Sanford looking at potential campaign HQ space

A run for Congress is looking more likely for former governor Mark Sanford, who visited a spot for a potential campaign headquarters in downtown Charleston today, where he said his fiancee and sons would support a bid.

“Positive, on both sides,” Sanford said in the parking lot of the former Tellis pharmacy on King Street, near Broad.

A decision on officially committing to a GOP primary run is probably still a few days away, he said.

Sanford’s comments come as the filing period for the open 1st Congressional District seat officially opens next Friday, Jan. 18. Sanford, who lives in the Dockside condominiums on Charleston Harbor, visited Tellis, a Charleston landmark that closed this summer after 60 years in business.

Owner Alice Tellis said Sanford was looking to be in the space “for a few months” but that she would be willing to let him lease the site for as long as he wanted.

A potential Sanford bid would come after his aspirations of higher office appeared to have been derailed while he was governor by his 2009 affair with an Argentine woman, Maria Chapur. She is now his fiancée.