Staying True

by Jenny Sanford

  Mark’s sister Sarah was our sole volunteer in charge of signs (often homemade), and she walked any parade Mark and I could not make on our own. We had a few loyal volunteers who came to help lick envelopes or map neighborhood routes for Mark to knock on doors. Mark ordered a whopping two hundred bumper stickers and six large road signs, a meager amount, of course, to cover any congressional district. He treated those bumper stickers as if they were made of gold. He would only let someone have one if Mark was permitted to follow that person to their car to make sure the sticker made it onto the bumper.

  Mark traveled the district (still in that stick-shift hatchback), meeting with Republicans, speaking to rotary groups and church groups, and attending fish frys and candidate forums whenever he could. I learned his positions on the issues and spent lots of time writing out answers to the questions each newspaper and interest group sent to us. Mark would then review the answers and tweak them if needed. I would ultimately type out the final responses on Mark’s little Apple Macintosh computer and fax or mail them out to the world. In addition to learning of Mark’s beliefs in depth, I respected the fact that he wanted to share his thoughts on an issue honestly and earnestly instead of giving the standard political sound-bite answer we were accustomed to hearing. We used this same careful attention when fielding questions on the phone.

  On the weekends and many weekdays, Mark set out from our home early in the morning to knock on doors. We decided that he should focus his attention on mostly conservative, Republican districts with people who were more likely to be sympathetic to his message of cutting back government spending and government intrusion in our lives.

  Mark wasn’t just a deficit hawk on the stump; he also lived that message in the running of the campaign. By February 1994 we had added $19,100 of contributions to our account book yet had spent only $786. Mark’s opponents had spent more than $100,000 by that point in the campaign. Though penny-pinching was his nature, Mark seemed to understand that unless we paid attention to every precious dollar, we would easily and quickly be bled dry. There was constant pressure to purchase ads in Republican newsletters or in the local newspaper to keep up with what other candidates were doing. Mark impressed upon me the importance of remaining disciplined, and I followed his lead by managing expenses carefully in the office.

  The press pays very little attention to those they think are fringe candidates, and they had lumped Mark in with that crowd. If people think you can’t win, many won’t show up to volunteer or give you money, even if they warm to your message. This forced us to think more creatively about ways to draw attention. Free press was all we could afford. As he walked door-to-door, Mark started handing out fake billiondollar bills and told the voters he believed Congress was spending our hard-earned tax dollars as if they were “funny money.” This clever stunt brought a bit of welcome and free media attention, but not enough to gain the notice of power players within the Republican Party.

  As it happens, even if you are on the same Republican team, sometimes you are not the right kind of Republican or perhaps you have not paid your dues within the party establishment. This seemed to be the case with Mark—no one within the party thought he had yet earned the right to this competition. He repeatedly drove two hours to speak to a monthly gathering of Republicans in Myrtle Beach, only to be told by the same woman in charge that she couldn’t find time to fit him into the agenda. Mark’s ideas were part of the Republican Party’s stated ideals, and yet somehow the establishment considered him an outsider, not loyal enough to represent the party or its cause.

  Mark’s message encompassed term limits, too. He didn’t want to become a career politician and was wary of those who did. He believed that we should return to the model our country was founded on: a citizen legislature where ordinary people served for a while and then went back to being regular citizens who had to live under the laws they helped to create. He announced he would limit his own tenure, if elected, to just three terms or a total of six years. He also thought that political action committees gave incumbents an unfair advantage, so he refused to take any money from them. If all candidates restricted themselves in these ways, he believed, we’d get more common-sense decisions from our representatives about taxes and the spending of our money. In standing up and offering to limit his own term, Mark set himself apart from the other candidates who may have pledged to support term limits in general, but would not commit to limiting their own.

  I think anyone following this congressional race would have been impressed by Mark’s integrity, even if they didn’t share his political views. I was fully immersed in the day-today running of the campaign and of caring for our two young sons (while Marshall had been a very content baby and a good sleeper, Landon had terrible colic and his restless sleep made both Mark and I exhausted in a not very satisfying way!), but even I found time to be impressed. Mark seemed to be hitting his adult stride, and it was an amazing thing to witness.

  After spending seven-and-a-half months knocking on doors, driving to every event in the district, handing out fake money, speaking at forums, putting up signs, and handing out bumper stickers, we got hard numbers on how difficult it is to become known without spending money to get out a message. The local paper did a poll of likely voters six weeks before the primary, and Mark Sanford came in fifth out of a field of seven with only two percent support. We found this incredibly disheartening, though not unexpected. I remember asking Mark if all this effort really was futile, but he remained steadfast. Our media campaign was about to begin over July 4 weekend, and that was when we hoped our message could really begin to penetrate.

