Final Round Set for Parties in South Carolina House Race

María Belén Chapur’s appearance was a surprise, especially to leaders in the national Republican Party. It might not have been the most strategic move in Mr. Sanford’s attempt at a political comeback. Still, it was how Mr. Sanford wanted it.

Whether national Republican leaders will decide that the former governor is putting the seat in jeopardy and decide to lend more support is only one question in a race that has already been filled with political and personal drama. After defeating 15 other candidates in a primary race and winning a runoff on Tuesday, Mr. Sanford faces Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Democrat with enough celebrity appeal and financial backing to change what could have been an easy victory in the special election on May 7 into a real battle.

“Everybody is really concerned because she’s not a bad-looking lady, she is a good speaker and she’s got some money,” said Jerry Hallman, chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party. “In politics, those things are important.”

The seat became vacant after Senator Jim DeMint announced in December that he was stepping down to take over the Heritage Foundation. Gov. Nikki R. Haley appointed Representative Tim Scott to replace him, opening up the Congressional seat that Mr. Sanford held before he became governor.

Gender, fidelity and experience are already shaping up as themes in the district, which includes Charleston, Hilton Head and some Low Country farmland. Mr. Sanford began his campaign as a kind of apology tour, explaining he had learned much about humility after leaving the governor’s office in 2011, having lied about a trip to Argentina to visit Ms. Chapur. Mr. Sanford said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Although he finished his term, he faced ethics fines, censure by his party and divorce from his wife of 21 years, Jenny.

Now, he has gone on the offensive, portraying himself as a seasoned fiscal hawk in a race against a political neophyte whose most notable credential is her celebrity family. Ms. Colbert Busch’s younger brother is the comedian Stephen Colbert, who has been active in her campaign.

Already the national Republican Party, though not committing to using heavy artillery in the race, is painting Ms. Colbert Busch as too liberal for a district that voted for Mitt Romney in the presidential primary. (Newt Gingrich won the state over all.)

“So far, Elizabeth Colbert Busch has yet to answer any real questions about why she supports President Obama’s failed policies,” said Katie Prill, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “She might be the gem of the Beltway and Hollywood liberals, but South Carolinians are going to be sorely disappointed the more they learn about her.”

Ms. Colbert Busch is leaning on her years as a maritime executive and at Clemson University, where she is leading an effort to develop the state’s wind power industry. She is also relying on several women in Congress, among them Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the New York Democrat, who began using Twitter to seek donations to the campaign.

Democratic leaders realize the race must be run without error, with special attention paid to women and moderate Republicans who remember Mr. Sanford’s rocky relationship with the Legislature when he was in office and, of course, his affair.

But the national organization probably won’t make a move until the other side does.

“This is a Republican seat in a Republican district, so we’ll wait and see what the Republicans do,” said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Hesaid national Republican organization might not be eager to get involved.

“Having Mark Sanford as the face of the party is probably not the best thing for a party trying to rehabilitate itself with women voters,” he said.

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Why the latest round of debt talks ground to a halt (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – With the exit of GOP negotiators and collapse of the debt talks led by Vice President Joe Biden, the onus of solving America’s debt crisis falls to President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio, and Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada.

This punt to the top is only the latest in a series of failed bids to make the toxic political choices that are needed, as early as Aug. 2, to avoid a default on the $14.3 trillion national debt. Options on the table, each fiercely defended by one party, include trillions of dollars in spending cuts, billions in tax increases, and overhauls of iconic entitlement programs.

Mr. Biden had hoped to present a “blueprint for putting America’s fiscal house in order” by the July recess, which begins for the House on Friday. Instead, these talks derailed over the scope of spending cuts and the prospect of tax increases. Still, Biden said, the aim of the talks from the outset was to “report our findings back to our respective leaders.”

RECOMMENDED: Debt ceiling 101

“The next phase is in the hands of those leaders, who need to determine the scope of an agreement that can tackle the problem and attract bipartisan support,” he said in a statement Thursday. “For now the talks are in abeyance as we await that guidance.”

On Monday morning, Mr. Obama and Biden will meet with Senator Reid and, in the evening, with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky to discuss the status of the debt negotiations.

Previous bipartisan efforts to chart a path out of unsustainable debt also derailed over the mix of spending cuts and tax increases. The chairs of the president’s 2010 deficit commission produced a plan to cut $4 trillion over 10 years, which failed a vote by the full commission and was ignored by both Obama and Congress. Six senators launched an independent, bipartisan “Gang of Six” to implement that plan, but it hit an impasse over entitlement cuts. Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, the key link to conservatives, walked out on May 17.

The Biden talks, launched on May 5, included four Democrats and two Republicans with ties to leadership. Meeting weekly, then several times a week, negotiators produced a shortlist of some $2 trillion in proposed cuts over 10 years – including agricultural subsidies, federal employee pensions, and student loans.

But Democrats said that spending cuts had to be balanced by tax increases – including the elimination of “wasteful subsidiesâ€

On Wednesday, Senate Democratic leaders added another element to the mix by calling on the Biden negotiators to include a jobs plan to help stimulate the economy. “Cutting is only part of the game,â€

“We're seeking policies to build roads and bridges and dams and water systems and sewer systems, to create clean-energy jobs, to provide tax incentives for businesses to hire new employees,” he added. “They've been proven to create jobs in the past, and they have had, in the past, broad bipartisan support.”

It was a bridge too far for Republicans. But when House majority leader Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia and Senate minority whip Jon Kyl (R) of Arizona quit the talks on Thursday, they cited the dispute over tax increases and new plans for stimulus spending.

The House won’t vote to increase taxes, so taxes are off the table, said Representative Cantor, who led the walkout on Day 50 of the talks. “I believe it is time for the president to speak clearly and resolve the tax issue,” he said in a statement. “Once resolved, we have a blueprint to move forward to trillions of spending cuts and binding mechanisms to change the way things are done around here.”

Senator McConnell took to the floor after the walkout. “Most Americans had to wonder if they were dreaming this morning when they saw this headline: ‘Democrats call for new spending in US debt deal.’ More spending? As a solution to a debt crisis? What planet are they on?”

Still, Senate Republicans have taken a more conciliatory stance than their House counterparts in the Biden talks. In recent weeks, Senator Kyl said that spending and entitlement cuts could cover more than a 10-year period. And McConnell said that Republicans were open to short-term deals, if Congress can’t resolve the entire issue by Aug. 2.

House GOP leaders, on the other hand, see this moment as a historic opportunity to roll back the scope of government and set the nation on a new fiscal path. They are holding out for at least $2.4 trillion in spending cuts – the size needed to cover the increase in the debt ceiling through 2012.

House Republicans are also drawing a line on tax increases, including no cuts in corporate tax breaks unless such cuts are offset by new tax cuts elsewhere.

Yet over in the Senate, McConnell and 32 other Republicans joined Democrats in voting for a stand-alone cut in the subsidy for ethanol – a move that could open the door to including tax breaks in a blueprint for lower deficits. It's a move explicitly ruled out by the taxpayer pledge of Americans for Tax Reform, which scores members of Congress on their adherence to pledging not to raise taxes.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee and a negotiator in the Biden talks, blames this rigidity over the pledge – which requires net offsets for ending any tax loophole – as the reason for Cantor’s exit.

Cantor denies that claim. “This was not just a matter of loopholes,” said Brad Dayspring, a Cantor spokesman. “Tax increases are a nonstarter.”

He added, “The way to move forward is to have the president get involved. Eric is confident there’s a foundation there for an agreement.”

While necessary at this point, the prospect of a deal emerging from a Gang of Three at the White House is unsettling to lawmakers at both ends of the political spectrum. They fear they will be forced to accept a deal under the gun of a government shutdown.

“It will be unacceptable for the White House talks or any talks to produce a controversial decision at the 11th hour and for them to come before the Congress all in a panic and say: ‘You’ve got to pass this solution that we have come up with in secret,’ ” said Sen. Bernard Sanders (I) of Vermont, one of the Senate’s strongest liberals, in a floor speech on Thursday.

Meanwhile, 98 House Republicans and 22 GOP senators have endorsed legislation sponsored by Rep. Tom McClintock (R) of California and Sen. Patrick Toomey (R) of Pennsylvania that aims to avoid default on the national debt by requiring the Treasury to pay debt obligations before any other government expenditures.

US debt risks exceeding the size of the US economy by 2021, according to a report released this week by the Congressional Budget Office.

RECOMMENDED: Debt ceiling 101

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