“As South Carolinians, we have a rich heritage. We are the sum total of generations of growing, yearning, of planning and failing, of building and destroying and building again. Whether we like it or not, within each of us, if we look back far enough, is the entire history of America. We contain the potential, the energy, the dreams of all who have gone before us; and if we are to discover our own unique role on earth we must look back at those dreams and try to understand why they failed and how they succeeded, so that we may dream more clearly and act more nobly in our own lives. That is our great responsibility to our history and to our future.”
– Retired Judge Alex M. Sanders to the University South Caroliniana Society
I think my good friend, and South Carolina’s good friend, Alex Sanders was on to something when he spoke those words to the University South Caroliniana Society, a group of people dedicated to preserving history in South Carolina. You see, as Judge Sanders points out, we’ve found ourselves in positions like this before here in the Palmetto State, and because we have been through this scenario time and time again, we will find ourselves rising from the ashes once more.
Just scrolling down the list, we’ve had our fair share of national attention over the decades, including a ruffle between the years of 1860-1865, and more than likely this won’t be the last time we are dragged into the national spotlight. However, we need to pick our collective selves up, and move forward.
On Thursday, I was asked the question of whether or not Gov. Mark Sanford should resign from the highest post in South Carolina. While many political observers thought I have been licking my chops for a moment like this since arriving in Columbia, especially having worked on the Moore for Governor campaign against Sanford in 2006, I refuse to place myself in the ditch Mark Sanford currently finds himself laying in. After all, we have bigger fish to fry in this state, and the biggest of those fish is job creation.
Our economy is in the tank, due in large part to the ever failing Commerce Department under the leadership of Joe Taylor and the Governor. Opportunity after opportunity has slipped through the fingers of Commerce, and whether the Governor stays or goes, the needs of our state should be reexamined and Mr. Taylor and his top advisors must be handed the pink slip. Their lack of initiative and leadership has been one colossal failure for too long, and our people cannot continue to suffer from Taylor & Company’s mess.
With the nation’s third highest unemployment rate, the last thing that South Carolina needed was a distraction like the one we were hit with this past week. Now, Gov. Sanford needs to step back and examine for himself, whether or not he can juggle the duties of fatherhood and marriage with the duties of leading South Carolina out of the woods on economic development. Right now, we need an effective leader, one who is going to hold the Commerce Department and all agencies tied to the Governor’s Office accountable. We cannot afford to have any more diversions away from creating much needed jobs in the Palmetto State. Therefore, instead of calling on Mark Sanford to resign, I am asking him to determine if he thinks he is best suited for the job of leading our state for the next eighteen months. The past six years are not a good indication that he is suited for the job.
