More Cow Bell From The GOP

Everyone meet prospective Republican Presidential candidate for 2012 Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina and newly elected head of the Republican Governors Association. Many in the Republican party are excited at the thought that Sandford might run for President some time in the near future because of his conservative governing style. You see as I have said before, the Republicans don't think conservatism was the problem in the last two election cycles. In their minds it was actually the LACK of "real" conservatism that doomed them. So lets take a look at some of the fruits of Sandford's conservative labors.

From the New York Times:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Just hours before the unemployment benefits fund was to run out in South Carolina, the state with the nation’s third-highest jobless rate, Gov. Mark Sanford relented Wednesday and agreed to apply for a $146 million federal loan to shore it up, after weeks of refusing to do so.

The governor’s position had drawn rebukes even from fellow Republicans in the Legislature, one of whom denounced Mr. Sanford as “heartless,” and from newspaper editorial pages. On Wednesday, The State, the daily newspaper here in Columbia, accused the governor of playing “chicken with the lives of the 77,000” who are unemployed in South Carolina.

snip

The back-and-forth dueling between the conservative governor and the unemployment agency has gone on for weeks, and its executive director, Roosevelt T. Halley, warned that he would have to stop issuing benefit checks to the jobless beginning Jan. 1 if Mr. Sanford did not back down and ask the federal government for the loan.

“It’s absolutely unheard of, it’s insane, for a governor of any state not to request those funds,” State Senator Hugh K. Leatherman, a Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said last week. “I can’t believe anybody would be this heartless, and create such a heartless act on these people.”

snip

Mr. Sanford, a wealthy real estate investor, is often mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012, in part because he is seen as an exemplary adherent of the party’s low-government, antispending philosophy. He recently wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal saying he was opposed to a “bailout” for states.

His stand on unemployment benefits was consistent with his contentious six-year tenure as governor and his philosophy, which is described as “basically libertarian” by William V. Moore, a political scientist at the College of Charleston. He has continuously sparred with members of his own party in the Legislature over spending, limiting his record of accomplishment.

snip

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. Indeed, though Republicans dominate both chambers, they have overriden hundreds of his vetoes on spending over the years, including, in one recent session, money to expand children’s health insurance, indigent defense, and to provide cost-of-living adjustments for retired state employees.

After one special session last year, the legislators overrode 228 out of 243 of the governor’s vetoes, restoring money Mr. Sanford had rejected for H.I.V. prevention and health programs, and for state parks and beach reconstruction.

Notice that the although Republicans in his own state can't stand the guy and presumably they would know what kind of leader he would make, the National Republican Party folk think he is golden. That he gets his vetoes overridden on the regular and the fact that his state is in dire economic straits means nothing to these people. "But he is a Conservative damn it" I would imagine is their retort.

Try to think about something really really hard for a moment, have you seen ANY Republican in recent years that you would describe as a "thinker"? I mean a smart person who still takes the time to think through there actions without always falling back on party orthodoxy?

Me either.

But I salute the Republicans for maniacally sticking to their ideals, may they comfort them the many nights they spend out in the abyss.