Lindsey Graham Won His Primary, But BRAVO TV Star Thomas Ravenel May Well Still Do Him In

We've been writing about how the DSCC is missing their best opportunity of 2014 by not taking advantage of a peculiar situation in South Dakota where there are 3 Republicans on the November ballot against populist Democrat Rick Weiland. The Party Establishment has a garden variety corporate shill in the race, Mike Rounds, and he's the official party designee, but 2 very well-known Republicans, ex-U.S. Senator Larry Pressler, and state Senator Gordon Howie, both running as Independents, feel strongly that Rounds is unfit to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.

There's a similar situation developing in South Carolina, as well-- although instead of a populist Democrat like Weiland, the Democratic candidate there, state Senator Brad Hutto, is from the Republican wing of the party. If he can persuade Democratic voters to support a conservative, Hutto may benefit from a schism in the state GOP that wasn't cured by the big primary win Lindsey Graham just celebrated. Lindsey already spent $8,500,416 against half a dozen Republican opponents from the teabagger wing of the party, none of whom spent as much as $5,000 and these were the results:

• Lindsey Graham- 169,899 (56.49%)
• Lee Bright- 47,107 (15.66%)
• Richard Cash- 24,016 (7.99%)
• Det Bowers- 22,060 (7.33%)
• Nancy Mace- 18,748 (6.23%)
• Bill Connor- 15,878 (5.28%)
• Benjamin Dunn- 3,055 (1.02%)

As we've been warning, though, popular former South Carolina Treasurer and cable TV star, Thomas Ravenel-- also: a household name, very, very rich and a coke freak who went to prison on drug changes a couple of years ago-- left the Republican Party and is now some kind of independent libertarian running against Graham. I don't even get the idea he expects to win-- just defeat Graham, who he really, really detests. (Ironically, Graham is gay and Ravenel is straight but Ravenel favors LGBT equality while the closeted Graham opposes it.) This week, the Charleston Post and Courier reported that Ravenel is already spending money to gather the 10,000 signatures he needs to get on the November ballot. "Like Admiral Farragut said, 'Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead.'"




All Ravenel needs to do is take between 10 and 15% of the votes and Graham will likely lose to Hutto. South Carolina isn't as red as many people think it is. When Democrat Vincent Sheheen ran against Nikki Haley in 2010 she beat him 690,525 (51%) to 630,534 (47%). When Graham last faced the voters, in 2008, he was up against Democrat Bob Conley. Graham pulled 1,076,534 votes (58%) to Conley's 790,621 (42%). On that same day McCain beat Obama, but probably not by as much as you think: 1,034,896 (54%) to 862,449 (45%). A 10-15% deduction from any of the Republicans in those races would have flipped the victory to the Democrat.

T-Rav says he's done with Southern Charm now and plans to explain his 2007 bust in great detail, particularly the speculation that Graham, who feared Ravenel would beat him in a primary, pulled the strings that set the investigation into motion. This should be an exciting race to watch, even more exciting than Southern Charm.

Ravenel opposes unconstitutional invasions of privacy by the NSA