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I am sorry to see it. He carried a message. But as he explained in a small conference room in Nashua his strategy was to do pretty well in New Hampshire--come in 3rd or 4th--then go to South Carolina and do very well. That would make him a contender, one of 4 remaining candidates.
Then, as spokesman for one of a small number of policy alternatives, he could make his case, he said.
But today is the last day to get off the ballot in South Carolina and he dropped out to get off. No need to embarrass himself at home with a rejection at the polls in his home state. Very reasonable.
The fact that he could not draw a crowd nor get voter support says something about the current unreality in the election. Candidates who use fierce words are beloved, so long as they imply that the battle will be fast, easy, and free.
Graham tried to sell a more plausible story:
Graham tried to sell a more plausible story:
****Alone of the Republican candidates he admitted that wars cost money and would need to be paid for. He said it was worth it. Not free, but worth it. Voters prefer free.
****Alone of the Republican candidates he seemed genuinely humble in his manner. The other candidates had a kind of rock star style. Not Lindsey Graham.
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Graham answered a question I asked him at a gathering in Manchester, New Hampshire. He said there absolutely needed to be budget reform consisting of unpopular entitlement cuts and unpopular tax increases. Both Democrats and Republicans needed to compromise, he said. If something were going to be worked out then both sides had to "give in" simultaneously, and no one could jump ship and try to make political hay out of the other side's move toward the middle.
In my question I said that Obama started to move on this in 2013 by floating a trial balloon of changing the Cost of Living Adjustment formula for Social Security. This is exactly what Republican leadership was urging Obama to do. But the moment Obama did so (which meant political hazard among Democrats who accused him of "caving") our local congressman Greg Waldon--a member of the Republican leadership team-- attacked Obama for doing exactly what they were urging him to do. Obama immediately took it back off the table and a bi-partisan compromise on taxes and spending immediately died, and has stayed dead since that moment.
In my question I said that Obama started to move on this in 2013 by floating a trial balloon of changing the Cost of Living Adjustment formula for Social Security. This is exactly what Republican leadership was urging Obama to do. But the moment Obama did so (which meant political hazard among Democrats who accused him of "caving") our local congressman Greg Waldon--a member of the Republican leadership team-- attacked Obama for doing exactly what they were urging him to do. Obama immediately took it back off the table and a bi-partisan compromise on taxes and spending immediately died, and has stayed dead since that moment.
Graham said he remembered the event well and condemned Walden for sabotaging the very thing the Republican party wanted and America needed. Here is a 2 minute audio clip of his comments.
https://soundcloud.com/upclose-withpetersage/short-version-of-graham-qa
https://soundcloud.com/upclose-withpetersage/short-version-of-graham-qa
2 comments:
Lindsey who? I think I heard of him, although I didn’t realize he is a Republican, and you don’t make him sound like much of one. From what you write, he must have been a pretty nice guy! How did it happen, did he have consultants and pollsters? I only ask because it seems like maybe he did not understand what he was doing, you know, that he was in a Republican primary, and to win he needed to be in touch with at least the party base. But the positions you say he expressed sound more like those of, well the Democratic base-- not center and certainly not independents, but at least the liberal base, right? You can’t win with just the base of either party, but I guess Lindsey had his own agenda, didn’t care what the voters were feeling, that kinda thing?
Makes you wonder, what’s going on here, is this just not going to be a winning season for establishment political-speak? Is it possible for a newby to get elected in America, like a community organizer filling auditoriums with screaming supporters with barely any experience? Why would Republicans pick a guy like that over a statesman like Lindsey, what are they drinking cool aid or something? I don’t want to sound insensitive, but maybe this Lindsey guy needed to be “fired”, and really maybe a bunch of the other ones should be given the heave-ho by someone with enough command to say “get ‘em the hell out of here!”. Haha, that would be so funny—“get ‘em the hell out of here”, but everybody knows that Americans would never stand for such unconventional talk!
One last question, this Lindsey guy sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton, no? You know with the “reasonable” and “be nice” thing, and as you put it, his idea that at least 50.1% of the American electorate really oughta take warm comfort from embracing that community he said is “a first line of defense in identifying home-grown jihadis”. Wow! I didn’t even know, all the statements I read from the FBI and French police pretty much don’t say that, so that’s an eye-opener, huh? And that coalition thingamajig composed of our “allies in the Middle East” that Lindsey and Hillary like? I didn’t know about them either, I thought they were busy bombing each other and stoning and beheading their own people, so maybe Hillary can make that go even if Lindsey could not sell it to more than 0.3%? I don’t want to sound too critical at time like this with voters having just lost Lindsey, but I get the vibe that most Americans aren’t ever going to feel that warm comfort that he and Hillary think we should be feeling. I probably sound politically naïve, because someone like her should be able to take down an opponent whose supporters seem like they’re drunk on political cool aid. Hey, I wonder if Lindsey would say that pushing the ideas of an ethnic community protecting us, and democracy loving Mideast allies being the boots on the ground, is the way for Hillary to go?
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