Much as it may endear him to hardcore conservatives, I can’t imagine Mark Sanford’s stonewalling on unemployment funds is going to endear him to the national electorate in 2012. Can anyone imagine him being anything other than a Goldwateresque sacrificial lamb?
PS The Times report also includes this detail on a very classy 2004 Sanford publicity stunt — can you say dignity problem?
Mr. Sanford once carried two piglets onto the floor of the House chamber to symbolize his opposition to what he considered wasteful spending. One of the piglets promptly defecated; lawmakers were not amused.
Here’s video of the stunt:
And here are some disturbing details on how things went wrong:
South Carolina’s Statehouse turned into a hoghouse Thursday when Republican Gov. Mark Sanford carried two oinking piglets under his arms to protest pork in the state’s $5.5 billion spending plan.
Sanford’s lunchtime arrival with the pigs came a day after the GOP-controlled House voted in short order to override all but one of his 106 budget vetoes.
“There was a lot of pork-eating yesterday,” said Sanford, juggling the tiny, squirming pigs. “Ultimately what was said yesterday was: ‘We’re not going to cut spending by one dollar.”‘
The governor stood at the House chamber doors with pig feces smeared on his shoes and coat and laughed about it…
The stench of manure permeated the air as Sanford carried the pigs up the steps to the Statehouse’s second-floor lobby.
Who’s going to take the delivery?” Sanford asked lawmakers as they crowded around him for a peek at the piglets he picked up from a Lexington County farm and nicknamed “Pork” and “Barrel.”
In the Senate, which later debated the governor’s vetoes Thursday, Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, called the Sanford’s stunt a crime.
Hutto said the governor should be charged with animal cruelty and defacing the Statehouse with pig poop. Sanford’s spokesman Will Folks cleaned up the mess.
Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, defended the governor.
“If you pick up a pig and squeeze it, something is going to come out,” Knotts said. “I’m sure the governor didn’t know that.”