Photograph by Rainier Ehrhardt/AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford arrives to give his victory speech on May 7, 2013, in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Sanford won back his old congressional seat in the state’s 1st District in a special election.

That’s how many U.S. House members in the current 113^th Congress have served non-consecutive tenures.

The total includes Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican who was sworn in yesterday to the House, where he previously served from 1995 to 2001. Sanford was South Carolina’s governor from 2003 to 2011.

Sanford won a special election on May 7, beating Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a Republican-tilting district in and around Charleston that includes much of the territory he previously represented.

Sanford is one of seven House Republicans now serving a second stint in the House, along with Reps. Steve Chabot of Ohio, Steve Pearce of New Mexico, Matt Salmon of Arizona, Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tim Walberg of Michigan and Steve Stockman of Texas.

Sanford, Chabot, Salmon and Stockman were all members of the big House Republican freshman class of 1994, when the party won control of the chamber for the first time in four decades.

The nine Democrats who have served non-consecutive terms are Reps. David Price of North Carolina, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Richard Nolan of Minnesota, Bill Foster of Illinois, Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire, Alan Grayson of Florida, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Dan Maffei of New York and Dina Titus of Nevada.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 16 by Political Capital.

Photograph by AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his fiancee, Maria Belen Chapur, at his primary election victory party.

So it wasn’t that close after all.

Why would it have been, in a congressional district that Republican Mitt Romney carried by 18 percentage points in November.

Because:

– The Republican candidate who won, former Gov. Mark Sanford, went off to Argentina with a mistress in 2009 while his office claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, and even during this spring special election campaign for the open 1st Congressional District seat showed up at his ex-wife’s home, contrary to a restraining order, to watch football with his son. His erstwhile mistress, now fiancee, has helped him celebrate his election victories.

– The Democratic candidate, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, outspent Sanford with the help of outside groups and raised a legitimate question about trust in American politics.

Yet special elections draw small crowds, the voters most motivated, the polls portraying a close race overrun by the reality of who really votes in such contests. So the margin of victory was something like 10 percent, with almost all the votes counted. Sanford had 54 percent of the vote, Colbert Busch 45 percent, with 98 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.

And Sanford, who also has represented South Carolina in Congress in the past (from 1995 to 2001), will return to Washington claiming a political redemption, the ultimate forgiveness, thanking the people of the 1st district for recognizing that we all, as Sanford says, have “feet of clay.”

And in the aftermath of this nationally watched local election there is, predictably, a difference of opinion:

Thank you to each and every person who helped make tonight possible! twitter.com/MarkSanford/st…

— Mark Sanford (@MarkSanford) May 8, 2013

Mark Sanford is what is wrong with American politics.

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) May 8, 2013

So I hear @gopconference plans to put Mark Sanford on the Foreign Affairs Committee – he seems to have done both.

— Brad Woodhouse (@woodhouseb) May 8, 2013

How excited are House Republicans at the idea of Mark Sanford’s potential return to Washington? Not very. on.wsj.com/15ncOpI

Congrats to @marksanford on his victory. Obama hasn’t figured it out yet on jobs, happy to work together to hold him accountable

— Reince Priebus (@Reince) May 8, 2013

 

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 7, 2013

Original post is Sanford Hiking Washington Trail Again – For Real by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mary Ann Chastain/Getty Images

Campaign signs are stuck in a lawn as Elizabeth Colbert Busch speaks to media after casting her vote in a special election runoff with former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford for a seat in the 1st Congressional District on May 7, 2013 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Original post is South Carolina Election Viewers’ Guide by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mic Smith/AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, center, speaks with voters, Joan Cobb, at left, and her father Harold Turner, at right, and reporters at Orlando’s Pizza in Daniel Island, S.C., on May 6, 2013.

Count Mark Sanford as a vote against expanding background checks for gun-buyers.

Count Sanford as a vote against the immigration bill from a bipartisan group of senators.

That’s if the vote-count in South Carolina’s special congressional election today goes the way of the former governor, a Republican whose tenure was marred by an extramarital affair with an Argentine, or Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert — in a district that leans heavily Republican, but where the latest public opinion polling showed a race to0 close to call.

Sanford says he wants this contest settled on the issues. He credits a recent debate with his Democratic opponent for bringing some of those issues to the fore — his opposition to “Obamacare” versus his opponent’s support, and more.

He is counting on those issues trumping the tale of the Appalachian Trail, in which the former governor’s office in 2009 told the public he had gone hiking when he actually had gone abroad.

