Calendar shows Guv Sanford fell out of love with his state, too

Gov. Mark Sanford typically packed more than a dozen events into his daily schedule when he took office in 2003 -- sometimes jumping from meetings about tort reform, cutting state income taxes and saving Medicaid money to talks about companies bringing jobs to South Carolina and, then, posing for a quick photo with a Girl Scout troop or friend.

Sanford was a man on a mission: To change South Carolina.

A year later, Sanford still was on that mission, with an average of almost nine scheduled staff meetings a week as he sought to rally support for his vision of a smaller state government administered by a more powerful governor.

Then, critics say and the governor's own calendar shows, the Republican governor -- re-elected to a second term -- lost interest.

Blame frustration, as allies do.

Blame ambition, as critics do.

Blame an unengaged politician, as one high-ranking Democrat does.

Other aides to former South Carolina governors say Sanford's calendar shows a governor who had too little to do. That loose scheduling allowed Sanford to disappear to the Argentine affair that has dominated state politics and government since June and still could lead to his removal from office.

The portrait that emerges from Sanford's calendar -- his office's official record of his activities -- is one of a clear second-term focus elsewhere, not on South Carolina.

By this year, staff meetings -- almost nine a week in 2004 -- had dwindled to just more than four a week, according to an analysis of Sanford's calendar by The State. Some of Sanford's public outreach, such as holding office hours in the far corners of the state, also had fallen by the wayside.

Instead, Sanford's second-term calendar has been dominated by media interviews -- about his opposition to the Obama administration's stimulus spending and his possible 2012 presidential ambitions.
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