“Family Values” Republican Mark Sanford Didn’t Tell His Fiancee Before Dumping Her On Facebook

Family values hypocrite Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC) showed what Republicans think of family by not giving his fiancee a heads up before publicly humiliating her by dumping her on Facebook.

In an interview with The New York Times, Sanford’s former fiancee Maria Belen Chapur said,

Ms. Chapur was speaking from Paris, where she had just spent a week with Mr. Sanford.

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“We had a great time here, we were like in a honeymoon,” she said. “I thought that he might tell me, ‘O.K., let’s put a date, end of 2015.’ But that didn’t happen. That’s why I wrote to him, ‘I had a spectacular week, you know I love you, but I don’t want to continue in the category of mistress, and if we continue like this I continue in that category, and I can’t bear it anymore. It has been really painful to me.’ ”

She continued, “His response was, ’24 months. If not I’ll say goodbye and I will look for you in 24 months.’ ” She said she had asked him to make their break public, but that Mr. Sanford did not warn her before announcing it on Facebook on Friday, catching her off guard. “I learned it from the press today,” she said Saturday.

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Ms. Chapur said she felt as if she had been cast aside now that Mr. Sanford was back in political office (he will face no major challenge this fall).

“I think that I was not useful to him anymore — he made the engagement thing four months before the elections,” Ms. Chapur said. “So this is not about his son, this is about his career and his ambitions.” Mr. Sanford, she said, “truly was the love of my life.” But, she added, “In 24 months, what was it going to be?”

Rep. Sanford tried to make the Appalachian Trail scandal go away by getting engaged to his mistress. Once he won the House special election in South Carolina; he had no use for his fiancee anymore, so he dumped her via Facebook. This is what passes for family values in the Republican Party.

The fact that Sanford is a sleazy political operator who is more concerned with his own ambitions than anything else isn’t a shock, but the fact that a sitting member of Congress would be so callous and oblivious to the blowback that has come from dumping his fiancee via Facebook speaks volumes about the selfish behavior that dominates the Republican Party.

Sanford’s behavior is the latest example that disproves the Republican claim that they are the party of family values.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association