“We finally began to talk about issues” as opposed to his background, going back to 2009, he said this morning in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” The hosts said Colbert had been invited for an Election Day interview as well, but declined. “In essence we’ve had a conversation here at home, not only about my strengths and weaknesses,” he said, but also about his belief in protecting taxpayers.

“We’re all going to make mistakes in life,” Sanford said of his own. “We all have feet of clay.” Responding to co-host Mika Brzezinski’s question about how the public can trust him going forward after the Appalachian-Argentinian episode, Sanford turned the question on her: “I guarantee you’ve made some personal mistakes in your life.”

If elected, the former governor and congressman was asked, how would he vote on the background check bill that failed to get 60 votes in the Senate.

“I’m a big Second Amendment person,” Sanford said. “I would have voted no.”

On the immigration bill that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and others are advancing in the Senate: “ think we could learn from history,” he said, pointing to the last major revision of immigration law in 1986 when 3 million undocumented immigrants were legalized with a promise of better border enforcement. The nation needs to start with enforcement first, he said — “I would not support the bill in its present form.”

(That bill, in its present form, requires the Department of Homeland Security to develop and enact a plan for 90-percent effectiveness in security of the highest-risk border sectors before any of the 11 million undocumented already in the country are granted new legal rights.)

Asked how he is feeling about this five-month contest after a crowded party primary, being outspent by the Democrat and forced into a close contest in a district that should be an easy walk for a Republican, Sanford said: “Worn out. All those things you feel at the end of a campaign,” he said. “You get ultimately to the day of judgment… You feel a mixture of calm… And worn out.”

Original post is Sanford ‘Worn Out’ on ‘Judgment Day’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Richard Ellis/Getty Images

Republican candidate for the open Congressional seat of South Carolina, Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, greets U.S. House of Representatives Democratic candidate for the state of South Carolina Elizabeth Colbert Busch following their debate at the Citadel on April 29, 2013 in Charleston.

That’s the share of the vote Republican Mitt Romney received last year in South Carolina’s 1^st District, which is hosting a special House election today (read about that race and the broader fight for control of the House here).

The Republican tilt of the district (map), which includes Hilton Head and part of Charleston, is the biggest advantage for that party’s nominee, Mark Sanford, a former governor and congressman who’s seeking a political comeback.

Republicans are linking Democratic nominee Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a business development official and an older sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, to national Democratic figures including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. Colbert Busch regularly refers to herself as a “tough, independent businesswoman.”

Democrats have called attention to Sanford’s acknowledgement of an extramarital affair as governor in 2009, when he left the state unannounced for Argentina to visit a woman who’s now his fiancee.

While Colbert Busch had more money going for her in her campaign,  the latest poll portrayed a race too close to call.

Sanford and Colbert Busch are vying to succeed Republican Tim Scott, who’s now a senator.

Polling stations close at 7 p.m. EDT tonight.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 58% by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mary Ann Chastain/AP Photo

Vice President Joe Biden at the South Carolina Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner May 3, 2013, in Columbia, SC. Photo by Mary Ann Chastain / AP

Republican Ted Cruz, as our friends at Politico point out this morning, will be roughly the same age as Democrat Joe Biden was when he launched his first campaign for president in 1987, should the freshman senator from Texas declare his intentions for his party’s 2016 nomination later this year.

And Cruz, 44, was peddling a newer brand of red meat last night in South Carolina’s Silver Elephant Dinner — talking about Chuck Norris wearing Jim DeMint pajamas — as Vice President Biden, 70, was preaching that old-time party religion at the annual late-night Columbia fish-fry hosted by Rep. Jim Clyburn, the last Democrat standing in South Carolina’s congressional delegation. (More on that below.)

Biden also was talking about voting rights before a largely African-American crowd at Clyburn’s fish-fry — evoking a story of a 106-year-old woman who had waited hours to vote last year. Cruz had spent the day touting gun-owners’ rights, appearing at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston with a cast of fellow 2016-minded Republicans (as Bloomberg’s Julie Bykowicz reports), before heading to South Carolina, one of the earliest-voting states in the presidential primary contests, to talk some more about guns.

“Vice President Biden is the quintessential ‘old school’ politician,” Jaime Harrison, who this weekend will become the South Carolina Democratic Party’s chairman, told Politico. “He is beloved by grassroots Democrats because he still kisses the babies and charms grandmas rather than simply rely on Twitter, Facebook, etc.”

Telling of how two South Carolina-born officers, William Travis and James Bonham, had tried to defend the Alamo, Cruz noted that President Barack Obama in Mexico this week spoke of American guns fueling violence across the border, and said:  `’I would suggest a place he could have started was not to have his Department of Justice selling guns to Mexican drug cartels.”

