MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“The Curse of 2012,” Ellis Henican Column, am/New York, June 26, 2009
Mark Sanford got caught with an Argentine mistress.
Bobby Jindal opened his mouth.
John Ensign two-timed with a one-time staffer.
By this point, Sarah Palin’s personal calamties are almost too numerous to name.
It’s the Republican Curse of 2012. Who else dares to enter this race? Call it presidential politics, Agatha Christie-style.
No one has fully explained why. But bad things keep happening to promising candidates. Just as soon as they get dubbed “rising Republican star” — it’s flameout time.
Sanford is only the latest. The telegenic, second-term South Carolina governor was being so widely touted as someone to watch, he was put in charge of the Republican Governors Association, even ahead of Sarah Palin.
Then, the curse struck again.
Having been slapped around by his own Republican Legislature and the South Carolina courts, Sanford decided he needed a little head-clearing time on the Appalachian Trail — or, better yet, in the arms of his Buenos Aires e-mail babe. He didn’t bother to mention any of this to anyone back home.
Clearly, no uncursed politician would ever pull a maneuver like that.
I’m telling you, these Republican hopefuls are cursed!
How else to explain what happened to Ensign? The family-values Nevada senator watched helplessly while his White House dreams collided with his lust for a former campaign aide, who also happened to be his congressional assistant’s wife.
The curse!
Why else would Louisiana’s Jindal answer Barack Obama’s State of the Union with a high school debate performance in front of a staircase from “Gone With the Wind”?
The curse!
And what about Palin? Just as her name began to float as a possible Republican 2012 nominee, unpleasant things began to occur. Her teenage daughter got pregnant. Her future son-in-law became an ex-future-son-in-law. With dire consequences, she decided to discuss complex domestic issues and foreign affairs. Certainly, she had to know better than that.
She was helpless in the face of the curse.
No one knows yet who will be the next victim of the Republican Curse of 2012.
But here’s a hint: Who else from the party might like to be president?
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