Update: Mark Sanford announced on November 12, 2019, that he was ending the campaign.  Donald Trump’s approval rating among Republican voters hovers around 90 percent. Numbers that high normally mean no primary challenge. But the Trump presidency has been anything but normal. Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is one of three Republicans (so far) who have decided to challenge Trump. Sanford doesn’t expect to win or even come close to winning, especially when several state Republican parties have moved to scrap primaries or caucuses to keep the insurgents from gaining traction. Sanford says that his campaign is “worthwhile” anyway because it is changing the debate within the Republican Party. If Sanford should surprise even himself and be elected president, he might be the first one from South Carolina. Why the might? Because no one is sure whether Andrew Jackson was born in North Carolina or South Carolina. The Basics Name: Marshall Clement “Mark” Sanford Jr. Date of Birth: May 28, 1960 Place of Birth: Fort Lauderdale, Florida Religion: Episcopal   Political Party: Republican Marital Status: Divorced Children: Marshall, Landon, Bolton, Blake Alma mater: Furman University (BA), University of Virginia (MBA) Career: U.S. Representative (1994-2001, 2013-2019), Governor of South Carolina (2003-2011) Campaign Website: marksanford.com/ Twitter Handle: @MarkSanford Sanford’s Announcement Sanford announced his candidacy last month during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. He explained his decision to challenge Trump by saying: Americans deserve and need a choice that has had real executive branch experience, which I had over two terms as governor, which has had real legislative experience, which is what I had–over twelve years in the U.S. Congress in the Capitol right behind us. Sanford’s main issue is reining in America’s growing national debt, something that was his passion when he was in Congress. He also hopes to restore a Republican Party that, in his view, has lost its way.   Sanford’s Story Sanford was born to a well-off family in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He attended a private school and worked on a cattle farm in nearby Delray Beach. He also was an active Eagle Scout and captained his high school’s track team. After his junior year in high school, Sanford moved with his family moved to South Carolina. Sanford went on to study business at Furman University where he received his B.A. in 1983. He earned his MBA from the University of Virginia in 1988. Sanford moved initially to New York to work at Goldman Sachs. He soon returned to South Carolina, however, and turned his eye to politics. In 1994, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as part of the landslide “Republican Revolution.” Re-elected twice, he declined to run for re-election in 2000 because he had promised voters that he would serve only two terms. Sanford wasn’t out of politics for long. In 2002, he was elected governor of South Carolina. He won re-election easily four years later. In office he earned a reputation as a fiscal hawk. He garnered national attention in March 2009 when he initially refused to accept $700 million that the federal emergency stimulus package had earmarked for South Carolina. In the face of stiff criticism from fellow South Carolinians, he later accepted the funds provided that the state legislature paid down an equivalent amount of state debt. Sanford’s distaste for stimulus spending spurred talk that he might be a potential presidential candidate. But in June 2009 he disappeared for a week after telling his staff he would be hiking the Appalachian Trail. It turned out, though, that he wasn’t taking a walk in the woods. Instead, he was visiting a woman in Argentina he called his “soul mate.” When the news broke of where he had gone and why, he quickly admitted to adultery. He resigned a chair of the Republican Governor’s Association, but he refused to resign as governor. His marriage broke up, and he deciding against seeking re-election in 2010. Sanford didn’t stay on the political sidelines for long. In May 2013, he won a special election for his old congressional seat. He won re-election easily in 2014 and 2016. He supported Trump for president in 2016, but quickly soured on him as president. Sanford said Trump was “partially” to blame for the 2017 shooting of Republican lawmakers at a congressional baseball practice, He also called derogatory remarks Trump made about Haiti and Africa “unfortunate,” “problematic” and “stupid.” These criticisms did not sit well with the president. Trump endorsed Sanford’s opponent, Katie Arrington, in the 2018 Republican primary. She beat Sanford soundly, but then lost the general election. Sanford’s Message Sanford hates deficit spending and public debt. Not surprisingly, then, he promises that his presidency will tame runaway federal spending. He blames Trump for not championing fiscal conservatism and thereby imperiling the country: We’re walking our way towards the most significant financial storm, I believe, in our country since the great depression.. we need to have a real conversation about what that means for the American dream. His vision of fiscal conservatism stresses spending cuts rather than tax hikes to eliminate budget deficits. Sanford’s Foreign Policy Foreign policy has not been a focus of Sanford’s political career. He has said relatively little about it over the years. He didn’t participate in the