Closing the Door on South Carolina's Sex Scandals

Before the affairs and allegations of affairs, South Carolina's governor Mark Sanford was praised as a libertarian-leaning reformer. Yet, he failed to curb the state's big government bureaucracies. Can his protege, Nikki Haley, do any better?

The problem with scandals in politics is that scandals distract from politics.

Witness the South Carolina . . . situation.  The Palmetto State comes in dead last in far too many categories (like, ya know, education), but the main focus in recent years has been on who may or may not have had illicit relationships with whom.

Before Gov. Mark Sanford gained notoriety as the weepy teenage girl who loved his hottie Argentine soulmate, he was a stalwart libertarian-leaning reformer who hated (big?) government.  He flashily stood athwart the creaky South Carolina state government that cranked out dollars to failed bureaucracies year after year.  But by all lights, he accomplished next to nothing in his crusade to curtail the “good ole boy” system that stymied real reform.

Now comes his protégé, Nikki Haley, who (saddled with her own scandals) . . . promises to stand athwart how the creaky South Carolina state government cranks out dollars to failed bureaucracies year after year.

So we are left with this critical question: if politics “is the art of the possible,” how do we limit government and win elections?

The answer: play ball.  Ronald Reagan, Patron Saint of Small Government, figured out how to slash taxes, regulation, and still pass bills.  Speaker Tip O’Neil didn’t magically become a conservative; he got rolled by Reagan’s ability to be conservative without forgetting that legislatures exist.

Whether Haley, a relative political novice, can accomplish this in South Carolina is very much seriously in doubt.  The more important question is: Have Republicans learned their lesson nationwide?

The world waits.