GOP colleague takes blame
BY DAVE MUNDAY
Of The Post and Courier Staff
ST. GEORGE--Gov. Mark Sanford is protesting the use of his name in a newspaper advertisement by state Rep. George Bailey, a fellow Republican seeking re-election in the House district that includes St. George.
State Rep. Annette Young, who supports Bailey, is taking the blame for what she said was a mix-up.
The ad, which ran Thursday in The Eagle-Record, a weekly paper in St. George, lists Sanford among the "special guests" at a Bailey rally next Thursday in Knightsville.
Sanford, however, hadn't heard of the event and was concerned people would think he had broken a promise by not attending, governor's spokesman Will Folks said.
"It's dishonest," Folks said in a statement released Friday. "It's not about political considerations to this governor. It's about trying to preserve some honesty in the process."
Folks compared Bailey's ad to a recent ad by Justin Kahn, a Democrat challenging incumbent state Sen. Glenn McConnell. Kahn's ad, which showed him and Sanford together, was "trying to make folks believe there's a relationship that doesn't exist," and Bailey's ad seemed to have the same intent, Folks said.
Young, R-Summerville, said it's unfair to blame Bailey for the ad. She was supposed to invite Sanford and authorized his inclusion in the ad, even though she hadn't reached the governor by the Monday deadline for finalizing the ad.
"It wasn't George's fault. It was my fault," Young said. "It was my responsibility to get hold of everybody."
The campaign also mailed out 7,000 invitations to the rally Wednesday, and Sanford's name isn't on those invitations, Young said.
It wasn't until Wednesday that it was apparent some of the "special guests," including Sanford, weren't coming, Young said.
Bailey has been under fire from the Democratic Party since jumping to the Republican side in March. The Democrats challenged several claims in his resume, and he acknowledged that he attended Lee Institute School of Real Estate in Brookline, Mass., not Washington and Lee University. He also clarified his resume to say he was in the Marine Reserve after saying for years that he was a Marine veteran. Democrats recently challenged his claim that he attended a military school in Augusta, an accusation that Bailey dismissed as "sour grapes" from the Democrats.
Bailey said he was sorry for the advertisement mix-up and that no deception was intended. A corrected ad will run next week in the Eagle-Record.
Click here to return to story:
http://www.charleston.net/stories/102304/loc_23bailey.shtml