Republican presidential debate that Business Insider held late last month, where foreign policy did come up. He also has yet to respond to candidate surveys that CFR and other organizations have sent. When Sanford has appeared on news shows since declaring his candidacy, he has seldom been asked about foreign policy. Sanford is a big fan of free trade. He notes, rightly, that the United States has “benefited tremendously” from trade. As his website puts it: the international trading system, created after World War Two, is vital to America’s foreign policy. In this light, stability and predictability are important. Friends and foes alike need to have a sense of what America will do next. Alliances and investments are not made without predictability. We are not getting this from the White House and I believe the increasing talks of tariffs, and the seemingly daily changes of presidential perspective are undermining our standing in the world. So not surprisingly, Sanford thinks Trump’s trade policies are hurting U.S. economic growth and costing American consumers money. Back in February 2018 he argued: What the president’s talking about–going back and renegotiating NAFTA—I think it would be catastrophic from the standpoint of the signals that it sends… If you do that, you will send an incredibly chilling effect to the rest of the world in America’s engagement with it that I think would be detrimental to commerce. Sanford similarly thinks that the trade war with China is a mistake. Rather than resorting to tariffs, he would respond to predatory Chinese trade policies by working closely with like-minded trade partners and harness the Trans-Pacific Partnership to “create a trading bloc that allows these countries some other option than simply China.” Sanford doesn’t appear to have said whether he would simply lift the tariffs once in office, or use the prospect of lifting them to extract concessions from Beijing. When it comes to the U.S. military, Sanford favors a non-interventionist foreign policy: Our country is enmeshed in permanent, ongoing foreign wars and interventions. The results of foreign intervention have been catastrophic, not only in terms of massive death and destruction abroad, but also in terms of ongoing, ever-growing destruction of liberty, privacy, and prosperity here at home. It is time for America to do some serious soul-searching. The best place to begin is by examining first principles—especially the founding principle of non-intervention on which our nation was founded and which remained its guiding principle for more than a century. Historians no doubt would question Sanford’s summary of U.S. history. The U.S. military didn’t sit in the barracks during the nineteenth century as he suggests—just ask Mexicans and Native Americans. That aside, he clearly wants a smaller U.S. footprint in the world. On that score he faces the same two questions that all non-interventionists—or “isolationists” as their critics call them—face: How do you unwind America’s role in the world without creating chaos that will make Americans less secure and less prosperous? And how do you avoid repeating the mistake of the 1930s, when the United States tried to ignore the world but the world chose not to ignore it? Sanford believes that human activity is warming the planet. Back in 2017 he joined with more than a dozen other Republicans to introduce a resolution calling on the House of Representatives to address the “causes and effects” of climate change. He is silent, though, on how he would deal with the problem. He makes a point to say that he opposes the 1992 Kyoto Protocol, but that agreement is a dead letter. He hasn’t said whether he supports the Paris Climate Agreement. More on Sanford Sanford wrote The Trust Committed To Me back in 2000. It examines his time in Congress and thoughts on term limits. His second book, Second Chance: The Mark Sanford Story, tells the story of his affair and its fallout. Sanford wrote an op-ed with fellow Republican challengers Bill Weld and Joe Walsh to argue that the Republican Party should give them a fair shot in the Republican primaries: “Each of us believes we can best lead the party. So does the incumbent. Let us each take our case to the public.” The New York Times profiled Sanford in 2014, noting that “he has managed something that few people have: returning to public office after an embarrassing, nationally televised—Twitterized and blogged—sex scandal.” The Economist called Sanford’s campaign the “most doomed action the venerable port [of Charleston, the home of Fort Sumter] has ever witnessed.” The New Yorker interviewed Sanford in July and asked why he voted for the Trump tax cut given his commitment to fiscal conservatism. Sanford recently appeared on the Daily Show and warned that “we’re headed for the biggest financial storm our country has ever seen outside the Great Depression.” Sanford answered eleven questions from the New York Times on executive power. In response to a question the extent of a presidential war power, he answered: “I believe the Constitution is clear and prescriptive that only Congress can declare war, and I have taken a longer number of votes that make concrete my beliefs on this front. In this vein, I would not rule out a preemptive strike against Iranian or North Korean nuclear capabilities, but once again I believe that this needs to be authorized by Congress.” Anna Shortridge and Caroline Kantis assisted in the preparation of this post.

