Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has been having a rough few weeks in his campaign to reclaim his old House seat. 
 
 His ex-wife sued him for trespassing; national Republicans dropped their support for his campaign; and a poll found him trailing his Democratic challenger by a robust 9-point margin despite the race being in a reliably Republican district. 
 
 So how did the Sanford campaign respond to that adversity? By having the candidate debate a cardboard cutout of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a move seemingly ripped from the political playbook of Clint Eastwood, who famously delivered a rambling address at the Republican National Convention to an empty chair meant to represent President Obama. 
 
 In a press event Wednesday, Sanford accused his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, of refusing to debate him publicly and thus running a "stealth campaign." As a last resort, he said, he'd decided to instead debate "Pelosi." 
 
 "Since Elizabeth won't debate, I'm allowed to debate Nancy," he said, before posing a question to the cardboard cutout about a National Labor Relations Board lawsuit that sought to block Boeing from building a new plant in South Carolina. Republicans claimed the lawsuit was politically motivated and would have denied the state much-needed jobs. ||||| Oberlin College & Northwestern UniversityArchive-It Partner Since: Aug, 2008Organization Type: Colleges & UniversitiesOrganization URL: http://www.northwestern.edu The Congressional Candidate Website project seeks to archive all major-party House and Senate candidate websites during the 2008 and 2010 campaigns. The project is headed by political scientists at Northwestern University, The University of Minnesota, and Oberlin College.
– Mark Sanford appears to be bent on digging himself ever deeper into the hole he's in: The latest headline-getting incident involving South Carolina's ex-governor has Sanford publishing the phone numbers of people who called him ... after he invited people to call him in a full-page newspaper ad. Here's how it went down, per Slate: Sanford's unbelievably wordy ad (which started, "It's been a rough week" and addressed Democratic attacks against him and that whole trespassing incident) invited people to call his campaign office or his cell—and his cell phone number was included—if they had any "further questions." The House Majority PAC, which had already been supporting Elizabeth Colbert Busch in her race against Sanford, then reprinted that number in a fundraising email suggesting people "take him up on his offer" and call Sanford to "ask why he spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on luxury travel!" Sanford then took screenshots of that fundraising email and his incoming call history and published it all. His campaign rep explains why he published the numbers: "Look, if Pelosi and Co. are going to bat this hard for Colbert Busch, there ain't going to be anything 'independent' about her. We're putting it out there to illustrate just how interested Pelosi's allies are in getting Colbert Busch elected." Sanford is clearly not happy with Nancy Pelosi, and he showed it in another odd way Wednesday: by publicly debating a cardboard cutout of the House Minority Leader. He did so, he explained, because Colbert Busch won't debate him publicly, so he decided to debate Cardboard Pelosi instead. (Click to watch the video.) In news that Slate is quick to point out is unrelated, the Cook Political Report recently decided Sanford is not so likely to win against Colbert Busch, deeming the race "lean Dem." (And indeed, he is trailing his opponent by a 9-point margin.) But, hey, at least Ron Paul is endorsing Sanford, Roll Call reports.