Republican Sanford Wins SC Special Congressional Election

Big Labor, Nancy Pelosi and national Dems pulled out all the stops, and money, to turn the 1st SC district from red to blue. But in the end, voters weren't fooled by Colbert Busch's (D) lies about being a new kind of Democrat!

Former SC Governor Mark Sanford enjoys his comeback victory with his family on Tuesday night in Charleston, SC

I was very happy to cast my vote Tuesday for Mark Sanford and send to Congress a Representative that I know will support a conservative low tax, smaller government agenda. In the end, the race was much closer than many originally thought with Sanford winning by only 9%. Tim Scott (R) who was appointed to fill the remainder of Sen. Jim DeMint's term in the U.S. Senate previously won the seat by 26%.

The race was closer for two reasons. First, Democrats very effectively worked to suppress GOP voter turnout with reminders about Sanford's past particularly cheating on his wife 4 years ago and resigning as Governor. Democrats may insist the attacks that left four Americans dead in Benghazi last September "happened a long time ago" but in the 1st District, they ran ads that made you think Sanford was still cheating on his ex-wife. Imagine the howls accusing the GOP of racism if we attempted a voter suppression campaign on the scale Dems launched in the 1st District.

The second reason it was such a close race ironically turned out to be the reason Sanford won. Dems spent more than one million trying to smear Sanford and depress GOP voters. But in the end, their spending revealed the close link that Colbert Busch had with the very liberal Dem leadership like Nancy Pelosi. South Carolina is nothing like San Francisco!

Colbert Busch only debated Sanford once, never gave a press conference or held informal Q&A sessions with voters such as is common in this state. She used a barrage of television ads to try and convince voters that if elected she would be a non-partisan, independent voice in Congress pushing fiscal responsibility. Well, voters here have also heard Obama promise to be a new kind of Democrat who believes in fiscal responsibility and we were not about to be fooled again.

Dems Try to Spin Loss

You know if Colbert Busch had won it would be front page news. Dems and their media accomplices would proclaim that even a very conservative district like SC-1 was ready to endorse the Obama agenda and how this augured ill for Republicans in the 2014 midterm elections. Predictably, when it looked like Sanford was going to pull it out the liberal media had the alternate story line all ready to go and guess what? Dems win either way even with a Sanford win.

What this election proves is that the liberal leopard cannot change it's spots no matter how much it outspends their GOP rival in television ads. The message this sends for 2014 is that  a GOP candidate with small government principles, even one with personal flaws, can win. And now that Democrats have wasted over a million in South Carolina they'll have that much less to spend in 2014!