South Carolina has its shtick(s), but in some ways the Palmetto State isn’t all that bad; it’s virtually the only state that regularly prosecutes killer cops, its legislature is actually talking about taking down the Confederate flag on the capitol grounds, and it sent Lindsay Graham to the U.S. Senate.
At a time when most Republicans are tripping over themselves competing to establish their credentials as the most clownish ignoramuses on the planet (see, e.g., global warming denial; Bobby Jindal’s proposal to defund the Supreme Court; and everything Donald Trump spews), Sen. Graham stands out as one of his party’s paltry few voices of rationality and reason.
That’s not saying I agree with his positions, or that I would vote for him over a Democrat — I probably wouldn’t. But if I had to face the prospect of the Democratic Party losing the 2016 presidential election, then when asking myself who I would want the Republican nominee to be, I have a long list of candidates I don’t want to see get the GOP nomination (in no particular order: Cruz, Huckabee, Jindal, Perry, Walker, Paul, Christie, Santorum, Fiorina, and Trump of course), and a short list of candidates I’d prefer if we must have a Republican president (Graham, Kasich, maybe Rubio).
(Yes, I realize that I haven’t put Jeb! in either list — what the hell can I say about Jeb! becoming president? That guy’s had an ethically challenged business career, was a so-so governor, and is a Bush — no thanks.)
While Rubio may be in some ways the most fascinating GOP candidate, he has troubline issues, including inexperience, inability to manage his personal finances, and being beholden to a single billionaire who likely would have extraordinary influence over a President Rubio … and enjoy extraordinary privileges under a Rubio administration.
I rate Lindsay Graham as the most interesting candidate in the GOP’s crowded field. By “interesting,” I mean worth studying. For starters, he has a compelling biography, and seems like a decent man. He came from modest beginnings, lost both his parents, and adopted and raised his younger sister. They remain close to this day.
Graham isn’t a family man; he’s never been married and has no children. He thinks of his sister and her daughters as his family. This, of course, raises eyebrows and prompts speculation that he’s a closeted gay, which he denies. (That would make him a hypocrite, because his voting and public speaking record is solidly not-pro-gay.) What’s public knowledge (unless he’s lying) is that he dated a little in college, had two “serious” relationships while in the military serving overseas, “came close” to proposing to one of them (a Lufthansa flight attendant), but in the end, “the opportunity never presented itself at the right time, or I never found time to meet the right girl, or the right girl was smart enough not to have time for me.” He says of marriage, “I wasn’t lucky in that way.” (Almost makes you feel sorry for him, unless you’re a woman-hater with a couple of bad marriages under your belt, in which case you’re probably thinking “he’s luckier than he realizes.”)
Graham was the first member of his family to go to college, joined ROTC, and after law school served in the Air Force as a JAG officer. After 8 years of active duty he served another 6 years in the Air National Guard, and after that served in the Air Force Reserve, which led to intermittent short duty stints in the Gulf War, Iraq War, and Afghanistan. He officially retired from the military this year upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 with 33 years of service credits. He’s sort-of, but not-quite, a career military man. But the fact he hasn’t fought as a combat soldier in a real war opens him to charges of being a “chickenhawk.”
George W. Bush shirked his military duties, going AWOL from reserve drills, to play at politics. Graham’s political career paralleled his military career; he’s been a politician since 1994 and he continued to fulfill his part-time military duties after being elected to Congress that year. You can’t call him a shirker, or someone who has gamed the system, like Jeb!‘s brother did.
(G.W., as you may recall, used his daddy’s influence as a congressman to go to the head of the line for a spot in the Texas Air National Guard, which kept him out of the Vietnam draft, and after taxpayers spent over $1 million training him to fly jets, disappeared and performed no useful service. George’s shirking, and presidential incompetence, shouldn’t disqualify Jeb! from the White House, but there are other things that should, some of which I’ve listed above. At least Jeb! can’t be accused of going AWOL from the military, inasmuch as he never served at all. Jeb! didn’t reach draft age until 1971, when the Vietnam War was almost over, and duly registered for the draft but wasn’t drafted. However, that didn’t have to keep him from serving in the military; he could have volunteered for peacetime service. Graham, who’s two years younger than Jeb!, did — one of several contrasts between Graham and Bush The Younger.)
What most Democrats and liberals will dislike most about Lindsay Graham is that he’s very pro-military (as you would expect), and has an interventionist worldview — he’s been called a “war hawk.” According to Wikipedia, “In May 2015 Senator Graham said, ‘If I’m president of the United States and you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL, I’m not gonna call a judge,’ Graham said. ‘I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you.'” This might grate a bit on people who believe in due process, although to put it in context, realistically he’s probably only talking about people who actually join those organizations, go to a battlefield, and bear arms, in which case his approach is a lot more justifiable.
In other areas, Graham usually comes across as a reasonable moderate capable of thinking for himself, instead of a parrot for Republican propaganda or conservative ideology. He’s a critic of the Tea Party, and is “known for his willingness to be bipartisan and work with Democrats on issues like global warming, tax reform and immigration reform, and his belief that judicial nominees should not be opposed solely on their philosophical positions” (quoting Wikipedia again). As a congressman, he voted against impeaching Bill Clinton, voted for ousting Newt Gringrich, and has argued for a more inclusive Republican Party. He’s no Democrat, but if we must get stuck with a Republican president, he’s someone Democrats could do business with, to a point, and better him than a scorched-earth thug like Walker or theocratic maniac like Cruz.
During the 2008 campaign, Sen. McCain took the microphone away from a woman who called Obama an “Arab” and told the Republican crowd, “No, he’s not, Senator Obama is a decent man.” (The crowd, as you’d expect, responded with scattered boos.)
Like McCain, Sen. Graham recognizes the crying need to defuse the blind, unthinking bigotry and personal hatred that inflames too many of America’s conservative voters. Yesterday, in Iowa, Graham had his own McCain moment. When a man in the crowd suggested responding to ISIS by barring the Muslim religion from the United States, Graham cut him off and responded, “You know what, I’m not your candidate. I don’t want you to vote for me. I couldn’t disagree with you more.” Later, he told the crowd, “I’m not trying to please him. I’m not putting up with that. He’s got a right to say whatever he wants to say, but I have an obligation to the Republican Party, to the people of Iowa and the country as a whole to be firm on this. I’m not buying into that construct. That’s not the America that I want to lead.”
In other words, Graham’s head is in the right place, and he’s a rare plain-spoken politician; he doesn’t b.s. you, or use weasel words. He’s a bit reminiscent of Harry Truman in that way, but without Truman’s uninhibited vulgarity. That makes him more appealing at a time when most of the public is fed up to here with two-faced double-talking politicians. For this reason, Graham plausibly could get traction, despite being despised by many of his party’s grass-roots supporters for being a semblance of reasonable.
Another reason many Republicans won’t like him is because he’s occasionally nice to the odd Democrat here and there. He and Joe Biden are friends. Graham told Huffington Post, “If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, then probably you’ve got a problem,” and called Biden “the nicest man I think I’ve ever met in politics.” He sounds like the beginning of a cure for the toxic rancor infecting American politics.
For all these reasons, while Democrats and liberals will disagree with many (if not most) of Graham’s positions on issues, they should take him seriously as a prospective GOP nominee, against the possibility their own candidate might lose — because if Democrats do lose in 2016, they could end up with someone much worse than Lindsay Graham.
Photos: Not stupid, not in your face, not prone to toxic rhetoric, not a crooked businessman or adulterous hypocrite; arguably the most reasonable Republican we could get stuck with. And there’s something to be said for any candidate the Tea Party doesn’t like.
