HOW DOES A CLOSET CASE APPEAL TO THE RADICAL RIGHT IN SOUTH CAROLINA? LET'S ASK LINDSEY GRAHAM

You go, girl!

Forget, for a moment, that Lindsey Graham (R-SC) takes it up the tuches by night, while spewing anti-gay hatred and bigotry by day, rabble-rousing the rednecks in the very unenlightened sections of his very red home state. The word is out about the closet case senator from South Carolina and even publicly funded radio stations know they can get away with pointing out what a hypocrite he is. Normally it wouldn't matter, but after his impassioned defense of Bush's immigration plan-- in xenophobic, nativist, Know-Nothing South Carolina circles (i.e.- the state GOP convention), he's been a persona non grata in his own state. Had South Carolina State Treasurer Tom Ravenel not been caught with his beak in a pile of cocaine-- he's charged with distribution and possession-- he would have challenged and beaten Graham from the right.

Still, Graham is desperate to mend fences with his party's haters and extremists, who have always been his natural base and are now wary of him. But he seems to have come up with just the thing to please even the most reactionary fanatics, even in rural South Carolina. Remember that idiotic sign Flip Flop Mitt was caught posing with a few weeks ago? "Obama Osama & Chelsea's Moma" (sic)-- something only a Hannity fan could find pleasure in. Looks like Lindsey bought a version on eBay and he's been skipping up and down every street in South Carolina waving it. Isn't that sweet?


UPDATE: SO HOW WILL LINDSEY AND OTHER MISTRUSTED RUBBER STAMP REPUBLICANS SUCKER LOW INFO VOTERS AGAIN?

Ruth Marcus has a clue in Wednesday's Washington Post: the nativist line of attack.

Democrats vote to give welfare benefits to illegal aliens.

Or, even better: Democrats vote to take benefits away from deserving senior citizens to pay for welfare for illegal aliens.

Ugly? Absolutely. Devastating? So Republicans hope. True? No.

Bashing Democrats on immigration-- accusing them of doing everything but carrying illegals' luggage across the border-- is a GOP mainstay. But the accusations that Republicans started to peddle last week reached a new low in dishonest nativism.

Some of these Repugs, like Lindsey, are in big trouble. They're not all hypocritical closet cases but the are all elitist rubber stamps for the reviled Bush Regime. Lindsey in fact was just censured by the Greenville County Republican Executive Committee for continuing "to adamantly support legalization of illegal immigrants in spite of" thousands of communications of "strong opposition" from local grassroots Republicans.