  I continued to draw strength from an increasingly clear sense of Mark’s positions on all the issues and also from that elusive thing called loyalty. I had Mark’s back, and I got my back up when I found something had been said or written about him that I felt was wrong. If a reporter twisted the truth, I couldn’t sleep until I had set the record straight. In response to an article I found completely misleading, for instance, I sent this rather scathing letter to the editor of the Post and Courier. It was printed on July 20, 1994:

  No Campaign Deficit

  The word “deficit,” as defined in the dictionary, means the amount by which a sum of money falls short of the required amount. Deficit spending refers to the practice of spending funds in excess of income, something our federal government does every day. My husband, Mark Sanford, is running for Congress because he is frustrated with the way our government is spending money and the way it is not making common-sense decisions on a variety of fronts. His bumper stickers, signs and stationery all have a “reduce the deficit” logo on them. I was shocked, then, to read an incorrect report in your paper today that Mark had “rung-up” a “deficit” in his campaign.

  Mark’s campaign has never run a deficit and never will. To date, it has taken in $203,740 and spent $127,885, leaving a cash surplus of $75,854. Maybe your reporter studied accounting at the same school as most of our politicians. Mark has never run for office before, but he decided to run for Congress because he feels so strongly that regular folks, not people closely tied to the political system, need to get involved in government. It is crucial to our future and to that of our children to change the way things are done in our federal government and to start getting decisions from Congress that make sense again.

  Mark strongly feels that we all need to stand up for what we believe in. That’s why Mark—a “political newcomer,” as your paper calls him—has invested money in his own campaign as he would do in any business transaction as well. In addition, he’s raised more than $103,000 from individuals who agree with his message of change, more than a dollar for every dollar he’s invested himself, hardly “financing most” himself as your paper states. What’s wrong with standing up and doing what you believe is right?

  Mark believes in campaign finance reform, and instead of just saying he favors legislation that does away with PACs, he has himself refused to take a dime from any political a
ction committee. Mark doesn’t just support term limits; he has taken the first step by limiting his own.

  Mark is a man of honesty and integrity who doesn’t believe in politics as usual or in political rhetoric. I am proud of Mark and of everything he has done in his campaign to date. We need lots of Mark Sanfords in our government and maybe in journalism too.

  Jenny Sanford

  16 Wentworth Street

  As I re-read that letter now, I can remember the visceral feeling, the buzz, that the campaign gave to those close to it. I can also remember well the exciting momentum that started to build once we went on the air with ads. Many seemed to like Mark’s fresh face on television, and some recalled reading of his term limits pledge or meeting him when he knocked on their door. When the paper ran another poll on July 31, just over a week before the primary, Mark had jumped to fourth place with fourteen percent in the polls, an incredible jump in a very short time. Mark’s candidacy started to really take off, and our garage campaign office finally had a real group of volunteers.

  Although Mark began this campaign with his thirty-page paper on debt and Social Security, we learned all too soon how the press can take long, thoughtful answers to questions on issues and reduce them to sound bites, often twisting their meaning, intentionally or otherwise. We also learned that there will always be some reporters against whom we never had a chance: For whatever reason, they were intently against Mark and his candidacy. This phenomenon became abundantly clear when Mark answered a question for the newspaper in Myrtle Beach, one that is distributed in a significant part of the district he sought to represent in Congress. The issue was about roads.

  In the historic city of Charleston, there are many who would like to close off the city and keep tourists from entering, the feeling being that if we were to build more interstates heading here we might as well make them one-way as no one will want to leave once they get here. Myrtle Beach could not be more different. They want more roads built to bring more tourists and more revenue.

  Mark answered the Myrtle Beach paper’s question: If there was a huge federal bill filled with billions of wasteful spending and dozens of bridges to nowhere, but it had a small sliver of money for building roads in Horry County and Myrtle Beach, would he vote for it? Staunchly against unnecessary spending, Mark said he would have to vote against that bill. The reporter printed that Sanford “would vote against roads” in the area, implying Mark was against any road funding.

  This created a firestorm so large that we had to spend precious resources defending Mark’s position. When Mark personally confronted the reporter about why Mark had been quoted out of context, the writer looked at Mark and replied “life is out of context.” It was as though he was as astounded at Mark’s and my ire as we were with his journalism. He seemed jaded. Mark and I were much less so back then.

  As the primary election drew closer and we started rising in the polls, we experienced the ugly underside of politics more specifically. I had heard of dirty tricks before in our state, but nothing prepared me for just how downright mean the sport of politics could be here. We became the subject of mystery calls to voters, otherwise known as push polls, in which a phony group such as “Citizens on Behalf of Fairness in the Media” calls and asks the innocent voter a question that implies something about a candidate that simply isn’t true.

  The push poll call is designed to plant damaging associations in a voter’s mind that will cause him or her not to vote for the candidate who is the subject of the call. South Carolina is famous for this particular dirty trick. Our state was the place where unknown operatives helped to derail John McCain’s 2000 effort to become president by asking unsuspecting voters if they knew McCain had an illegitimate black child. The McCains had adopted an orphan from Sri Lanka, an act of pure generosity of spirit, but the push poll made him sound like a philanderer. For Mark, the implied accusation was a lot milder, but still very damaging to Mark’s candidacy if it were true, which it was not. The caller asked: “If you learned that Mark Sanford was a good friend of Bill Clinton … would you support him?” (Needless to say, being a friend of Bill Clinton’s was not a good thing in a Republican primary.) We also experienced the impact of special interest groups who send out voter guides, sometimes entirely honest and other times crafted in a manner to highlight a specific favorite candidate over others with similar views on the issues.

