Lindsay Graham the giant slayer

[T]here was one notable exception to the Tea Party’s continued success and it happened in the state widely considered to be the most conservative in the nation, the home of the man many believe is the real Godfather of the Modern Conservative/Tea Party movement, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. For all of the Tea Party’s clout in the Republican Party it could not manage to unseat one senator they consider to be among the most traitorous of all RINOs (Republican in name only), Lindsey Graham.

Jenna McLaughlin at Mother Jones wrote about this last week:

“I’m making that a tea party goal to get scoundrels like Lindsey Graham out of office,” Greg Deitz, a Charleston Tea Party organizer, told Politico.

In 2010, about 100 tea party activists gathered outside Graham’s office in Greenville, South Carolina, to protest his support for the bipartisan climate bill. “No cap and trade,” they chanted. Two different countywide GOP organizations in South Carolina voted to censure Graham noting that “in the name of bipartisanship—[he] continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom, rule of law, and fiscal conservatism.”

Tea party activists routinely booed him when he spoke at town hall meetings. At one gathering at the Bluffton Library in June 2010, activists in the audience interrupted Graham with angry questions and accusations when he asked what the biggest problems facing the world were. One audience member, according to the Beaufort Gazette, told Graham to “be conservative and quit reaching across the aisle.”

Graham further upset the tea party by meeting with Obama several times to discuss working together on various issues, such as “closing Guantánamo Bay and bringing terror suspects to justice,” according to Newsweek. Graham was a former military prosecutor who served on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, and Joe Biden invited him over to his home for a steak dinner to discuss Afghanistan.

And Graham hates them right back. He even called them bigots and said they were a flash in the pan. And yet he won the general with 55 percent of the vote after winning huge in the primary. Odd that in places like Indiana and Utah the Tea Party can unseat a Republican incumbent but not in the blood-red state of South Carolina, isn’t it?

“There was speculation that he would face severe tea party resistance,” says Robert Wislinski, a political strategist based in South Carolina. “[But] that never really materialized.” Graham raised $13 million for the primary race, and mobilized a powerful campaign. Five challengers who were seeking their first elected office, and one incumbent state senator, ran against him, but their combined campaign war chest was only about $2 million. The Republican opposition was split, and Graham’s opponents weren’t particularly well known. Nor did the opposition get any help from national tea party activists like Sarah Palin, who remained silent on the race. “The conservative opposition could not unify for the singular purpose of defeating Graham,” wrote the conservative blog RedState in January, and Graham won with 56 percent of the vote.

So, why couldn’t they get it together? True, the rumors about Graham’s sexuality are always lurking under the surface but that doesn’t explain it. In a hardcore right-wing state with many politically active social conservatives, that would not likely work in his favor. Certainly he didn’t win because those same right-wingers are yearning for bipartisanship and Graham’s willingness to chow down on rib-eye with Joe Biden. They hate bipartisanship almost as much as they hate food stamps.

There is only one reason that South Carolina would reelect Graham with a solid majority: They may not like his willingness to break bread with a Democrat but they love Graham’s extreme hawkishness.