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The Uncandidate: South Carolina's Mark Sanford succeeds by breaking all the rules. (Fred Barnes, 09/16/2002, Weekly Standard)

THE PECULIARITIES of Republican Mark Sanford's bid for governor of South Carolina are piling up. Sanford has no statewide campaign organization or ancillary groups like Veterans for Sanford. His wife Jenny is his campaign manager. When the state Republican chairman wanted to speak to him without his wife on the line, Sanford hung up. He doesn't prepare for televised debates (and does poorly). Hit this summer with a two-month barrage of attack ads by Gov. Jim Hodges, his Democratic opponent, Sanford declined to rebut the charges, thus violating a cardinal rule of electoral politics. His appearances sometimes consist of a slide show (he travels with a slide projector). He once jotted down the text of a TV ad minutes before filming it. His speeches are seldom scripted. He rarely wears a tie. He backed John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary in what turned out to be a strong George W. Bush state. He now concedes the McCain endorsement was a "mistake."

Sanford, 42, is far and away the most interesting conservative running anywhere this year. His message is mildly radical: slow the growth of government, overhaul the bureaucracy, attract investment, and create jobs. He also favors a school voucher program similar to one enacted in Florida by Gov. Jeb Bush. But that's not the radical part of Sanford's agenda. This is: He wants to eliminate the state income tax (top rate 7 percent). No state has ever repealed its income tax (several states don't have one).

One lesson the Republicans seem incapable of learning on the national level is that running on a platform tat the democrats and the press portray as radical and unpopular gives you automatic credibility. After all, why would you support politically untenable positions unless you truly believed in them? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2002 1:01 PM