“Some people wear Superman pajamas. Well, Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas,” Cruz joked. “And Chuck Norris wears Jim DeMint pajamas.”

(Photo of Ted Cruz, right, by David J. Phillips / AP) 

Still, the one-term senator from Texas and longtime former senator and vice president from Delaware start out, should they run, as second-tier candidates in parties that have their eyes on other stars, Florida’s Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush on the Republican side, former first lady, secretary of state and New York senator Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side.

“Biden’s speech came as the state Democratic Party is at a turning point.,” Columbia’s The State newspaper reports this morning. “Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch has a chance of defeating former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford in Tuesday’s 1st District race, a key congressional district that a Democrat hasn’t won in more than 30 years. A Colbert Busch victory also could help state Sen. Vincent Sheheen’s chances in 2014 as he tries to unseat Republican Gov. Nikki Haley.

With 1,000 people on hand for a convention-hall state party dinner before Clyburn’s fish fry, the State quoted a political consultant, Lachlan McIntosh of Charleston, saying:  “It kind of reminds me of the Jefferson Jackson dinners we had when Sen. (Fritz) Hollings and Gov. (Jim) Hodges were here, helping sell tickets. Obviously, we haven’t had a governor or a U.S. senator in a while.”

In another sign of the old and the new in South Carolina, If Biden was harking to Hollings’ day — the 91-year-old retired senator came up from Charleston to see the vice president  (and Biden called him “the man I admire more than any man I’ve served with”) — Cruz was riding on the recently retired DeMint’s coat-tails. The freshly minted president of the Heritage Foundation was on hand at the fairgrounds and attempting to downplay the expectations surrounding Cruz’s possible candidacy.

“Give a guy a break,” DeMint said before the dinner, as The State reports today. “He’s just coming to speak to us here. Everybody who comes to South Carolina, you (the media) say is running for president.”

“Still, the Heritage Foundation boss said the name of one Republican politician, Cruz, energizes any room: “I have been to 25 cities in the last few months, and all I have to do is mention Ted Cruz’s name and people stand up and cheer. They’re hungry for someone who’s not afraid, willing to stand up to the status quo.”

Original post is Cruz, Biden: Early Eyes on Second-Tier Race, New Attacks, Old School by Political Capital.

Photograph by Richard Ellis/Getty Images

House of Representatives Democratic candidate for the state of South Carolina Elizabeth Colbert Busch, listens to her opponent Republican candidate for the open Congressional seat of South Carolina, Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, during their debate at the Citadel on April 29, 2013 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Former South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford promoted his anti-spending views, and Democratic opponent Elizabeth Colbert Busch touted her political independence in their only debate before a May 7 election in a vacant U.S. House district.

Sanford, seeking a political comeback, said he had a “20-year track record of trying to do something about the way the government spends,” pointing to favorable ratings from groups promoting fiscal restraint when he was governor from 2003 to 2011 and as a member of the House from 1995 to 2001.

“If we’re ever going to get our arms around a whole host of issues in Washington, D.C., what we need is leadership,” Sanford said. “And what has been shown in my time” as a public official “is a consistent willingness to lead on financial matters.”

Colbert Busch, an older sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, promoted her background as a business development official in South Carolina’s wealthiest and best-educated district, numbered the 1st. It’s a Republican-tilting area that takes in Hilton Head, part of Charleston and other territory along the state’s Atlantic Coast.

“I am a fiscally conservative, independent, tough businesswoman,” Colbert Busch said at the debate, which was held at The Citadel, a military school in Charleston, and sponsored by Patch.

Sanford is trying to restart a political career derailed in 2009 when, while serving as governor, he admitted to lying to his staff about hiking on the Appalachian Trail to mask a visit to Argentina to see his mistress. Sanford is now engaged to the woman.

While the election has been colored by Sanford’s personal travails, the debate focused primarily on policy issues.

Colbert Busch said she would promote jobs and bipartisanship in Congress. She aligned herself with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in endorsing a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. She described President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care overhaul as an “extremely problematic” law that “needs an enormous fix,” while defending some of its provisions.

Colbert Busch said the National Labor Relations Board had “no business” suing Boeing Co. in 2011 over the aerospace company’s decision to open an assembly line in South Carolina, a “right to work” state where employees can’t be required to join unions or pay dues.

Sanford regularly linked Colbert Busch to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and to labor unions that oppose right-to-work laws.

