“Luv Gov” Needs Crisis Control

by lisa ~ June 25, 2009

June 25, 2009 - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is undoubtedly in need of crisis control. His web site has apparently crashed and it’s a sure bet that every PR agency with a public affairs or crisis practice is overwhelming the phone lines to the state house in Columbia.

In the midst of calls for his resignation and laments about the future of the Republican party, the Wall Street Journal’s “Speakeasy” blog compares Sanford to actor Jude Law. “Law has not been able to make himself a star because he’s incapable of projecting strength. He comes off as decent, guilty, a little petulant, candid but weak. That was Sanford yesterday,” wrote Rebecca Dana.

Today on the professional social networking site LinkedIn, flacks opined on what Sanford should do now. Some suggested waiting a couple of weeks, then sitting down with a trusted local reporter. Others recommended that he hold out for Dateline - hold out long enough to get his autobiography ready for publication.

It’s not clear whether Sanford is getting bad advice from his advisors or whether he’s just ignoring them. Regardless, it seems to me that these advisors should have been savvy enough to squash the “missing” rumor before it incited the media to go find the governor. Did they concoct the story that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail from whole cloth? Or did they have reason to believe that? If the story was totally fabricated, his advisors violated the first rule of PR, which is simply don’t lie.

To read the Wall Street Journal “Speakeasy” blog, click here: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/25/mark-sanford-as-jude-law/

Lisa Tibbitts is a corporate communications professional with an MBA in marketing. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FinancialPR.

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