Mark Sanford: Politically, 'I Am Dead'

"I am dead politically," onetime rising Republican star Mark Sanford told Columbia, S.C., radio station WVOC on Wednesday. After his nine-month affair with an Argentine woman was revealed in June, the South Carolina governor has been broadly criticized in his state and elsewhere. Members of his own party recently called for his impeachment for allegedly using taxpayer funds to travel to his trysts.

Although the wronged first lady, Jenny Sanford, at first told reporters she would "forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions" and "welcome him back . . . with a true spirit of humility and repentance," she has moved out of the governor's mansion in Columbia with the couple's four sons. They are now at the family home in Charleston so the boys can attend school "out of the fishbowl."

Sanford says he just wants "to make the most of the 16 months that are remaining" in his current term, "trying to honor where I started" and "hopefully make people's lives just a little bit better in South Carolina."

Admitting (again) that he "fell in love with one woman I should not have fallen in love with," the lame duck politician confirmed, "I am not running for another office."