MARK SANFORD came into office as a reformer. He had the burning desire to change things that you tend only to find in outsiders. But the enduring question remains: Can an outsider, once inside, be effective in bringing about systemic change?

We wondered in an editorial on the day of his inaugural, "Will he be a .‘.‘. Jimmy Carter outsider, who is admired for his grasp of the issues but completely ineffective?"

Now that he's been through his first legislative session, I have more reason to worry about that possibility (despite some good last-minute work on campaign finance reform and the 0.08 bill). I think Mr. Sanford at times has worried a little about the Carter syndrome himself -- not so much that he might not be re-elected (I don't think Mr. Sanford cares all that much about that, something that sets him apart from other politicians), but that he will be ineffective in achieving his goals in office. There's a real danger of that, based on some of what we've seen in recent months.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with being like Jimmy Carter, whom I admire, as a man, more than anyone else who has been president of the United States in my lifetime. But his one-term presidency is widely regarded as a failure.

The key to that failure was a set of character traits -- many of them admirable ones -- that Mr. Sanford shares. They include:

- Extreme "outsider" status, even within their own respective parties. Mr. Carter never kowtowed to Congress, and Congress never wanted to do a thing for him; by the halfway point of his presidency, the left wing of his party was in open revolt. Mr. Sanford was never the choice of party insiders, and for his part, he shuns much of the personal deal-making that is part of the legislative process. As a result, despite public shows of unity, even Republican leaders have at times gone out of their way to derail some efforts by the governor.

- Independent thinking. Neither cares much, on a fundamental level, what others think about what he believes. This is highly unusual in a politician. They tend to be extroverts like Bill Clinton, constantly seeking affirmation from others. Messrs. Carter and Sanford seem to get all the reinforcement they need from within themselves -- or from their families, or religious faith, or somewhere other than the political marketplace. This can lead to great high-mindedness, and political ineffectiveness.

- Rigidity. As a result of the above, Jimmy Carter could almost never be persuaded to bend on a matter of principle. Mark Sanford is the same way, if not more so. Note, for instance, his sticking with his commitments to the Reserves and to a speaking engagement in the Bahamas. Note his refusal to bend on the idea of a cigarette tax hike being paired with his income-tax cut, an insistence that doomed the much-needed cigarette increase.

- Micromanaging. President Carter had the White House tennis courts. Governor Sanford has -- well, almost everything. I've never actually seen him counting paper clips, but he's developed a reputation as one who might do that sort of thing.

At least in Mr. Sanford's case, the obsessiveness is more relevant, and could even prove useful. I have in mind his bulldog aggressiveness in grilling agency heads in the series of uprecedented budget meetings that started last month. As documented by my colleague Cindi Scoppe last week, Mr. Sanford is doing something that, amazingly, has not been tried in state government in my memory: questioning the most fundamental assumptions about the way things have always been done. The result is likely to be a radically different budget proposal presented to the Legislature next session.

These few months that the legislative branch is out of town could present our governor with an opportunity to play to his strengths -- which are, in many cases, those very same traits that have made him, and Jimmy Carter before him, so ineffective in dealing with lawmakers.

The outside perspective, the independence, the steadiness of convictions and the appetite for digging into detail could all stand him in good stead as he tries to bring about the ship of state by way of the budgeting process.

I hope so because I still want to see this governor succeed -- maybe not in everything that he wants to do, but in the overall task of getting this state on an even keel. If a man of principle with fresh, untried ideas, a man who cares more about doing the right thing, as he sees the right, than about being popular can't be an effective leader in this state, then we are in deeper trouble than has yet been acknowledged.

Note that I said, as he sees the right. This is by no means about ideology. I've been known to disagree strongly with Jimmy Carter on rare occasions, such as over the war in Iraq. I disagree sharply with some of Mr. Sanford's most strongly held positions, mostly rising out of his libertarianism. But you don't have to agree with someone to respect his integrity in espousing his beliefs, and to see the need for more of that sort of thing in government.

One of the many long-suffering bosses I've had in my career, thoroughly exasperated with the bullheaded way I tended to play with others, said that if I wanted to be successful, I would have to make up my mind: Did I want to be right, or be effective?

This was at least a decade ago, so I don't recall exactly how I responded. But I remember being torn between saying either, "Both, of course," or "If I have to choose, I'd rather go down in flames being right."

Jimmy Carter, without really intending to, ended up taking the latter course. For the sake of South Carolina, which badly needs an effective governor, I hope Mark Sanford finds a way to negotiate the "both" option.