I truly did not believe Mark Sanford would win the South Carolina Republican runoff on Tuesday.

He had finished first in the special GOP primary, but didn’t get enough votes to be nominated outright. The second-place primary finisher, Curtis Bostic, was in the driver’s seat – or so I thought. He could mine the votes of all those who didn’t vote for Sanford in the primary.

It didn’t happen. Sanford won the runoff and now will run against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Tim Scott, who was appointed senator after Jim DeMint resigned to lead the Heritage Foundation.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/gop-frets-mark-sanford-could-blow-it-89573.html?hp=t2_3

Now it appears Sanford may be damaged goods among Republicans. As the Politico article points out, GOP pols and women don’t like him. The pols’ dislike is a bit murky. Women? They have good reason to loathe the former South Carolina governor.

Four years ago he traipsed off to Argentina to cheat on his wife, Jenny. The bigger issue, as I’ve noted already, is that he lied to the public about where he was. His staff put the word out that the governor was hiking in the woods along the Appalachian Trail. Nope. He was a hemisphere away, out of touch, nowhere to be seen or heard.

Colbert Busch can take the fight right to Sanford. And make no mistake, she’ll have plenty of material for her brother – the hilarious comedian Stephen Colbert – to write for her as she campaigns for Congress.

Sanford has talked about his deception, referring to it as a “mistake.” A mistake is making the wrong entry in your checkbook or forgetting to open the garage door when you back your car out. Sanford committed two egregious sins … simultaneously: violating his sacred marital vows and then lying about it to the public that paid his salary.

A part of me, however, is glad Sanford won the runoff, though. It will give some of us out here in the heartland material at which to laugh.