife ("I'm being a mother today.") also suggest that there's some unhappiness of some sort about to emerge from all this.
Whatever the heck's going on, something is off-bubble.
Posted by: John B. | 23 June 2009 at 06:47 PM
This is weird even by California standards.
Posted by: Katharine | 23 June 2009 at 09:49 PM
John B.: Indeed! I think his wife's comments were odd too. The story is that he has been hiking on the Appalachian Trail, and the 'incident' has rather humorously been tagged as 'Tailgate':
http://www.fitsnews.com/2009/06/23/trailgate-goes-from-bad-to-weird-for-sanford/
Posted by: Pam | 23 June 2009 at 09:50 PM
Katharine - now that's saying something!
Posted by: Pam | 23 June 2009 at 10:46 PM
Y'all should maybe look into putting a bell around his neck or a radio transmitter or something. Losing a Governor once is forgivable, but it'll be harder to explain losing him a second time.
Or maybe you're better off without him, actually, considering the stimulus money thing. Paint him green and brown and take him to the woods.
Posted by: mr_subjunctive | 24 June 2009 at 09:17 AM
Hmm... so the Appalachian Trail was actually Argentina! This story gets "curiouser and curiouser."
That said, I really think that it should be a requirement for politicians to escape from everything for a week or so each year. Ideally, you would let everyone know what was going on so they could contingency plan for, say, a prison riot or natural disaster... but seriously, let them go out on their own for a few days and remember how the other half lives. (And let us go without quotes and TV facetime from them, too!)
Posted by: Blackswampgirl Kim | 24 June 2009 at 12:34 PM
Sounds like he was certainly having a little something done, but I don't think we can say it was his eyes. On the other hand, having your governor disappear isn't necessarily a bad thing. Where do we sign up?!
Posted by: Mary | 24 June 2009 at 05:06 PM
I see that Stephen Colbert has crowned himself Governor of SC. Hearing now that Sanford used state funds for his little trip.
Posted by: Janet | 24 June 2009 at 05:37 PM