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential challengers are saying about foreign policy.

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential challengers are saying about foreign policy on the campaign trail.

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential challengers are saying about foreign policy on the campaign trail.

Update: Steve Bullock announced on December 2, 2019, that he was dropping out of the race.  Can one of the last candidates to enter the 2020 race be the last one standing? Steve Bullock certainly hopes so. The Montana governor waited until after twenty-one other Democrats had declared for the presidency before throwing his hat in the ring. His late start is one of the reasons he didn’t qualify for the first round of Democratic debates. But while Bullock doesn’t qualify as the proverbial early bird, his candidacy is unique: he is the only one of the Democratic candidates to have won a state-wide race in a state that Donald Trump won in 2016. Bullock’s challenge, though, is that his home state of Montana ranks forty-fourth in the country in terms of population, with slightly less than 1.1 million people. That’s a half million fewer people than live in Manhattan. If Bullock does pull off his longshot bid, he will not just be the first president from Montana. He will be the first president from any of the states in the Rocky Mountain West. The Basics Name: Stephen Clark Bullock Date of Birth: April 11, 1966 Place of Birth: Missoula, Montana Religion: Catholic Political Party: Democratic Party Marital Status: Married (Lisa Bullock) Children: Caroline (17) Alexandria (15), Cameron (12) Alma Mater: Claremont McKenna College (BA) and Columbia University (JD) Career: Governor of Montana (2013-present), Attorney General of Montana (2009-2013), lawyer, adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School Campaign Website: https://stevebullock.com/ Twitter Handle: @GovernorBullock Bullock’s story: Bullock grew up in Helena, Montana. His parents divorced when he was in elementary school, and he was raised by his mother. He was active in politics in high school — he was the student body president at Helena High, student representative on the Montana Board of Public Education, and the 1983 Youth Speaker of the House for the YMCA Youth and Government Program. He attended Claremont McKenna College, which is located thirty miles east of Los Angeles. He studied politics, philosophy, and economics. He then ventured to the other coast to earn his law degree from Columbia University in 1994. Bullock joined a New York City law firm coming out of law school. But the appeal of Big Sky Country proved too strong. He returned home in 1996 to become chief legal counsel to Montana’s secretary of state. A year later, he joined Montana’s Department of Justice. He served first as assistant attorney general and then as acting chief deputy attorney general. Bullock lost a race for attorney general of Montana in 2000. He then spent time as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He opened his own law practice back in Helena in 2004. He was elected attorney general of Montana in 2008. In 2012, he was elected governor of Montana. He won re-election easily in 2016, even though Donald Trump carried Montana in a landslide. Because Bullock is so popular in Montana, many Democrats want him to abandon his presidential bid in favor of a run against Montana’s incumbent Republican senator, Steve Daines, next year. Bullock has consistently said “no” to the idea. Bullock’s Announcement Bullock announced his bid for president on May 14 by releasing a video. Later that day, he held a kickoff event in a classroom at his old high school in Helena, Montana. In both instances, he stressed fighting the influence of money in politics, citing his own battle as attorney general of Montana and as governor of Montana against the consequences of the Supreme Court’s ruling in battle against Citizens United. In Bullock’s view, the United States must “defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people’s voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone.” He also stressed how he succeeded in a red, pro-Trump state by bringing people together. He did not mention foreign policy in either the video or at the launch event. Bullock’s Message Bullock wants to get big money out of politics. As his website puts it: “If we can kick the Koch Brothers and foreign donors out of Montana, we can do the same thing all across our nation.” Steps he said he would take as president on this score include an executive order to “crack down on dark money,” a ban on super PACs, and a push to spur a movement to overturn Citizens United. Bullock’s Foreign Policy Views Bullock hasn’t said much about foreign policy. Partly that reflects his career trajectory. Governors and state attorneys general seldom venture into the foreign policy thicket. But Bullock’s relative silence also reflects the fact that he hasn’t been asked much about the topic. As a late entrant into the presidential race, he failed to qualify for the first round of Democratic debates. He did make the debate stage during the second round, where he got perhaps ninety seconds to speak about foreign policy. He failed to qualify for the third debate earlier this month, and he’s unlikely to qualify for the October 15 debate. Like his fellow Democratic candidates, Bullock opposes Trump’s foreign policy. He says that America First has “turned into America Alone.” He goes as far as to say that the United States will be its own worst enemy if the “the level of divisiveness