It's no surprise that former GOP Gov. Mark Sanford won a slot in the Republican runoff in South Carolina's 1st CD with 37 percent of the vote. The real story is that a dark horse, former Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic, edged past more well-established candidates into the runoff with just 13 percent. Now, with the April 2 runoff approaching in less than two weeks, the second phase of this political triathlon looks like a competitive sprint; Sanford has the name recognition but Bostic has captured media curiosity. Democrats have to be encouraged that either man would carry vulnerabilities into a May 7 general election against businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert-Busch.
Bostic's second place finish, earned with just 7,149 votes to Sanford's 19,812, is a testament to the friends and neighbors nature of a special election primary featuring a 16-candidate field. Bostic, a trial lawyer and Christian conservative, seeded his grassroots-heavy campaign with just $150,000 and ran low-budget ads featuring his family and a simple website at StopSpending.com. But more important than what he spent was what he had done and who
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