Articles by Levick Experts
How Gov. Sanford Should Have Handled His Crisis
By Richard S. Levick
June 24, 2009
He screwed up by not following advice Machiavelli gave 500 years ago. "Bad news all at once; good news over time." That sage advice was first given by the sixteenth-century founder of modern political science, Niccolo Machiavelli, and has since become a creed by which politicians and businessmen alike must live their lives. That is, if they want to have lives after a scandal.
That business, personal and financial scandals will continue to erupt is a given. The question is how to deal with and deactivate them. And that is where Machiavelli meets Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina.