COLUMBIA (WACH) -- For a short time in June 2009 Governor Mark Sanford turned the people's house into a daytime drama.
"I've been unfaithful to my wife," Sanford told a crush of television cameras and a national TV audience that wanted to know where the governor had been.
Governor Sanford hadn't been heard from in the days leading up to that moment, telling his staff he was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail, when, in fact, he was visiting his Argentine mistress.
His revelation was part of a roughly 20 minute confessional at times both rambling and candid and it sent Sanford's rising star crashing down, turning him into an instant punch line
Eighteen months later, Sanford has survived what he calls the "storm." Lawmakers pressed him to resign and eventually censured him for bringing the state "ridicule and dishonor"
"You do a whole lot more soul searching, praying, thinking, go down the list on the way down than you do on the way up," said Sanford just before Christmas in his high-ceilinged office.
But, somehow Sanford has come back up. This past fall a Rasmussen poll showed he had a 55 percent approval rating despite all those calls for his resignation and even his own doubts, where he admits he came close to stepping down.
Before the affair Sanford, who has a well-earned reputation as being mindful of a dollar, earned a national reputation by opposing government bailouts and stimulus dollars. Many suggested he was using all that television time to make a run at the Oval Office. However, he still says a presidential push was never in the cards.
"Anybody who really watched my political start and the last 15 years for me in politics would have said this is totally predictable that this guy is speaking out against the stimulus," said Sanford. "Because it's the exact same thing he was talking about 15 years ago."
That kind of idealism earned Sanford plenty of opposition with the state legislature during his tenure. He was never part of what he calls the quote "marble trading" of Columbia politics. In 2004, Sanford once took live pigs into House chambers to protest pork barrel spending after fast action by representatives to override his budget vetoes.
At the time, House speaker David Wilkins said the stunt was beneath the dignity of the governor's office. Sanford argued it was merely a lighthearted way to prove a point about what he called "pork" in the state's budget, and today he would do it again.
"I don't like using political instruments that blunt," said Sanford. "But, if it's the only choice available and in that case what amounted to a Constitutional question then we'll use political instruments."
The stunt didn't earn him many allies, but, didn't cost him everything either all these years later. The chapter since his June 2009 decline has been stunning.
Sanford helped broker a blockbuster deal to land a Boeing plant in North Charleston, surprising lawmakers by supporting tax break incentives for a facility that will bring thousands of jobs...
The same man who was never comfortable with what he refers to as the "sand box" of the Columbia legislature bent a little and is arguably coming off his most successful year in office.
"I became less of the issue. My political trajectory became less an issue and the issue became the issue," said Sanford. "That was a very good thing in this last session."
Sanford stopped trying to cure in a single blow what he calls a laundry list of problems in South Carolina government. He instead limited his focus with his political life winding down.
The gains were incremental.. But after eight years of battling Sanford says the seeds of change have been planted for government reform. Only half of his budget vetoes were overturned this year, instead of all of them, and he brought the former state Employment Security Commission into the cabinet, despite wanting even more agencies.
Sanford says there's vindication in the fact his longtime message is catching fire with voters. Sanford was Tea Party before it was "cool" as a consistent voice for small government and limited spending. According to him, those were never his ideas, rather the people's.
"What South Carolinians told me was that they wanted someone to treat their money like it was their own in Columbia," said Sanford. "They wanted a little bit more bang for the buck."
The historic election of Nikki Haley is also a sign of progress says Sanford. Haley too is a loud voice for government reform and razor-thin spending, another face keeping the fallen star's longtime message on the rise.
"We've been talking for years about you can't go on spending money you don't have and have good things happen," said Sanford. "We've got to be putting some money aside for a rainy day. Well, the rainy day came and it was just beginning to shower. Well, it's pouring now. People begin to say, you know, maybe that guy wasn't as crazy and as we thought he was."
The governor doesn't have any big plans after Nikki Haley is sworn in Wednesday and takes over the office he's held for eight years. He says he's simply going to hop in son's pickup truck and head straight for the South Carolina coast.
But, some say Mark Sanford isn't done just yet, that despite the scandals, the 50-year-old still has considerable political legs. In response to that, Sanford says, "never say never."
To see our entire raw interview with Governor Sanford click here.
How would you grade Sanford's performance over the past eight years? Vote in our poll below and leave a comment telling us the legacy you think he'll leave with South Carolina.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWACH