Governor Sanford Demonstrates We Can Survive a Few Days Without Chief Executives

Where, oh, where did the Governor go? Where, oh where can he be?

The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office.

But Sanford’s office told the lieutenant governor’s office Monday afternoon that Sanford has been reached and he is fine, said Frank Adams, head of Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s office on aging.

Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion Thursday in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation but declined to be identified.

Sanford’s wife knew he was going incommunicado for a little while and wasn’t concerned. Senator Knotts, however, is making quite the deal of the situation, as befits the Governor’s chief critic.

On the right, the general attitude is bafflement and bemusement (see Allah, Mary Katharine Ham, and Rob Port. The big lefty bloggers, meanwhile, are starting to stack up on memeorandum like the airplanes over Washington in Die Hard II.

What’s the real story? Eh…who cares? I’ve worked in government long enough to know that a Governor is not nearly as important, in a day to day sense, as they’re made out to be. Any state government can chug along unattended for quite a while without having a Chief Executive hovering over it. I don’t know of any continuing crisis that’s happening in South Carolina right now that would require Sanford’s oversight.

I’ll go one step further. I think that Sanford’s little sabbatical is a good thing. We could all do with our Governor dropping off the grid once in a while. I bet you that California wished that its Governator has done that a few times in the past year or so. Our elected officials, at the state government, have become far too important. We really don’t need the ones who aren’t directly running emergency agencies to be on call 24/7. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if we started to see them as less necessary on a daily basis.

I did find one thing curious and I haven’t seen anyone else mention it so far. How is it that the SLEP couldn’t trace either Sanford’s cell phone or the vehicle he was driving? I would have thought, at the very least, that every SLEP vehicle would have some sort of GPS transmitter on it, for security purposes. Ditto his state cell phone, for the same reason. I’d think that the SLEP would need to know the whereabouts of all their vehicles.

UPDATE: Little Miss Attilla agrees with me, which means I have to be correct!

I was poking around on Twitter last night and there were a few folks giving off the “well, there go his Presidential hopes” sort of vibe. Why is that, exactly? It’s not like the guy killed someone or raised taxes on the rich. He hared off for a few days. Big deal. We don’t need 24/7 governors any more than we need a government to tell us what to eat, sleep, wear, watch, and drive.

We really need to get used to the idea that our elected officials aren’t as important as they say they are.

UPDATE 2: Michael van der Galien disagrees. I get the disagreement, but not entirely.

Seriously. Sit down for a moment and ask yourself what would happen if your state couldn’t get hold of your governor for a couple days. Would anything happen differently? Would the engine of government stop working completely?

I bet you no one would notice. Which tells you two things. First, government, of any size, has an inertia all its own. Second, our elected officials are not as vital to our daily lives as they want us to think they are.

If anything, Sanford’s mini-sabbatical has made me think more of him. I actually believe that he now has an even more compelling message should he decide to run for President in 2012.

Tags: Mark Sanford