Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009

Hunch leads to airport and tired, troubled Sanford

It was about 6:15 a.m. Wednesday as I stood in the waiting area at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, squinting my eyes to see whether Gov. Mark Sanford was part of a crowd exiting the plane from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“Is he there? Is he there?” I kept asking myself as I craned my neck, flipped on my digital recorder and booted up my digital camera.

“And why is there no other media here?” I wondered. “Could we be the only ones onto this story?”

It’s how you think when you’re playing a hunch, following an anonymous tip that Sanford would be on the plane and anonymous, unverifiable e-mails about an alleged affair between Sanford and woman from Argentina.

Then, my jaw dropped when Sanford appeared. My camera flashed, almost as a reflex.

“Governor,” I called. “Hey. It’s Gina with The State paper. Everybody’s been worried about where you’ve been. ... Have you been on the Appalachian Trail?”

“Well, that’s where I had planned to go when I decided to take a break ...” Sanford said, his voice trailing off. He suggested we grab a seat and have a talk.

NERVOUS MOMENTS

Sanford was nervous — not so much when I first approached him, but certainly once we were seated in the airport terminal and the interview began.

For several moments, he gazed off, searching for the words, his mouth opening, then closing.

He seemed tired, deflated. And not because of a long international flight.

Suddenly, he launched into a talk about his love of the Appalachian Trail and hikes he’d taken on it dating back to his high school years. That led him to talk of other “adventure trips” he’d taken over the years, including his time in Congress, to recharge and regroup — the coast of Turkey, the Greek Islands, various parts of South America.

Sometimes, he went alone on the trips. Sometimes, with friends. But always, he said, with the blessings of his wife, Jenny Sanford.

“I would get out of the bubble I’m in,” he said, adding the life of a public figure can be grueling. Public figures always have to be on, always prepared for the spotlight.

“I live in a world where when I walk out of the grocery store, I try to make eye contact with everyone I meet because if I don’t (people will be left with a bad impression of me),” Sanford said.

He said he enjoyed being an unknown in an unfamiliar place, where he could people watch, walk the streets, go into a bar and drink a beer, unnoticed.

Buenos Aires was just that type of place, he said, adding he’d visited the city on two previous occasions.

MEASURED WORDS

Sanford tried to control the interview, several times requesting that I please put my pen down. He tried to steer me away from specific questions like, “Why does your staff think you’re on the Appalachian Trail?”

Finally, he yielded to the question.

“I don’t know,” he said, adding he’d told a staff member he likely was going to hike the Appalachian Trail during his vacation.

I quizzed him on whether he’d specifically told his staff or whether his staff specifically had asked where he was in the last few days.

“No,” he said.

And had he been alone in Buenos Aires?

“Yes,” he said.

That’s when he cut me off, saying he could see where the interview was going and he did not want to discuss the situation further.

With that, the governor said goodbye and left the airport with an aide.

(Later that day, Sanford admitted to a room full of journalists that he had had an extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina. I always will wonder if the story would have broken if I had failed to catch him in the airport.)

As Sanford walked away from our interview, it was clear he was troubled, feeling defeat both personally and professionally.

The bruising legislative session, dominated by his refusal to accept $700 million in federal stimulus money, was only part of the problem.

“I don’t hate my job,” he said near the end of our interview. But, he said, he was close to hating it.

It was a job where he should have the ability to accomplish big things, he said.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “I didn’t.”

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