If South Carolina Republicans nominate disgraced former Gov. Mark Sanford in the First District special election, it would be “an off-year election gift” to “the late-night comedians and political press,” Scott Conroy of Real Clear Politics wrote Friday. And given that the Democrats have nominated Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, the campaign to fill the congressional seat vacated by the appointment of Tim Scott to the Senate is sure to attract national attention.

The only hope for the GOP to keep the scandal-stained Sanford from becoming the “face” of the party leading up to the May 7 election lies with Curtis Bostic, the former Charleston city councilman who placed second in the March 19 primary and will meet Sanford in the April 2 runoff. As Conroy wrote Friday:

Despite Sanford’s large advantage over Bostic in Tuesday’s vote total, several  South Carolina Republicans told RealClearPolitics they expect the runoff to be  tight, particularly since a significant “anti-Sanford” vote will now be  consolidated around one candidate. …
[Former South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson] categorized Sanford as “an easy target” in the race and suggested that  Bostic’s most effective line of attack might be to raise the specter that the  two-term governor’s scandalous past would make him vulnerable to national and  state Democrats in the general election.
“I guarantee you they’re pulling for him,” Dawson said of Democrats’ rooting  interest in the runoff. “Curtis Bostic is not someone you can put on the  national news. CNN won’t cover it; NBC won’t cover it. With Mark Sanford,  they’re going to pound the narrative like we’ve never seen because even if they don’t win the seat, which they wouldn’t, they could win the war by making him  the face of the conservative movement with the baggage he’s got in the knapsack  right now.”

Similar concerns were voiced by a “South Carolina insider” who told Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post that if Sanford wins next week’s runoff Republicans “are absolutely in danger of losing the seat.” Rubin also reported that Penny Nance of the conservative group Concerned Women for America is worried that a Sanford win could revive ”the narrative of a Republican war on women.” Rubin wrote Friday:

The state and national GOP, and social conservatives in particular, have every reason to fear, as the South Carolina veteran says, that they’ll be “the laughing stock of the whole country.”

Bostic has described himself as a “constitutional conservative” and his campaign Web site, StopSpending.com, is themed to a basic fiscal-conservative message, even while highlighting Bostic’s wife and five children — an implied contrast to Sanford, whose wife divorced him after the governor secretly traveled to Argentina in 2009 to pursue an extramarital affair. With barely a week to go until next week’s runoff, Bostic’s campaign may draw inspiration from last year’s upset victory by Ted Cruz in Texas, Matt Vespa writes at Red State:

Given Bostic’s showing in the polls driven solely by grassroots work, it seems his campaign is hoping for a Ted Cruz moment. Cruz, who is now a U.S. senator, faced a similar situation against David Dewhurst in Texas. Nonetheless, his grassroots network, along with bloggers, helped him force a runoff - which he won - during Texas’ U.S. Senate election in 2012.

Bostic has been heavily outspent by Sanford, although Bostic’s campaign manager David O’Connell told National Journal‘s Sarah Mimms that “money has been pouring into” the campaign since the March 19 primary. In order to raise both money and awareness for the South Carolina race, the campaign has launched TrustCurtis.com.