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Mark Sanford's affair: Argentina, amor

by Mark Silva and updated

Gov. Mark Sanford has come clean.

Not only was he not hiking on the Appalachian Trail -- but rather cruising around Argentina -- during his recent disappearing act.

The Republican governor of South Carolina also has been having an affair during the past year, he acknowledged today, just returned from his South American adventure. He said he had wanted something more "exotic'' than an Appalachian hike.

There goes another potential 2012 contendor

The Republican who had been viewed by some as a prospective candidate for president now is stepping down as head of the Republican Governors Association.

David Johnson, an Atlanta-based Republican pollster and strategist who campaigned for Bob Dole's presidential bid, says scandals such as Sanford's and Sen. John Ensign's recent admission of an affair mean that candidates such as Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, "who were considered by some as boring and shopworn, may get another look for 2012,'' and could also draw more attention to Govs. Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal, and Sen, John Thune.

Sanford, a married father of four, whose wife could not account for his whereabouts during the Father's Day weekend, emotionally apologized to his wife, staff and others after returning today from Argentina.

"I've let down a lot of people," Sanford said, "That's the bottom line. All I can say is I apologize."

Sanford told reporters that, for eight years, he and the Argentine woman had a "remarkable friendship" that turned into a romantic relationship during the past year. Sanford said his wife knew about the affair before his trip to Argentina and that they had been "working through this for the last five months."

The relationship "was selfishness on my part, and for that I am most apologetic," the governor said

His staff had said the Republican was hiking on the Appalachian Trai,l decompressing from a recent legislative session.

The former congressman had made news with his unsuccessful fight to reject federal stimulus spending for his state's schools.

Now he has another sort of headline going.

(South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his wife, Jenny, pictured above, attended a White House dinner in February hosted by President Barack Obama. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / . Sanford, pictured with his family below, took the oath of office after reelection last year. file photo. )

First elected governor in 2002, the former real estate developer has more than year remaining in his second term but is barred by state law from running again.

Sanford's announcement came a week after another prominent Republican, Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, apologized to his Senate colleagues after revealing last week that he had an affair with a campaign staffer and was resigning from the GOP leadership. He forfeited his party's No. 4 post in the Senate.

Sanford was born May 28, 1960, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the eldest of four. He earned a bachelor's degree in business from Furman University in 1983 and a master's of business administration from the University of Virginia in 1988.

After working in the financial world in New York, he returned to South Carolina. He served in the U.S. House for three terms before honoring a term-limits pledge and leaving office in 2001.

In 2002, he defeated incumbent Democrat Jim Hodges by 4 percentage points to become governor and won re-election in 2006, defeating Democratic state Sen. Tommy Moore.

As governor, Sanford has had seemingly endless run-ins with the GOP-dominated Legislature, once bringing pigs to the House chamber to protest pork barrel spending. He also put a "spending clock" outside his office to show how quickly a proposed budget would spend state money.

The governor, his office this week, "has never been accused of being conventional.'' His office also had been unable to say where he was, before issuing a statement Monday night that he was hiking along the Appalachian Trail.

He returned yesterday via Atlanta, where he told a waiting reporter from The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., that he had been in Argentina. He told the rest of the story at a news conference in the capital.

Wire stories contributed to this report.

Where In The World Is Gov. Mark Sanford?

Political junkie Ken Rudin takes on the week, including newly released audio of President Richard Nixon and "missing" Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC). Also, NPR White House correspondent Don Gonyea talks about accusations of "preferential treatment" at President Obama's press conference.