  Looking back now, I see how this was just the first taste of something we would be forced to swallow again and again in each of Mark’s campaigns. I look around at the political landscape today and I can still see dirty politics on display at every turn. It was a great place to be in life and in our lives together that we could still be outraged and baffled by these things. I am no less outraged today, but I am no longer at all surprised.

  I was personally exhausted as the primary drew to a close, but I have to admit we were also having fun. We had great new friends in our volunteers; we shared enthusiasm and a mission. Doing more with less was part of every aspect of the campaign. Volunteers would color large stickers to attach to our six road signs with short messages that would make them come alive, messages like “Just Three Terms” or “No PAC Money.” We also had our small team of volunteers shake signs at the base of the Ravenel Bridge or at busy intersections, all designed to give the illusion of widespread excitement and energy. Whether Mark won or not, we both believed we had run a campaign to be proud of. We shared a sense of purpose and that was exhilarating. For the first time since I had known him, Mark was completely and fully absorbed in something that seemed to satisfy his restlessness, which made me happy to see.

  Life as a mom, however, was quite a juggle during this time. Thankfully Landon’s colic had passed and he was sleeping full nights, but nonetheless I was stretched thin. I was in the campaign office most of the day while someone watched the boys so I could oversee all activities in the basement office. I would break for lunch with the boys and would somehow squeeze in grocery shopping or time for a well-check at the pediatrician or some other such family necessity.

  The boys were now two and almost one years old, and they were able to travel with me to campaign events or to TV stations. They were a draw when we shook hands in the parade at the Hell Hole Swamp Festival or when we went to the Chicken Bog Fest in Loris. But they were still very small, they needed their sleep, they needed routine, and they needed their parents’ attention. Truth to tell, my loyalties were torn as the campaign heated up. I wanted to do a good job with the campaign, but I also wanted to raise my boys well and to love them fully, and there was not enough time in the day to do both. However, my belief that God always seems to put the right people in your life at the right time was soon rewarded. Our house was down the street from the College of Charleston, where my favorite sitter (one who didn’t mind Landon’s screams) was a student. She moved in with us as the primary neared, which allowed me to work long into the evenings after I’d put the boys to sleep. Having someone I trusted to keep them safe and to be on call for them helped put my mind at ease as we carried on.

  As the August 9 primary date approached, I felt as if we were running on adrenaline. Even though I was swept up in the momentum and excitement, I was ready for this endeavor to be behind us. There are many times in life when one feels completely out of balance and this was one of them. I had a purpose then, and it was to fully support Mark’s candidacy while balancing the needs of our young family. Fulfilling this purpose was satisfying but doing this well left no time for me, no quiet time for personal growth or reflection or to recharge my batteries. I know I was growing as a person through the testing of our values and through my deepening knowledge of my husband but I couldn’t keep this frenetic pace indefinitely. As with so many difficult things in life, I found this time was made easier because I knew there was an end that was clearly in sight.

  On primary night, we gathered joyfully with close friends, family, and campaign volunteers at a local cafe. I was dressed in my red-white-and-blue campaign
ing attire from that day, with Landon on my hip in onesie pajamas and a pacifier in his mouth. Marshall sported Barney pajamas and red tennis shoes. He waved flags and ate cake, all way past his normal bedtime.

  We watched the results come in on television, knowing that it would be close. If no candidate earned more than fifty percent, there would be a runoff election in two weeks for the first- and second-place candidates. We expected Van Hipp to come in first, as he was the frontrunner and the political establishment candidate. Our focus was on the pack of candidates vying for second place. We knew we were outspent by more than two to one by two or three of the candidates, yet we believed our disciplined and incredibly focused campaign still stood a hair of a chance. We were quite literally in shock when, with ninety-nine percent of the votes counted, the results were as follows:

  Van Hipp 31%

  Mark Sanford 19%

  Bob Harrell 17%

  Mike Rose 17%

  Mendel Rivers 12%

  Sarah King 3%

  John Henry Whitmire 1%

  The news reports that night and the following morning described “an electoral Cinderella story” and talked of Mark as a “giant killer,” likening him to David from the David and Goliath story. The press was suddenly enchanted with Mark, describing how he “came from nowhere” to win his spot in this runoff. Clearly, they had missed all our hard work! We were exhausted and elated, tired but victorious. And the battle had somehow just begun.

  Swept up in a tornado of our own making, we realized that we had to raise more money immediately, film new ads, and work even harder, smarter, and somehow faster to get our message out. Mark was still very much the underdog, but the momentum was on our side. As this was a very conservative district, the odds were good that if he won this runoff election he would be able to win the seat in the general election. Having said that, if he won, we would have yet another exhausting campaign for the election in November. I got tired just thinking of it.