Taking campaign donations from labor unions “is not exactly decrying where NLRB was on the Boeing issue,” he said.

Colbert Busch rejected Sanford’s efforts to tie her to national Democratic figures.

“Nobody tells me what to do, except the people of South Carolina’s 1^st district,” she said.

Colbert Busch said that Sanford’s anti-spending positions hurt job-creation efforts and the deepening of the Port of Charleston. She aligned herself with more traditional Democratic positions in backing abortion rights, same-sex marriage and expanded gun background checks.

Sanford is campaigning without the assistance of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, which pulled out of the race earlier this month after news stories surfaced that his ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, filed a complaint alleging her ex-husband had trespassed at her home in February. They divorced in 2010.

Sanford has said he wanted to watch the second half of the Super Bowl with his youngest son and had tried to contact his ex-wife, who has custody.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the political wing of House Democrats, and House Majority PAC, a super-political action committee aiding Democrats, have paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars in television advertisements attacking Sanford.

The district was last represented by Republican Tim Scott, who resigned in January to become a U.S. senator.

Original post is Sanford vs. Colbert Busch in Debate by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mic Smith/AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford speaks with reporters at Hay Tire & Automotive in Mount Pleasant, S.C., on April 22, 2013.

Original post is Mark Sanford Down 9 Points in S.C. by Political Capital.

Photograph by Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images

Mark Sanford appeared on NBC News’ “Today” show on Feb. 19, 2013.

As House Republicans withdraw from helping Mark Sanford in a special election next month in South Carolina, Democrats are on the attack.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats, has begun airing a television ad that says Sanford “walked out on us” and “violated our trust” as governor. The ad attacks Sanford’s ethics as it shows a person walking along a trail.

It’s an obvious reference to Sanford telling his staff in 2009 that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail when the then-married governor was visiting a woman in Argentina with whom he later acknowledged having an affair. Sanford and his wife were divorced in 2010, and he’s now engaged to the Argentinian.

“Now he wants our trust again? Maybe Mark Sanford should just keep walking,” the narrator concludes.

The ad comes on the heels of the National Republican Congressional Committee saying yesterday that it would no longer help Sanford, who served in the House from 1995 to 2001 representing a district that’s similar to the one he’s seeking in a May 7 special election.

Sanford said in a statement that Democrats are “trying to buy” the Charleston-area district for Democratic nominee Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a business development official and an older sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.

“My opponent has gone through great lengths to distance herself from the liberal Beltway crowd, but it simply isn’t believable that those same folks would be trying to buy this race for someone who would truly be an independent voice in Washington,” Sanford said.

Sanford and his allies have sought to link Colbert Busch to national labor unions and Democratic figures in a district that backed Republican Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama by 58 percent to 40 percent, according to data compiled by Political Capital.

As he campaigned for the Republican nomination, Sanford aired a TV ad in which he said he had “experienced how none of us go through life without mistakes — but in their wake we can learn a lot about grace, a God of second chances, and be the better for it.”

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the South Carolina election as a tossup.

Original post is Democrats Attack Sanford on Trust As Republicans Withdraw by Political Capital.

Photograph by Richard Ellis/Getty Images

Elizabeth Colbert Busch, left, sister of Comedian Stephen Colbert, during a campaign fundraiser breakfast at ILA Hall on February 24, 2013 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Elizabeth Colbert Busch won’t win a special election next month in South Carolina by playing up her affiliation with the Democratic Party.

Seeking the seat in a Republican-tilting district in and around Charleston, the business development executive and older sister of satirist Stephen Colbert often uses the word “independent” — including in her first ad of the general election campaign.

As a single mother raising three children, “I had to be independent and do what was right for them,” Colbert Busch says on camera. “Now I’m going to take that lesson to Congress.”

“I won’t take any special interest pledges or follow any party line,” she says, promising to “get rid of government waste” and pare a deficit that is “killing jobs.”

Colbert Busch’s Republican opponent in the May 7 election is Mark Sanford, a former congressman and governor who’s also running on a platform emphasizing fiscal restraint.

Sanford’s Republican allies are trying to link Colbert Busch to national Democrats in a district that backed Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama by 58 percent to 40 percent. Democratic members of Congress are joining her famous brother, host of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report,”  to help raise money for Colbert Busch April 15 in Washington.

Colbert Busch is “aligning herself with the most liberal politicians in Washington,” says Katie Prill, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans.

Republican Tim Scott vacated the seat in January to become a senator.

Original post is Colbert Busch: No ‘Party Line’ by Political Capital.