Is Lindsey Graham About To Lose His Senate Seat? Beltway Pundits Will Let You Know In November

Opposition is bipartisan… but not from Lindsey Graham

Although the Beltway pundits of conventional wisdom-- like the brain scientists at Cook-- rate Lindsey Graham as "safe," I wouldn't want to be forced to put any money on that. Nate Silver claims Lindsey has a 97% chance of being reelected, just 1% less than Tim Scott and 7% better than Al Franken's reelection odds. I have a feeling Nate-- not to meantion the stiffs at Cook-- don't watch Southern Charm and are unaware of Tom Ravenel's kamikaze jihad against Lindsey in the general election. Ravenel can't beat him, but can he drain off enough votes to throw the election to a Democrat? The odds against him are not 97%. In fact, they're looking more and more like 50/50 every day.

Charleston County, where Graham counts on a big turn-out to propel him back into office, just joined 8 other South Carolina counties in which the official Republican Party censured him. One of Graham's primary opponents, teabagger Lee Bright, won the Charleston County Republican Party straw poll last week. That kind of news just weighs on the minds of voters who still recall the Lindsey Graham campaign finance scandal, for which one of his biggest donors was found guilty of funneling foreign money into Lindsey's campaign after Lindsey funnel millions of dollars in taxpayer money into his business. After Mount Pleasant-based biotech company GenPhar CEO Jian-Yun “John” Dong and his wife had maxed out to the overly generous Graham, Dong illegally funneled money through friends and employees to Graham between 2006 and 2009.

Relentless. Liar. Schemer.

That’s how Jian-Yun “John” Dong was described this week in federal court by prosecutors and witnesses. They included his ex-wife and his former employees at GenPhar, the Mount Pleasant biotechnology company he still leads today.

Dong, 56, was found guilty of six of seven counts involving illegal campaign contributions to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, lying to investigators and witness tampering.

Dong showed little emotion in the courtroom when a clerk of court read the verdicts. He was found guilty on counts involving the conspiracy and execution of illegal campaign contribution through proxies, except for one count involving a 2009 contribution.

…Prosecutors told the jury that Dong relentlessly tried to get Reinhard Hubner, a foreign national and an investor in GenPhar, to donate to Graham’s campaign. Hubner and others told Dong several times that it was illegal, according to testimony.

Hubner eventually gave Dong $32,000 for Dong to do as he pleased, according to testimony. Some of that money was contributed to Graham through proxies.

Dong also stole $3.6 million worth of federal grant money Graham helped him get (earmarks) that was intended for research on Ebola and Marburg vaccines, money he used to to bolster Graham's miserable career, for lobbying and to entertain a mistress in China. Graham and the South Carolina Republican Establishment are, of course, happy to make sure the Senate election is about anything but Graham's long-standing connections to criminal elements.

And the South Carolina Democratic Establishment isn't any better. They're as repulsive, careerist and self-serving as the Republicans. They are obsessed with defeating progressive Jay Stamper and inserting conservative Chamber of Commerce-friendly Brad Hutto. Currently they have their slimy operatives whispering that Stamper is a teabagger who supports Rand Paul. Blue America endorsed Stamper-- you can contribute to his campaign here-- and I reached out to him last night to explain the absurd charges to DWT readers. I didn't change a word:

The political landscape is now so poisoned that personality supersedes policy, those with whom we disagree are reduced to stereotypes, and ideas are judged not by their merits but instead by the company they keep.

For those reasons, it’s difficult for many progressive Democrats to accept the fact that they agree with someone like Rand Paul on anything. After all, this is a man who is worshiped by people who wrap themselves (literally) in the American flag and loiter on freeway overpasses wearing revolutionary war era garb. Many of these people’s common motivation seems to be a hatred for President Obama based on the color of his skin.

It’s tempting to mock or deride such people; I’ve been guilty of it myself. Actually, I did it today.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with Rand Paul on certain issues. For instance, I oppose an interventionist foreign policy that has helped bring our country to the edge of bankruptcy; and the costly and failed drug war that has filled our penitentiaries with over one million non-violent offenders-- most of them people of color; and I’m outraged by the NSA’s warrant-less surveillance of American citizens, the extra-judicial killing of American citizens and the secret federal courts that operate with limited transparency and accountability.

The majority of Democrats agree with me on these issues. The fact is: the left-right continuum model for political ideology is actually more like a circle, which is why civil libertarians like me and libertarians like Rand Paul sometimes find ourselves in agreement; an uncomfortable realization for many of us. But that discomfort shouldn’t weaken our resolve to fight for these same issues. Rand Paul doesn’t own these issues-- no person or party does. If elected, I’m going to reach across the aisle and find areas of agreement with senators like Rand Paul. Yes, politics makes strange bedfellows. But in the end, we all benefit if we can put aside our mutual preconceptions and suspicions and work together.

Of course, on most other issues-- from marriage equality to raising the minimum wage to expanding the social safety net-- I disagree with Rand Paul. I’m a progressive Democrat. But I have no plans to live in an ideological echo chamber. We miss out on something when we isolate ourselves from people with whom we disagree; it’s not a very stimulating environment. It contributes to a certain laziness. And I like to remind fellow liberals that nothing is more illiberal than a closed mind.

The South Carolina Democratic Party is pathetic. They threw away the state as a Democratic bastion, in part, because of their unwillingness and inability to stay in touch with the needs of South Carolinians. They've been shut out of power and all they can do is snipe at progressives. The Maine Democratic Party has embraced Shenna Bellows for taking the exact same stand as Jay Stamper. Jaime Harrison and his crew could learn a lot by pulling their heads out of their the sand. The kind of bipartisanship Jay and Shenna are talking about is what the American people crave, not the kind of pseudo bipartisanship that sees Democrats surrendering their values and accomplishments to right-wing fanatics. We don't raise money for Republicans like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul or for conservative Democrats like Brad Hutto, but you can contribute to dedicated civil libertarians Shenna Bellows and Jay Stamper here.