The Pink Flamingo :: SC's Senior Senator

It must be terribly frustrating for a Democrat in South Carolina who is trying to take on Lindsey Graham. Of course, turn-about is fair play. I spent most of my life watching politics in South Carolina, and the futility of a Republican even bothering to challenge the misc. entrenched Third District Congressman - then Lindsey was elected. It was really quite strange, in a wonderful way. As Lindsey's Oconee County GOP Chairperson I watched as life-long Democrats switched parties to vote for him in a very hard-fought primary. People who never planned to ever vote Republican began to do so in 1994 because of Lindsey.

It has now reached the point where A Democrat doesn't have a change against him. (Okay, I'm enjoying it). Bob Conleyis in a very real snit because Lindsey is is busy working with the McCain Campaign that he, thus far, hasn't had time to debate him. Conley is a conservative wing-nut who some how happened to be nominated to run as a "Democrat" who bills himself as more conservative than Lindsey, and an able successor to Buddy Witherspoon who was trounced by Lindsey in the primary. To put it in perspective, Conley is working hand in glove with the Ron Paul bots. Does that put things into perspective?

And so Bob Conley has decided he just might carry a card-board cut-out of Lindsey around when the Democrat crashes Republican meetings. Don't ever think these are your run of the mill Democrats. South Carolina's Democratic Party is in dis-array. Conley has aligned himself with all the little non-Republican conservatives who absolutely detest Lindsey. The Palmetto Scoop is making great fun of Conley's pathetic attempt for attention.

"...But honestly, I can’t imagine why Graham won’t just agree to debate him. I mean, he’s only a powerful U.S. Senator whose close friend is running for President of the United States. And I’m sure Conley’s not a bad guy once you get past all the tinfoil...."

The real problem is the misconception the far, far, far right anti-immigration world has of Lindsey. There in South Carolina there is a specific group of rather racist anti-immigration conservatives who are either Ron Paul Bots (Conley is one) or are not even Republicans, but are supporting third parties. They have fantasies of defeating Lindsey, and are aided in their quest by the minions of John Tanton's anti-immigration, Population Control machine. Until John Tanton declared that Lindsey Graham was evil and must be destroyed he was absolutely beloved in South Carolina.

It is rather fascinating and is a very real commentary on the absolute power John Tanton has accumulated. People like John McCain and Lindsey Graham are a violation of everything Tanton believes (abortion on demand, population control through eugenics, forced abortion, and the end of immigration). He has reached the point where he is so powerful that his little flunkies thoroughout the anti-immigration world do his bidding.

Lindsey and Joe Lieberman have authored an excellent WSJ op-ed about Russia. They recently arrived back home after visiting Georgia for the McCain Campaign. Conservatives wince when Lindsey's name is mentioned as a possible VP contender. I wish he were simply because, way back in 1994, I told him he would end up being VP one day. While there is talk about Lindsey being on the Ticket, I don't think it will happen. A Cabinet position is far more likely. To exhibit his importance now in the GOP, Lindsey has snagged one of the most important prime time speaking spots for the convention. The one person who could up-stage him would be a possible female VP nominee (crossed fingers for Palin).

If you don't know anything about LIndsey's background, you can't understand him. Far Right anti-immigration conservatives have demonized him, which is quite unfair. I know him to be one of the most decent and honorable men I've ever met in my life. I know this for a fact.

I remember driving him down to meet with the Abbeville Executive Committee of their county GOP in April (I think it was April) of 1994. I'm fairly sure it was the first time after announcing his candidacy for Congress that he'd met with another county's executive committee. (At the time he was serving in the SC State House). He was exhausted, too tired to drive, so I drove him down in my Lebarron. I think he slept the entire way down to Abbeville. On the way back to Seneca, we talked. He loves this country, having spent his entire adult life in the service of it in the military and the last 18 years or so in elected office.

When Lindsey was still in high school his parents died, leaving large medical bills and a younger sister to raise. He adopted his sister, went to college, and paid off the medical bills. After passing the SC Bar, he went into the Air Force. He is now a full Colonel in the Air Force Reserves. There are some who are making fun of his Wyatt Earp/Doc Holiday friendship with John McCain, but I don't know anyone who deserves the good political fortune more than does Lindsey.

There's an intersting little article about him in the New Republic, that does capture his personality.

"...Traveling with any presidential campaign is exhausting. But it may be most exhausting to hit the road as a buddy of John McCain, because, along with forgoing sleep, you become a chief victim of McCain's unrelenting and often peculiar avidities. Giant pigs, for one.

On a recent Wednesday, waiting to board a flight to Savannah for a McCain event headlined by his surrogate Senator Lindsey Graham, I came across Graham himself, sitting entourageless near the gate, his legs curled up on his seat, a lick of gray-brown hair disordered by the previous night's hotel pillow sticking up from the back of his head, glumly rifling through copies of Newsweek and People and looking so weary I didn't recognize him at first. It turned out Graham's bedraggled condition was, in part, the result of having endured three flights in 24 hours to accompany McCain to a nuclear-plant photo-op in Detroit and a tele-town hall in West Virginia. On top of that, there was the emotional wear incurred from McCain's pestering him over a pig.

"John is so excited about the big pig," Graham explains, slumping in his airport chair and rolling his eyes. "He wanted me to see the pig." The pig in question is Freight Train, the Iowa State Fair's 1,259-pound prize-winning hog, whose immense hillocks of back fat constitute a boyish fixation for the Republican nominee. Graham couldn't make it to Iowa this year, but McCain was loath to stop playing with him: "'Just come out!'" Graham croaks, squaring his shoulders and turning his voice into a rasp to imitate McCain's. "He is mesmerized by that pig."

Before Freight Train captured McCain's enthusiasm, it was bird-watching. "They ought to take all the detainees at Gitmo, round them up, and make them listen to John talk about birds for a week," Graham complains of their epic sessions with bird guidebooks at McCain's ranch in Sedona, Arizona. "John gets so obsessed with things, and if you're his buddy, you pay."..."

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