South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s highly-publicized disappearance was neither unusual nor out of character, according to one of his former associates.

I spoke on the phone with political blogger Will Folks, who served as the Republican governor’s press secretary from 2003 to 2005 and earlier as press secretary for his campaign. According to Folks, Sanford’s penchant for ditching security details began the night he was elected in November 2002.

An agent with the State Law Enforcement Division informed the governor-elect he was under executive protection and that SLED agents would begin driving him that evening. According to Folks, Sanford replied, “No you’re not! We’re going to Taco Bell,” and drove off with his family in his personal vehicle. “The agents had no choice but to follow,” Folks recalls.

Folks says in the following years, the governor would routinely elude security details to jog or ride a bike through downtown Columbia, near the South Carolina statehouse. An experienced outdoorsman, the governor is also believed to have traveled out of state for longer hunting and fishing trips, according to Folks, but none of his staff was there to verify it.

“He didn’t like to be crowded,” Folks says. “That’s just the way he is.”

While serving as Sanford’s press secretary, Folks says the governor would designate large blocks of “private time” on his schedule and usually left a note as to whether he would be available by phone or text. Usually.

Folks adds, “This is not the first time he’s ditched his detail. This is not the first time he’s been incommunicado. It’s just the first time he got caught doing both at the same time.”

Folks speculates the governor’s political enemies may have fueled the controversy and intense media coverage surrounding his latest disappearance.

A fiscal conservative, Sanford has butted heads with state lawmakers (including many in his own party) over his fierce, but unsuccessful, battle to refuse federal stimulus funds earmarked for South Carolina.