Is Sanford leading Republican Party into losing territory?

With his approval ratings plummeting, the major political question in South Carolina these days focuses on whether Gov. Mark Sanford is leading the Republican Party into losing territory. Sanford’s political posturing before the national media as a principled opponent of President Obama’s stimulus package remains widely interpreted as aimed at becoming the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

Despite attempts to portray his refusal to accept $700 million in federal stimulus money except to reduce state debt as a principled position, Sanford failed to explain why the federal government should borrow money to pay off South Carolina’s debt. It’s like asking a strapped neighbor to borrow money to pay off your mortgage. The purpose of the stimulus funds is to revive the economy, primarily by creating jobs. And what state debt is he talking about? Because South Carolina operates under a balanced budget, it appears he’s referring to long term bonds that virtually every state issues for capital improvements.

South Carolina voters are unhappy about his stance. A recent poll conducted by Crantford and Associates, an established firm in Columbia, surveyed 1,382 South Carolina voters and found the once-popular Sanford’s favorable rating among all voters had dropped to 40 percent, with 53 unfavorable, and the rest undecided. In contrast President Obama rated 49 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable. More important for Republicans, 54 percent of key swing voters who identified as independents viewed the governor unfavorably, and 56 percent disagreed with his position on the stimulus money.
The basic problem for Sanford flows from his belief that government should operates like a business. The role of a business is to lawfully operate a profitable enterprise meeting consumer demands or desires. The role of government, including South Carolina’s, consists of protecting the citizenry and providing necessary public services to meet their needs, funded by a system of taxation that is adequate and fair.

Sanford, unlike former Gov. Carroll Campbell, who also served in Congress before returning as a two-term Republican governor, often appears baffled about the role of government. In contrast, Campbell earned a masters degree in political science at American University while in Congress, gaining a solid understanding of the role and process of government and how to make it work.

As governor Campbell’s major achievement consisted of bringing BMW to South Carolina, a move that has added more than 40 supplier businesses and now accounts for roughly two and a half percent of the state’s total economy. He called on the state’s full resources. They included the state-operated Ports Authority, which provided a long-term, almost rent-free lease on a vast tract of land it owned near Spartanburg as a site for the plant. Another $20 million in state funds enabled the state’s technical education centers (TEC) to provide a fully-trained work force. Campbell called on Sen. Fritz Hollings to secure millions in federal funding for infrastructure needs.

Sanford has failed to understand the central role of public schools and higher education as driving forces for economic development. Unlike President Obama, Sanford hasn’t even visited South Carolina’s I-95 “Corridor of Shame.” When criticized he uses his taxpayer-salaried spokesman to denigrate critics.

And now the governor is talking about changing the state retirement system to a “defined contribution” instead of the current “defined benefit” plan. In other words, he apparently wants the same individual retirement accounts President George W. Bush sought for Social Security, which Congress wisely rejected. Sanford’s move follows his earlier successful recommendation to invest retirement funds in the stock market rather than federal government securities. A report earlier this month revealed that change resulted in an $8 billion loss in the retirement fund’s value from a year earlier.

Meanwhile more than two hundred thousand unemployed South Carolinians are looking for jobs, with the state unemployment rate second only to California. Unlike Republican governors such as Florida’s Charlie Crist, who visited unemployment offices, talked to people looking for work, and developed sympathetic understanding of their plight, Sanford worries that South Carolina will have to do what other states do in providing its share of a stronger temporary safety net for those who lose their jobs.

Republican political dominance that began under Gov. Campbell already has shown wear and tear at the edges. In the last three elections, Democrats gained four seats in the state House of Representatives, despite a majority of Republicans going unchallenged. In 2008, 44 of the state’s 46 counties voted “more Democratic” than four years earlier. Whether a Democratic resurgence will happen in 2010 of course remains unknown, but Republicans have reason for concern.

Jack Bass is co-author of the new University of South Carolina Press book, The Palmetto State: The Making of Modern South Carolina.