On C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, Sanford received a call from a Charleston resident who said he lost his job because he has been taking care of mother and sister, both of whom have serious illnesses. The caller told Sanford he is "wrong" to decline the money. "A lot of people in South Carolina are hurting. And if this money can come and help us out we need it." In response, Sanford could offer him only his prayers:

CALLER: I hope you all are not playing politics with this. People in South Carolina are hurting. You know how unemployment rates are high right now and going up higher. We are running out of money in the unemployment bank -- we need money for that, the people that need help. And I'm one of them, I can't get no help. [...]

SANFORD: Well I'd say hello to Charleston because its home and I'd say hello to this fellow this morning and say that my prayers are going to be with him and his family because it sounds like he is in an awfully tough spot.

It's pretty bizarre, when you really think about it, that free-market fetishists and Christian fundamentalists allied for so long in the Republican Party. The ideal of the free market is no rules, which comes from their inability to see any value other than greed as worthy of being pursued by the government, or people at all. This would seem to be at odds with Christianity, which is laced with universal statements of value and morality. Other than the fact that both ideologies stem from a dogmatic, fundamentalist mentality (I'm referring to the Religious Right here, not Christians in general), there isn't much they have in common. And yet they've worked together in the GOP and continue to work together.

But this video makes one of the reasons all too clear - they know that free market absolutism means that lots and lots of people are going to suffer. And so they can just try to distract and rub away the suffering with Christianity, a cold, self-serving reading of Christianity that says that people who are poor deserve to be poor and that prayer will solve people's problems. If it doesn't, it means that you're just not praying hard enough.

As a sidenote, the unemployment insurance dollars that the governor rejected are by far one of the most stimulative provisions in Obama's economic recovery plan, far more stimulative than any tax cut:

It sure seems like Sanford is putting ideology ahead of the good of the people. Either that or he really just hates poor folks who have to take time off work to care for their sick mothers and sisters.

(The title comes from Sanford's statement earlier last week that we shouldn't move to a savior-based economy, which for him meant that people get helped by the government when times are tough. But it sure seems like he's counting on a different savior.)