Cry For Me, Argentina: Adios to Another 2012 GOP Hopeful

     

Sarah Palin, for all her countless faults, is a near-certainty to obtain the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. That's because she will be the only candidate still standing, barring some new misstep.
      The Republicans are snake-bit. First it was Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who, after making strategic first appearances in Iowa, suddenly announced a 2007-08 extramarital affair with the wife of a campaign aide, resigned his Senate leadership post and was written off for 2012.
      Today's casualty is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Once considered a possible nominee, he sneaked off to pursue a belatedly admitted affair in Argentina. He left his post without telling the lieutenant governor, his staff or even his wife, leaving his staff to lie and tell the news media that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail to "clear his head" after an exhausting legislative session.
      The session was so exhausting because Sanford, looking like a fool all the way, was on the losing end of a battle to refuse $700 million in federal stimulus money on ideological grounds despite his state's unemployment woes in this Great Recession.
      As if Sanford's stand on the federal money were not reason enough to doubt his mental stability, his bizarre trip to spend seven days with La Otra Senora cements his image as a dingbat -- and gives the world another picture of a family-values hypocrite. This is yet more bad news for the Republican Party. Who is left for 2012? Newt Gingrich cannot be taken seriously. Mitt Romney's attempts to reinvent himself for the 190th time may fall short of appeasing the far-righters and the Mormon-haters who don't trust him.
       It's all good news for Sarah Palin, who yesterday reimbursed Alaska for $8,100 for the trip expenses of her daughters whom she took to nine far-flung events of questionable relevance to her job as governor. But what's good news for Palin is bad news for those of us who mourn for the days when, every now and then, the GOP put forward a candidate of intelligence, common sense and, for all we ever found out, personal probity.