Sanford and Sons: Meet the Mistress

Perhaps the saddest political images I’ve seen this year were captured on March 2nd, the night of Mark Sanford’s primary victory. Back from “the Appalachian Trail,” the former governor who went through a highly public marital train wreck not only appeared publicly at his victory announcement with his former mistress, now fiancé, but used the occasion — while on stage — to introduce his two young sons to her for the first time.

Sanford’s older son is in the turquoise shirt back left, and the younger son is off his right shoulder in the third image. The last scene of course could be labeled “I only have eyes for you.”

The photos are really painful, Sanford’s two sons on that stage not only having to emotionally contend with the fiancé and the cameras but Sanford praising his God, then his flame back-to-back.

Why I bring up these images now is because Sanford, according to this Atlantic piece, is apparently on the verge of pulling off a shockingly unexpected victory in the S. Carolina Congressional race tomorrow. If that comes to pass, with the reputation of Congress near rock bottom already, we can just add these images to the pile.

(screen shots: WBTW.com. image 4: Bruce Smith/AP. caption:  Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford thanks his fiancee Maria Belen Chapur as he addresses supporters in Mount Pleasant, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 2013, after winning the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat he once held. Sanford is trying to make a comeback after his political career was derailed four years ago when he disappeared from the state only to return to admit the couple was having an affair. Sanford’s wife, Jenny, later divorced him.)