Sanford/Palin 2012! (With Updates!)

This guy wants to run against Obama in 2012. That goal might be a bit hard for him to achieve after this:

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford’s staff said this morning that the governor plans to return to his office Wednesday. Late Monday, his office said the governor was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, ending four days during which staff and state officials said they had not heard from him.

In a statement, Joel Sawyer, Sanford's spokesman said, "Governor Sanford called to check in with his chief of staff this morning. It would be fair to say the governor was somewhat taken aback by all of the interest this trip has gotten. Given the circumstances and the attention this has garnered, the governor communicated to us that he plans on returning to the office tomorrow.

Neither Sanford’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford since he left the mansion Thursday in a black Suburban SUV assigned to his security detail, said state Sen. Jake Knotts , R-Lexington, and three others familiar with the situation, but who declined to be identified.

On Monday, Sawyer would not disclose where on the trail the governor was hiking, nor would he reveal whether Sanford was hiking alone. Sanford’s last known location was near Atlanta late last week. A mobile telephone tower there picked up a signal from his phone, according to a source familiar with the situation. Since then, the governor’s state and personal phones had been turned off, and Sanford had not responded to phone or text messages, a source said. Most mobile phones cannot be tracked if they are turned off.

First lady Jenny Sanford said Monday her husband has been gone for several days over Father’s Day weekend and she did not know where.

She said she was not concerned.

“He was writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids,” Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press while vacationing with the couple’s four sons at their Sullivan’s Island beach house. * * *

Before all this shit happened, Gov. Sanford was famous for speaking out against Obama's stimulus plan, and even tried (unsuccessfully) to reject portions of South Carolina's stimulus allotment. When those efforts failed, he apparently decided to take a long hike.

I hope he gets the GOP nomination in 2012, because the attack ads practically write themselves. One of them could be just like Hillary's "3 a.m. telephone call" ad, except it would show "President" Sanford's telephone ringing for four days straight without getting answered.

The real question, of course, is: Was Gov. Sanford hiking naked?

UPDATE: Sanford was in Argentina (at least that is what's currently being reported). There's simply too much shit happening with this story right now for me to fully cover it at this time, but ThinkProgress has the goods (as does TPM).

Something tells me that when all the dust clears, this story will be better than Ted Haggard and Larry Craig combined.

UPDATE II: Unless Sanford's "dear friend" in Argentina turns out to be a guy, it looks like all this story will boil down to is simply another Bible-beating Republican politician having an extra-marital affair. [yawn]

It even features FauxNews' worn-out ploy of "accidentally" mis-identifying the wrongdoer as a Democrat. I've lost count of how many times Fox has repeated that particular "mistake."

And I had such high hopes for this scandal. It had such a great start.