Will Mr. Sanford go to Washington?

Mark Sanford is easy to overlook. If Republicans need a champion in the Obama era, there are more colorful candidates than the South Carolina governor. He doesn’t play electric bass, or to the Religious Right, like Mike Huckabee. He has made no attempt to rewrite the GOP’s almost forgotten small-government playbook like Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty or Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. Though he is popular, Sanford seems incapable of playing a red-meat populist like Sarah Palin. He looks plain, his philosophy is old, and he has an elegiac demeanor that seems incompatible with electoral politics.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford should be atop the Republican list of presidential candidates for 2012. However, based on the way they recently governed, I doubt the Republicans are ready for a small government candidate. They certainly did not open their arms for Ron Paul in 2008 and Sanford, like Paul, is a free-market, small government proponent. We would much rather see him make a run on a third (or fourth) party ticket.