Mark Sanford Cries Uncle As South Carolina Cheers

Tears of two clowns from South Carolina

A whole gaggle of extremist Republican governors of reactionary states, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Rick Perry of Texas, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, maybe a couple other kooks got on their high horses and said they wouldn't accept stimulus money meant for education and unemployment benefits. Their citizens and state legislatures told them to stop playing politics with real peoples' real lives and one by one each quietly backed down-- except the most fanatic, venal and insane of the lot, Mark Sanford. Until yesterday. Then he backed down too.

In the morning the Wall Street Journal was reporting how Sanford's own far right base was crumbling around his tin ears and a few hours later down came the flag of obstructionist defiance and up came the white flag of Know Nothing failure. South Carolina has the second highest unemployment rate in the country (closing in on 12%) and the folks in this state are more interested in the $700 million Obama was offering to help than in Sanford's plans to run for vice president in 2012 on a platform of obstructionism now, obstructionism tomorrow, obstructionism forever.

"I'm real disappointed in the governor that he's doing what he's doing for political reasons, apparently," said Lexington County Sheriff James Metts, a Republican who echoed the rising indignation among the governor's core base of conservative voters. "We have programs that are being cut, school teachers being cut, jobs being lost by the thousand across the state."

Jimmy Ray Douglas agreed. The 66-year-old owner of Carolina Furniture Co. whose donations to the national Republican Party earned him Christmas cards from former President George W. Bush, said: "We need every cent we can get in South Carolina."

...Mr. Sanford and the president of the University of South Carolina, the state's eight-campus public university, are feuding over looming cuts that would come on top of a 25% decrease in state dollars since June. The university has cut class sections, frozen hiring and stopped buying library books, among other measures, said Harris Pastides, the university's president.

There are 100 Republicans in the state legislature and eleven of them supported Sanford's hard-line. That wasn't enough, although, always ready to play the clown, he's waiting until midnight tonight, the legal deadline, before accepting. It is estimated that the funds will help South Carolina create or preserve 50,000 jobs.

Sanford will likely continue to tussle with state general assembly leaders from his own Republican Party over his insistence that at least some of the disputed $700 million pay off debt, despite $1.1 billion in state budget cuts already imposed this year because of revenue shortfalls.

Sanford's expected move is an implicit acknowledgement that for weeks he'd erroneously claimed control over only the $700 million in education funds, not over the entire $8 billion package.

In fact, Sanford's failure to request the stimulus funds by midnight Friday would have imperiled all $8 billion reserved for his state.

The stimulus package, an ambitious bid by Obama to jolt the economy, provides $8 billion to South Carolina for Medicaid payments, road and bridge repairs and construction, unemployment benefits, police officers, tax cuts and a host of other needs.

In a day filled with brinksmanship, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., warned that Sanford was jeopardizing South Carolina's share of the funds.

"Does Governor Sanford intend to meet the minimal prerequisite certification requirement in order to reserve the right for the state to seek funds in the future?" a Clyburn written statement asked. "Or will he put all economic stimulus funding in jeopardy?"