Hey, why not? — 2007 file photo by Brad Warthen
Which is not the same as saying he thinks he can win. But he might run anyway, according to The Weekly Standard. In a piece headlined, “The Return of the GOP Hawks: Not that they ever really left,” Graham was quoted as speaking of 2016:
In our interview, Graham repeatedly spoke of the challenges that will face the next president because of the mistakes made under Obama. And he suggested that he might just be the one to fix them.
“If I get through my general election, if nobody steps up in the presidential mix, if nobody’s out there talking—me and McCain have been talking—I may just jump in to get to make these arguments,” Graham said.
I asked Graham about Rubio. Hasn’t he been making many of the arguments you’d be likely to make? Graham wasn’t impressed. “He’s a good guy, but after doing immigration with him—we don’t need another young guy not quite ready,” said Graham. “He’s no Obama by any means, but he’s so afraid of the right, and I’ve let that go.”
McCain likes what he sees in the emerging GOP field, but acknowledges that he’s told Graham to think about running. “I’ve strongly encouraged him to give it a look. I think Lindsey has vast and deep experience on these issues that very few others have…
I freely admit, I did not see this coming.
But after all, why not? Both of the other two of the Three Amigos have run, and both have made it onto national tickets.
That said, it sounds to me like his real purpose is to raise issues. But this is still fascinating…
This, by the way, is the second indication I’ve seen in 24 hours that Graham’s internal polling must be looking really good.
The first was this, last night:
Graham not participating in debate with opponents http://t.co/jXk8aPuOdR #thestate
— The Buzz (@BuzzAtTheState) October 2, 2014
Related Posts
Oh, there’s a good reason to run. No matter where you finish, there’s usually a big pot of campaign donations that you can use for all sorts of purposes. Plus it helps establish your “brand” for other revenue streams (speeches, books, TV appearances, etc.).
I’d put him in the Rick Santorum class – someone who runs to hear himself talk but with zero chance of winning anything.
But he won’t run. He’d get eaten alive anywhere outside of South Carolina…. I would LOVE to see him campaign in NH and Iowa.
It’s interesting that he seems to be disparaging Rubio here. It was just a little over a month ago that I noted how much Graham seemed to LIKE Rubio, although perhaps in a condescending way. My headline was “Graham gives Rubio a big pat on the head in SC.”
Apparently, Graham now believes that while Rubio may be a “son of Reagan,” he’s not quite ready to sit at the big-people’s table…
Graham talks further right than he votes on many issues. He seems like an old-school deal-making politician, and I think that’s good for the country. I’m not sure that would translate to the White House.
Jon Stewart is salivating.
Norm, not only Jon Stewart, but John Oliver, who I think is doing better work these days with his new show. Frankly, more Lindsey Graham on the airwaves nationally is just plain good news all-around for all comedians.
I enjoyed reading this piece by Daniel Larison in the American Conservative on Sen. Graham, and particularly a quote from another writer characterizing Lindsey as “the closest thing U.S. politics has to an avatar of pure fear.”
This is one of the things I just don’t get with Brad’s steady admiration of our senior Senator. Seems like I’ve read often on the blog here, Brad, of your preference for rational over emotional decision-making Graham seems to be the most emotion-driven member of Congress, clearly seeking to lead the American public on the basis of pure emotion and histrionics, encouraging us to think less and f̶e̶e̶l̶ fear more.
And that’s exactly why I like Graham. On issue after issue — immigration, electing judges, and yes, international relations, I see him as taking the rational, dispassionate positions.
And I find Jon Stewart’s “Lindsay the Excitable Sissy” routine offensive on a number of levels. And I marvel at liberals who find it amusing.
Also…
I find people who agree with Obama and disagree with Graham and McCain and on “no boots on the ground in Iraq” to be the emotional ones.
They seem to have this superstitious, emotional, gut thing about our having troops in Iraq (or anywhere, but especially Iraq).
Argue all you want about whether we should have invaded Iraq in 2003. I respect both sides of that debate — that is to say, there are plenty of rational arguments against our having done so.
But from the moment we DID, we took on a generational commitment to doing our best to prevent the aftermath of toppling Saddam from being worse than what went before. And in any dispassionate examination of the realities there, that almost certainly involved basing significant numbers of troops there. As we did in Germany and Japan and Korea and the Balkans — all without a whole lot of debate or political trauma here in this country.
But something happened on the left after 2003. The left became wedded to this idea that they could somehow undo what that mean, terrible, horrible George W. Bush did in invading Iraq. They clung to this notion that we could just walk away, and that would make everything fine again.
Which is magical thinking. It’s not the conclusion you reach after a calm, dispassionate, realistic assessment of the situation.
