[heinz_1966]

Another GOP star tarnished: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admits affair with Argentina pen pal

BY Robert F. Moore and Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Updated Wednesday, June 24th 2009, 2:16 PM

CNN
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, once a big name in the mix for the GOP in 2012, admits to having an affair at a press conference Tuesday.

Monsivais/AP
Sanford, right, and his wife Jenny, are all smiles earlier this year during a dinner at the White House.






South Carolina's wandering Gov. Mark Sanford arrived home from a secret six-day trip to Buenos Aires to tearfully admit he has been having an affair with an Argentine pen pal.

"I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina," Sanford said at an extraordinary, rambling press conference in Columbia, S.C.
Sanford, who was until this week one of the GOP's most promising rising stars, resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors' Association but did not step down from his job running South Carolina.
He choked up three times and he apologized to his wife, Jenny; his four sons; his in-laws; his friends; his staff; people of faith and his state.

"I've let down a lot of people, that's the bottom line," he said. "I hurt her (his mistress), I hurt my wife, I hurt my boys. . . . I hurt a lot of different folks."
Sanford's admission came after he vanished Thursday, telling no one where he was going and leaving no contact information. His staff told reporters, when pressed, that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
Sanford apparently didn't think anyone would notice his absence.
The governor said he first met the unnamed Argentinian woman eight years ago when they had an "incredibly earnest conversation" in which he urged her to get back together with her husband for the sake of her two children.

They kept in touch by e-mail and "it developed over the last year into something much more," he said.
"I've seen her three times since that whole 'sparking' thing."
He said "from a heart level there was something real" but that because of his job and his family it was "a place I couldn't go and she couldn't go."

Five months ago, his wife discovered the affair, Sanford said.
He said they've been working to reconcile, but did not explain how his jaunt to Argentina this week fit into that scenario.
The governor, who had been much talked of as a 2012 presidential candidate, is the latest rising GOP star to take a long fall - and the second in a week.

Nevada Sen. John Ensign confessed last week to having an affair and employing - then firing - his mistress and her husband.
Sanford ditched his security detail and took off Thursday without telling his staff or family where he was.
He was out of contact throughout the Father's Day weekend.
His wife, Jenny, vacationed with their four sons and fueled the story by telling the press she didn't know where he was.

While Sanford was gone, his staff issued a stream of conflicting statements: Sanford was working on projects; he was clearing his head; they knew where he was; they didn't know where he was; they had talked to him; they hadn't talked to him.
On Monday night, his staff finally gave a location, saying he was hiking somewhere on the Appalachian Trail. They fudged whether he had been in touch.

On Tuesday, they said he had called in and, surprised his absence was an issue, had decided to rush back from his hike.
Sanford apologized to his staff for "creating a fiction with regard to where I was going."

From SC to Argentina? That is one heck of a booty call...