It Must Suck To Be Lindsey Graham

Those blue counties all went for Obama last year

Lindsey's dream job probably would have been Secretary of State for President John McCain. But, no, that was never to be. And now he has to spend his time upcountry, groveling to a bunch of racist teabaggers and morons in Greenville and in remote redneck bastions of Hate Talk Radio conventional wisdom like backward Oconee, Pickens and Cherokee counties. The South Carolina Republican primary is a bitch if you're not Strom Thurmond.

Conservatives in South Carolina are eager to oust Mr. Graham, who has enraged the far right for, among other things, reaching across the aisle on immigration and supporting President Obama’s nominations for the Supreme Court. Tea Party supporters called him a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood when, instead of heading home for the Congressional break this month, he went to Egypt at the request of the president.

But to stand a chance against the politician who succeeded Strom Thurmond in 2003, conservatives will have to win a civil war of their own. At least 40 groups align themselves along Tea Party and Libertarian lines, and trying to unify them to topple the state’s senior senator will be no easy task.

So far, three people have stepped forward to challenge Mr. Graham in the June primary: State Senator Lee Bright; Richard Cash, a former Congressional candidate; and Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Citadel and, at the moment, the challenger whose political star is rising the fastest.

...“My opponents’ political operatives have started smearing me,” she said. “I’m talking about all of them. It says more about my opponents than it does about me.”

The smears, she said, began in Mr. Graham’s camp two months before she announced her candidacy. The others have joined in.

One is Mr. Bright, who endorsed Ron Paul in the state’s presidential primary and has used the Web site connection to attack Ms. Mace. He has also been at odds with Ms. Haley over ethics changes and strategies to keep Mr. Obama’s health care law from being implemented in the state. Mr. Bright tends to support extremely conservative legislation and introduced a bill in 2011 to have the state create its own currency if the Federal Reserve system collapsed.

Ms. Haley said she was not jumping into the battle over who should replace Mr. Graham. Speaking this month at the annual Red State gathering, organized by Erick Erickson, the founder of the conservative blog RedState.com, the governor said: “I controlled Tim Scott. We’ll see what you do with the other one.”

She was referring to former Representative Tim Scott, a Tea Party favorite she appointed this year to the Senate seat vacated by Jim DeMint, who left to head the Heritage Foundation.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, which Mr. DeMint founded in 2008, took on Mr. Graham last week for suggesting that a government shutdown as a way to fight the Obama administration’s Affordable Health Care act would be “a bridge too far.”

Mr. Cash, a businessman and a social conservative from Piedmont in the vote-rich upstate region, is considered a sleeper in the race, said David Woodard, a longtime South Carolina political consultant who ran Mr. Graham’s Congressional campaign in 1994 and wrote the 2006 book The New Southern Politics.

“You got to look at their money, and the guy with the most money is Richard Cash,” Mr. Woodard said.

According to recent campaign finance records, Mr. Cash had about $250,000, including at least $200,000 of his own money. Ms. Mace said she raised more than $100,000 in her first two weeks. Mr. Bright has not filed any campaign finance papers.

Mr. Graham has $6.3 million.

...Cash is staking out a position as the most anti-abortion, Christian constitutionalist in the race.

He is certainly the most seasoned campaigner among the challengers, even though his first race was not until 2010, when he was one of six Republicans trying to capture an open Congressional seat. Although he was not well known, he ran a disciplined campaign that moved him into a runoff against Representative Jeff Duncan, Mr. Woodard said.

In meetings with Tea Party groups, Mr. Cash repeats a carefully honed slogan about his candidacy, which he says is built on three C’s: capitalism, Christianity and the Constitution.

The state’s traditional Republican leaders and political consultants say that it will take a deeply unified effort to mount a successful campaign against Mr. Graham, but that in South Carolina, an unpredictable state with one of the country’s largest number of prominent Tea Party politicians, it is not unthinkable.

The key is for one candidate to find a way to harness that power.

“Anybody who wants to look at all those groups with a broad stroke should think again,” said Matt Moore, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party.

This summer, dozens of conservative groups talked about finding the state’s Ted Cruz-- a reference to the Texas senator whose long-shot, grass-roots victory in 2012 is considered a model among Tea Party supporters.

It remains to be seen whom that should be, said Paul Anderko, the president of the GPS Conservatives for Action PAC.

“We know it’s not going to be an easy fight, and people are just listening and waiting to find the right candidate,” Mr. Anderko said. “But South Carolina is a funny state. Sometimes incumbents do go down in flames.”

Lindsey Graham may be a powerhouse senator on the Beltway talking heads shows like Meet the Press but inside the far right GOP culture he would never be that "right candidate" they're looking for. And Ted Cruz isn't going to endorse him. In fact, when the state's biggest daily, The State was interviewing teabag hero Rand Paul this past weekend, he made it clear he wouldn't be endorsing poor Lindsey either.

BUZZ: I wanted to ask you about Lindsey Graham. He is facing a lot of primary challengers here. What are your thoughts of him and have you thought about getting involved in that race, either for him or one of his challengers?

PAUL: You know, at this point my position is that I am trying to stay out of races that have incumbents, so that’s what my decision is at least for now.

BUZZ: Any thoughts on Sen. Graham in general? Do you like what he’s doing?

PAUL: You know, we have some disagreements. And if anything, I think he’s probably been more forceful in pointing out the disagreements. I frankly think that people, really of America but also South Carolina, probably aren’t that excited about sending good money after bad to Egypt and these far flung places. I think if you were to ask about an issue like that and whether or not we should obey the law-- you know the law says when there is a military coup that the military aid should end-- I think that maybe you would find the people of South Carolina disagree with him on some of these issues.

...BUZZ: I’ve read in the past some of your comments about Edward Snowden. I don’t know if you saw this but over the weekend (Wikileaks founder) Julian Assange had some nice things to say about you. He said he was a “big admirer” of you and he thought that the “Libertarian aspect of the Republican Party is the only useful political voice in the US Congress right now.” What did you think about that, the fact that Julian Assange appears to be a fan of yours?

PAUL: You know, I’ve tried to keep the debate more on the constitutional aspects, the constitutional aspects of, what does the fourth amendment apply to, whether it be third party records or visa records or banking records or phone calls, whether those are protected. And I’ve tried to stay a little bit less, you know, out of some of the personalities involved because I think what’s clear to me is the constitutional aspects and maybe not so clear some of the personal aspects.

Obviously, Blue America has no role to play in the South Carolina Republican primary. We're not for Graham or for any of his Tea party opponents. In fact, Blue America endorsed a progressive, independent-minded Democrat for that seat, Jay Stamper, regardless of who the GOP comes up with. We asked Jay about how he sees this Republican primary in his state. He didn't seem all that worked up over the primary-- but is very worked up over an issue that cuts across the aisle in a powerful way that is hurting Graham with many conservatives and libertarians.

"Although I couldn't disagree more with Graham's primary challengers on a whole host of issues, it's clear that we have in common a respect for the constitution not shared by the incumbent. Senator Graham has failed to honor his oath of office. He swore to protect the constitution but has instead demonstrated his contempt for it at every opportunity. The good news is that there's a growing coalition of people across the country and across the political spectrum who realize that government has grown too intrusive. If we can put our differences aside, we can ensure that Lindsey Graham is not given another chance to take the oath of office."