Before he announced his bid for the U.S. House seat previously held by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford (R) waited to receive the green light from his ex-wife, the Daily Beast reported Thursday.
In one of the more bizarre instances of political infidelity, Sanford disappeared from South Carolina in the summer of 2009 before it was ultimately revealed that he was visiting his mistress and current fiancé, María Belén Chapur, in Argentina. He and his then-wife, Jenny Sanford, filed for divorce later that year.
Mark Sanford told the Daily Beast that he sought his ex-wife’s blessing before he announced his intention to pursue the House seat.
From the Daily Beast:
One of his first conversations before he decided to run again was with his ex-wife,Jenny Sanford, who remains popular across the state and had been publicly mentioned as a possible Senate nominee and even a congressional candidate. He drove out to the family’s beach house to broach the subject: “I sat down with her on the porch and said, ‘If you have any thoughts about running for this, then I’m out, because I can’t think of anything more disastrous than for a husband and wife to run against each other,’” he said. “I also told my boys that I wouldn’t run if they didn’t want me to run.” Having received the family’s OK, the once and future candidate was off to the races.