we have” continues. Bullock has called for a return to much closer cooperation with U.S. allies. To that end, he says: “My first trip [as president] would be assuring our allies that the trusted partner that they’ve had for four decades would continue to be their partner.” Bullock has joined with his Democratic rivals in arguing that the United States should stop supporting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. He has not followed his Democratic rivals, however, in committing to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan before the end of his first term. He only says he wants “our brave service members to come home as soon as possible.” Bullock has also declined to sign onto the pledge by Elizabeth Warren to never use a nuclear weapon unless another country does so first. He says he “wouldn’t want to take that [option] off of the table.” He does want to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, even as he acknowledges its flaws. He attributes the Obama administration’s ability to strike the deal to its willingness to cooperate with U.S. allies. As president, he says he would work with European allies to denuclearize Iran and stabilize the region so that it no longer lives under the “threat of nuclear conflict.” As for the other major proliferation challenge, Bullock proposes to “work to ensure that North Korea provides more than hollow promises but demonstrates real progress towards denuclearization.” One issue on which Bullock would exercise U.S. leadership is climate change. He says he would rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day in office, which he believes will make the United States “better positioned to influence other nations in the fight against climate change.” He emphasizes the importance of working with multilateral organizations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to move all countries toward carbon-neutrality by 2050. Bullock also says he would ensure that the departments of Commerce, Energy, and State, as well as the Export-Import Bank, take on a global role to help countries “to consider and adopt U.S.-engineered carbon-free energy technologies.” Like most of the other Democratic candidates, Bullock says he would not have the United States rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as it is currently written. He says he intends to sign only free trade agreements that guarantee high labor standards, “leverage improved environmental conservation,” and prioritize American workers. But he also says that a reworked TPP could be part of a strategy to push back against China, which he calls a “tremendous economic threat.” He also says that the United States should stand up to China’s human rights abuses. Bullock agrees with the Trump administration’s policy of supporting Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela. He says that the United States should work with its allies to pressure the Maduro regime to work toward a democratic transition. More on Bullock Bullock hasn’t written the standard presidential campaign memoir. He did write an op-ed for the New York Times back in 2017 offering his fellow Democrats advice on how they can win in the Red State West. He suggested that they get outside their “Beltway bubble” and “take a more expansive view of the America that exists beyond the confines of the Eastern Seaboard.” In 2017, Politico Magazine called Bullock “one of the most popular governors in the country” but suggested he would be a longshot Democrat presidential candidate because he lives “in the heart of the 185th-largest media market in the country (out of 210)” and “55 percent of registered voters report never having heard of him.” The New Yorker sat with Bullock at a bar in Des Moines watching the third presidential debate on television as he admitted: “I’d rather be on the debate stage, but I don’t think being on the debate stage is going to define what the first week of February looks like.” Vox described Bullock’s campaign strategy for the 2020 election as “pragmatic progressivism.” The Atlantic asked Bullock why he is staying in the race when the odds are stacked against him and got a direct answer from the governor: “At least in the past, there’s been a premium for people that have actually had to run things and make government work.” Bullock appeared on the Daily Show earlier this month and explained what sets him apart from other presidential candidates in the race: “I am the only one in this field that won a Trump state.” The Washington Post talked to Bullock about the issue he has put forefront of his campaign—eliminating “dark money”—and concluded that he has “yet to find that pithy, relatable message” on campaign finance “that can elicit a visceral reaction among voters and cultivate a loyal following. Bullock answered fifteen questions from the New York Times. When he was asked where he would go on his first international trip as president, he answered “that could be as close as Canada, it could be down to Mexico. It could be over to Europe as well.” CFR asked Bullock twelve foreign policy questions. When asked to name America’s greatest foreign policy accomplishment since World War II, he said it was “the construction of the post-war liberal world order through our establishment of a system of alliances and institutions.” He said that biggest mistake the United States has made since World War II was the Iraq War because it was “started based on the naïve belief that the U.S. could overthrow a regime in the Middle East and democracy would naturally ensue.” Anna Shortridge assisted in the preparation of this post.