The situation we now have with ISIL is a result of that kind of thinking, or perhaps I should call it “feeling.” It caused us to pull out of Iraq entirely. It caused the president to ignore the advice of ALL of the experts and fail to intervene in Syria, even after his own “red line” promise. And therefore, in both Iraq and Syria, ISIL has grown to be what it is.
And yet, continuing the magical thinking, there is this continuing belief that all can be made right without infantry.
In the face of that, in the face of maddening deafness and blindness and willful ignoring of reality on the president’s part, I don’t blame Graham at all for getting sufficiently frustrated that he said we need to get real with ISIL “before we all get killed here at home.” It’s the sort of hyperbolic thing that one says when frustrated. I hear it as, “What’s it going to take — them killing us here at home, instead of over there? — for us to get real about this?”
(Also, it’s not entirely hyperbolic. Do you doubt that ISIL would want to do that if it could? The only question is their capability. Do you think Jihadi John doesn’t want to put that knife to all our throats, if only he could? For that matter, who’s to say that an organization that can raise an army and take large swathes of two countries, and threaten Baghdad, can’t mount something at least as big as 9/11? And do you actually take comfort that even a 9/11 wouldn’t kill “all of us”? Is it OK with you for thousands to die somewhere in this country while you remain alive?)
On the left, that plays as “Lindsey is terrified.” Which is such an absurd conclusion that I can’t believe even the people who say it believe it. I’ve never seen the slightest indication that he feels an iota of personal fear, and neither have you or anyone else. The assertion that he DOES just plays into the liberal canard that anyone who wants to take terrorist intentions seriously and act to counter them is “afraid,” or trying to sow “fear.”
Sure. Anything but look at things realistically…
And another thing, Phillip…
How did you manage to strike through the word “feel” in your comment? I don’t know how to do that…
Oh, wait — I just figured it out…
In fact, it was
really, really hardquite simple…I don’t blame Graham at all for getting sufficiently frustrated that he said we need to get real with ISIL “before we all get killed here at home.”
-Brad
Think about this for one second and there is no other way to describe that comment except that it is irrational. Of course ALL of us will not get killed. No one on any side of this discussion (even Graham) believes there is ANY chance that ALL of us will get killed no matter what action we take. The comment is not useful in any meaningful way toward advancing a rational discussion. It’s a boilerplate comment that a sitting United States senator has no business of uttering.
This is a clarifying comment with regard to our senior senator. He’s lashing out in an obvious hyperbolic attempt to push his war-mongering agenda by the use of scare tactics. Brad you can dismiss this as some sort of “frustration-driven” comment if you like. But to most rational people it comes across as fear-mongering of the most utterly worthless, un-becoming variety.
Iraq was a mistake and we shouldn’t double down on something that we cannot solve with the military. That is obvious to anyone who is actually paying attention to the long-run dynamics of the region. There is a diplomatic/humanitarian approach that may in the long-run serve as a catalyst to tamp down the radical fervor that we unleashed in 2003. That should be our approach going forward. And if that fails ALL of us will not get killed by ISIS. That much is a certainty.
I’m sure that will be a great comfort to the survivors: “See? They didn’t kill ALL of us! That Lindsey Graham was full of it!”
Meanwhile, I heard on the McLaughlin Group yesterday something that I had missed in news reports:
“I’m sure that will be a great comfort to the survivors:”
Sort of like the families of the innocent people killed by our bombs/missiles last week? How many of them do you think are going to jump up and down chanting “USA! USA! USA!”
Not many. And see my comment below.
The more you try to do it with air power alone, the more innocent civilians you kill.
So, if you accept that ISIL needs to be stopped, what do you do?
I reject the first part of your question. ISIL doesn’t need to be stopped. They need to be monitored and then dealt with if and when they decide to attack the U.S. Killing them (and innocents) before they even attempt to kill us is wrong.
Let them all fight among themselves. We can’t fix it.
More soldiers will die if we have boots on the ground, again, than will U.S. citizens on American soil will EVER get killed if we just walk away. If we’re going to play this arithmetic tit for tat this is pretty simple. I wonder if Lindsey or Brad is willing to be the informer of all those widows and mothers killed by some un-necessary or rather counter-productive action.
That’s right, which is why politicians have a terror of using infantry.
Meanwhile, trying to do it all from the air means more innocent civilians die. But then, they and their families don’t vote, do they? Hence situations such as this.
Ground operations exposes our troops; air bombardment means more collateral damage.
So, knowing all that, what you do is choose the course that leads to success, and to fewer deaths in the long term.
What factor do you and Lindsey Graham use to rationalize the killing of innocent people in order to minimize the risk that ISIL MIGHT attempt a terrorist act on our soil sometime in the future? Is an innocent life worth 3.3 American soldiers? Is a dead pregnant woman killed by one of our missiles equal to 5.87 privates?