COLUMBIA, S.C. — Gov. Mark Sanford struggled to salvage his increasingly precarious political career Thursday, calling a meeting of his Cabinet and saying he would repay the government after travel documents showed he used a state-funded trade trip to Argentina to have a secret romantic rendezvous with his mistress.
Lawmakers began calling on the two-term Republican governor to resign as South Carolina reeled the day after Sanford bared his soul and admitted he was having an extramarital affair and deceiving his staff and the public about his whereabouts for a week.
Meanwhile, the security officers responsible for Sanford’s safety described their anxious efforts to locate the governor over the Father’s Day weekend and painted a picture of a politician who often ducks away to be alone. Sanford’s security detail said they could not locate the state-issued SUV he escaped in because the tracking devices inside were turned off.
Sanford, 49, a rising star once considered a possible presidential candidate, suddenly has few defenders here, as some Republican leaders joined Democratic officials in saying he should give up the governorship.
The governor left the capitol city Thursday and secluded himself at his beach home on Sullivan’s Island near Charleston, where his wife, Jenny, and their four sons had been staying.
He was repairing his relationship with his family, his spokesman said, but is due back in Columbia today at 12:30 for a Cabinet meeting he hastily called.
Still, the drumbeat grew from across the Palmetto State for Sanford to leave office. Glenn McCall, a South Carolina representative to the RNC, cited Sanford’s past criticism of Bill Clinton’s infidelity to accuse him of hypocrisy and said Sanford should resign. Even Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told a Detroit radio station that Sanford is “yet one more disappointment in failed leadership.”
Republican House Speaker Robert Harrell said he is concerned that South Carolina was “basically without a governor for five days. Had we had a catastrophe like a tornado or earthquake or if something happened in a prison or a train wrecked, we’d have been without a chief executive.”
But Harrell didn’t call on Sanford to step down, saying: “That decision’s in the governor’s court.”
New details emerged Thursday regarding Sanford’s affair with the Argentine woman. Sanford led a delegation of state government and business leaders to Brazil and Argentina, for trade meetings from June 21 to 28, 2008. Sanford said he was going sightseeing on June 27 in Buenos Aires, but e-mails show that he was actually spending that day with his mistress.
“Last Friday I would had stayed embrassing (sic) and kissing you forever,” the woman wrote to Sanford on July 4, 2008.
Sanford’s travels cost taxpayers at least $9,000 in air fare, lodging, meals and phone charges, according to state records. Sanford said Thursday he would reimburse the state for the costs.
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