How Scott English Escaped Mark Sanford’s Hellhole

… FOR STAMPS

|| By FITSNEWS || The news that U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford was losing his third chief of staff in the space of thirteen months came as a surprise to most Palmetto political observers.

Scott English – who is departing Sanford’s congressional office – has worked on-and-off for Sanford for nearly two decades, in his first congressional office in the late 1990s, in his gubernatorial office during the previous decade and most recently in his congressional office (again).

Known as “The Martyr,” English put in late hours and was fiercely loyal to Sanford.  He was also at the heart of several scandals involving the chronically narcissistic politician – including one involving Kristin Maguire, Sanford’s since-disgraced choice to lead the S.C. Board of Education.

In addition to being Sanford’s “bag man,” English was also the “Luv Gov’s” institutional memory, recalling Sanford’s various policy positions so as to guide his decision-making … you know, before Sanford surrendered his vote to fiscally liberal U.S. Speaker John Boehner.

Why would someone leave an arguably influential post like that for the obscurity – nay, indignity – of being the “executive director of the American Philatelic Society.”

Philately? 

Yup.  You’ve just gotta love a job people (especially in South Carolina) instinctively confuse with fellatio … which we suppose is now Sanford’s department given how regularly he drops to his knees for the Washington, D.C. establishment these days.

No, philately is stamp collecting … which is about as boring and irrelevant a “life raft” for a political hack as we can imagine.

So, how did Sanford’s most trusted advisor wind up leaving him for  … a stamp collecting club.

Good question …

For the answer, we have to rewind the clock to 2011 – when Sanford was leaving office and English was looking for a job.  Enter Mick Zais, who had just been elected S.C. Superintendent of Education.

Zais hired English to a nice, high-paying government job.  In fact he’d probably still be there had Zais not surprised everyone by announcing in December 2013 that he would not seek a second term in office.

Zais left office in January 2015 – at which point English became Sanford’s new chief of staff in Washington, D.C.

By April, though, things were unraveling.  In the midst of a flood of staff departures and allegations of increasingly erratic behavior by Sanford, English told his boss he was leaving when the legislative session ended in the summer.

Why? The stress was getting to him.  He was smoking cigarettes again.  Gaining back a lot of the weight he had recently lost.

So who got him his “life raft?”

Zais …

As it turns out, the former S.C. schools chief is an avid “philateler.”  In fact he’s on a pair of influential boards of the American Philatelic Society.

He helps the organization raise money …

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(Cap via)

And “secure the future” (a.k.a. raise more money) …

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(Cap via)

Wow …

Good for you, Scott English.  It must be nice to have a pair of political sugar daddies to ping pong back and forth between, right?  Especially in an economy in which 93 million working age Americans are out of the labor force.

Oh well, at least this guy is (at long last) off the taxpayer dole …

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