Mark Sanford Election: He's Getting Desperate

Impact

Mark Sanford is stressed and he's resorting to some ludicrous steps to try and secure his win on the May 7 special election for the newest Representative to the U.S. House from generally Republican-dominated South Carolina. 

New polls suggest that Democrat Elizabeth Colbert-Busch is beating him by 9 points in the race and Sanford is trying everything he can to draw attention back to him but continues to bungle it up.

Apart from publicly debating a cardboard cutout of Nancy Pelosi, Sanford has also accused her "and her allies" of scheming to defeat him by spending upwards of $1 million. But as the Washington Post's Dana Milbanks reports, "It is outrageous that Democrats would engage in such reckless and irresponsible spending to defeat him. Sanford was perfectly capable of defeating himself."

ThinkProgress received reports from South Carolina voters that Sanford may have set up a fake polling agency, SSI Polling, that called citizens asking questions like: "What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert-Busch if I told you she had had an abortion?" and "What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert-Busch if she had done jail time?"

The Week's Peter Weber compiled a list of Sanford's crazy since March that has included introducing his sons to his Argentine former mistress and current fiancé on stage at a GOP event and trespassing at his former wife's home.

Despite Larry Flynt's endorsement of Sanford as a "sex pioneer," Sanford's personal issues have been a big distraction for the GOP, and resulted in the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee pulling funding and support from his campaign.

But Sanford isn't a forever alone. He has received some support from Republicans in the final days of the campaign and even secured the Tea Party nomination on Friday, three days before the election.

The proximity to the date means that the Tea Party cannot spend money assisting Sanford with ads or events, but they are trying to mobilize voters to show up at the polls on Tuesday: "Look it doesn't matter how much money has been poured into this race on the other side, it's all about the energy and momentum of the grassroots. We've done it before, we can do it again," said Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express.

"We're suffocating with all this debt, people are hurting and that's what's going to push them out to vote for Gov. Sanford on Tuesday."