GOP presidential candidate Mark Sanford makes a campaign stop in Oakland.
Mark Sanford knows his bid to replace Donald Trump on the Republican ticket in the upcoming presidential election is a long shot. He’s just hoping to change the conversation.
The former congressman and governor of South Carolina came through Pittsburgh Tuesday on the first leg of his “Kids, we’re bankrupt and we didn’t even know it” tour, a weeklong 3,500-mile trek across the country in which he’s attempting to spread his message of fiscal conservatism.
“I’m not delusional about what’s happened to the last five folks who have tried to challenge the sitting president of their own party,” Mr. Sanford said during an early evening interview at Stack’d in Oakland. “But there is a value in trying to create this conversation, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Mr. Sanford chatted with customers at several restaurants and handed out pamphlets touting his ideas to people walking along Forbes Avenue, his third stop of the day after starting his tour in Philadelphia and visiting Harrisburg.
Much of the focus of Mr. Sanford’s campaign is aimed at raising the alarm on the country’s deficit, which he believes is a major threat to national security.
Mr. Sanford noted that Mr. Trump promised to eliminate the national debt during his term, but the president’s budgets have instead proposed raising the debt by trillions.
“I think that the road that President Trump is taking the Republican Party is the decidedly wrong road,” he said.
When he was in Congress, Mr. Sanford proposed legislation called the “Penny Plan,” which asked people to give up a penny for every dollar of federal benefit that they received. He said he would propose a similar plan if elected.
Regardless of what remedy would be agreed upon, he said, the important part is to start pushing Congress to search for a solution.
“The first part of dealing with a problem is recognizing that you have one,” Mr. Sanford said. “I watched another Democratic debate last night, it didn’t come up . ... On the Republican side it’s sort of the three monkeys: I hear no evil. I see no evil. I speak no evil. We’re not talking about it.”
While the deficit is Mr. Sanford’s key issue, he views the disregard being shown for political norms and tribalism “plaguing” politics as extremely detrimental to the country’s health.
Mr. Sanford started his tour in Philadelphia and is ending it next Wednesday at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. He said the beginning and ending locations of his tour are symbolic of the responsible leadership and civil political discourse that he believes the country needs to get back to.
“Disregarding the political norms and institutions that our Founding Fathers gave us would come at great detriment to our ability to sustain the American dream and our civilization,” he said.