Columbia, S.C. ? South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has had a lot of indirect help holding on to office in the two weeks since his mysterious disappearance and revelations of a sultry yearlong affair with an Argentine woman.

A law enforcement review found no misuse of public money in the affair. The first lady has been willing to reconcile, and the state Republican Party voted to censure him, rather than asking him to resign.

Political maneuvering over the 2010 gubernatorial race has played a part, too, with some in the GOP reluctant to give any advantage to Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who would replace Sanford if he stepped down or was forced out. And it didn’t hurt that the nation’s attention shifted to the death of pop star Michael Jackson.

“He’s ridden out the storm,” Robert Oldendick, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina, said of the governor.

Sanford’s name is no longer tossed around as a potential 2012 presidential candidate, but he’s resolute about finishing the last 18 months of his second term. Any new revelations could shake the state again, but for now it seems Sanford has weathered the scandal.

“Most people would’ve expected if he was going to be forced out quickly, it would’ve happened by now,” said Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon.

The father of four disappeared over Father’s Day weekend, without his staff or security detail knowing his whereabouts. Upon his return June 24, he confessed he had been in Argentina with his mistress and misled his staff to think he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Later, in interviews with The Associated Press, he called Maria Belen Chapur his “soul mate” and disclosed dalliances — that he said stopped short of sex — with other women.

Sanford also said he was trying to fall back in love with his wife, Jenny Sanford, out of a sense of commitment to their 20 years of marriage and young sons.

“She’s been key in all of this. If she’d blown up and started threats of a messy public divorce, it might’ve forced his hand to step down to deal with the issue,” Huffmon said.

Calls for Sanford to resign ramped up briefly after he revealed to AP he had spent more time with Chapur than previously disclosed. The state attorney general called for an investigation into his travels, and a majority of GOP senators asked him to step down. But the furor subsided after a closed-door censure vote by the party, with leaders saying the public admonishment would be the end of the issue.