Only Jenny Sanford can save Governor

The woman who holds the key to the political future of the disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is his wife, Jenny Sanford. In cheating on her with 'Maria' in Buenos Aires, Sanford has also betrayed his erstwhile banker and political adviser.

Jenny Sanford, 47, is a millionaire whose family fortune comes from the Skil power tool company. She managed her husband's first foray into politics when he became a congressman in 1994, and went on to run his successful race for governor in 2002. Only in 2006, on his re-election, did she begin to take a back seat and let him hire a political consultant.

The couple met in the Hamptons when they were both living in New York and working on Wall Street. With a finance degree from Georgetown University, she was a vice president in mergers and acquisitions at Lazard Freres. He worked at Goldman Sachs for a while but was not a natural: when they moved together to Charleston, South Carolina, he went into real estate.

Departing from tradition, Jenny Sanford did not stand at her husband's side during his "mea culpa" press conference yesterday. (This could be a new political trend - nor did Senator John Ensign's wife last week.)

Instead she issued her own statement to the press. "When I found out about my husband's infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage," she said.

"We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago."

However, now that her husband had publicly admitted his affair, she indicated she might be prepared to take him back. "I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage," she said.

Most political observers say Mark Sanford's chances of ever being President - and Jenny's of becoming First Lady - are over, not just because of the affair but because of the irresponsible way he tried to hide it from his aides, claiming he was going to hike the Appalachian Trail when he was actually flying to Buenos Aires.

But it is up to Jenny Sanford whether he can continue as governor, according to David Woodard, political science professor at Clemson University in Columbia, South Carolina. "The key to this is Jenny. If she's a jilted wife, I think it would be awfully hard for him to hang on."

If the Sanfords do remain in the Governor's mansion, he can probably no longer expect the level of support he has enjoyed from his wife these past seven years.

In a typical letter written last October to a political opponent questioning his staffing costs, she said: "Mark does have a security detail because, among other things, he's the last person to sign off on inmate executions - and that's just one of the things that he does that at times upsets people."