In June, Michele Walk stood by Mark Sanford amidst scandal – but now that he’s been proven to have abused taxpayer money, it’s time for the South Carolina Governor to go.

Michele Walk, Associate Editor
Ideology: Moderate Ex-Democrat | Writing from: Boxford, MA

In June, I wrote an article arguing that Mark Sanford should not be pressured to step down from his post as the Governor of South Carolina. Sanford mysteriously disappeared for a few days in mid-June and, he soon after confessed to the media, that during his bizarre absence he was not hiking or at a spa, as he had told his staff, but was in Argentina visiting his long-time mistress. After his public breakdown, he promised to repay the state $12,000 for an official Department of Commerce trip in which he paid a visit to his mistress.

I defended Mark Sanford because I don’t think politicians should be thrown out of office based on decisions in their personal lives that otherwise do not affect their ability to lead. Despite his affair, Sanford appeared to have a strong record as a fiscal conservative and was a proven reformer, and many pundits were attempting to discredit his accomplishments as governor because of mistakes in his personal life. For many Americans, what we do in the office is kept separate from what we do at home, and for the most part that should be able to be true of politicians as well. We pull the lever for a particular candidate because we think they will be an effective, noble, responsible leader who will serve well. If we were to look solely at politicians and the government for moral leadership, this country would find itself in a steep decline. As fellow my fellow Politicizer writer David Edwards recently pointed out, the government is not, never has been, and never will be moral.

However, elected leaders must be moral when it comes to their office. The Associated Press recently uncovered that over his two terms in office, Mark Sanford used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to shuttle himself and his family around on personal and political business. Not only is this highly illegal, it is unethical and is brazen abuse of his gubernatorial privileges. Sanford used the state’s jets to fly to the dentist, to friends’ parties and even to campaign-related events. It is common knowledge among everyone who has ever worked in politics – even as an unpaid intern – that campaign activities are never to be conducted on the State’s time. More significantly, however, is that it is never acceptable to mismanage taxpayer funds. I find taxes themselves to be abhorrent, and using taxpayers’ hard-earned money for personal use is just disgusting. A responsible leader simply does not waste their constituents’ money on frivolous, unnecessary personal trips.

Politics without scandal, however, is almost like hockey without fights. Having grown up in the time of Bill Clinton, personal indiscretions by politicians honestly do not surprise me. Quite frankly, the most surprising thing to me about his affair was that he freely and openly admitted to it, unlike former President Clinton. As I discussed in my June article on Sanford, politicians are human too and expecting them to live pristine lives is unrealistic. Though citizens should not expect moral perfection in the personal lives of their elected leaders, they absolutely should expect politicians to be responsible with the trust conferred to them by voters and serve in their elected capacity honorably. Using taxpayer money to fly home for a haircut, however, is not honorable – it is irresponsible, arrogant, and completely inexcusable. Mark Sanford is a disgrace to not only himself and politicians in general but more importantly to his constituents – the people he pledged to serve. Sanford, stop taking up your taxpayers’ time and money and just get out of the way.