Are the Wheels Supposed to Come off this Soon in the Campaign?

That spectacle above is Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford arguing with a blown-up picture of Nancy Pelosi, who is not the person he is actually running against. He is debating a life-size paper doll and, in terms of looking like a petty weirdo, he is losing. Unless looking like a petty weirdo is the point. In which case, epic win, Mark! How did we get to this point in this campaign?

Truly, things looked rough enough when his former mistress made an appearance at his win for the nomination for the open SC House seat--a touching family moment, you can be sure that doesn't at all remind everyone of the affair that came to light when he kind of flaked out and no one knew where he was and his staff made up excuses and then he was all like, "Oh, yeah. I was off having an affair." (No duh.) But that wasn't awkward enough. His ex-wife then made allegations regarding Sanford trespassing on her property, which was about the last straw for the national Grand Old Party regarding his candidacy. To wit:

A Republican familiar with the NRCC’s decision criticized Sanford’s lackluster response to the report about his ex-wife’s trespassing complaint and said it would be “foolish” for anybody to spend money on him. 

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility for him to win – stranger things have happened in special elections,” the Republican said. “But the fact that he wasted precious time and money rehabilitating his image only to squander that makes it very foolish for outside groups to commit resources.”

Would he let that stand? No he would not. He decided the best thing to do in his defense was advertise! Yes. Advertise, with a big old full page ad explaining his sorry not-sorry self. Because you can never go wrong addressing headline news by making sure your story is...definitely in the paper. So--what could go wrong? Weeelll, he published his campaign office phone number, looking for positive feedback. (Needy, needy.) He did not get positive feedback. He got people who criticized him (who would have guessed that?), and then he got mad enough to publish their phone numbers. Yes, that would be the phone numbers of private individuals. Smooth move, Sanford! Very good-will-inspiring!

As you can imagine, this saga is far from over--oh heck, it is just starting. Another conservative candidate, Larry Grooms, is going to get a little push as a write-in candidate. I know! Surely, if one was down in the polls the possibility of another candidate coming along to split the conservative vote in a mostly conservative district would sound like pretty bad news! There, there, though, Sanford supporters. There's at least the Ron Paul endorsement. Which I'm sure is a silver lining if not gold. Certainly not your fiat lining, anyway.