this is a bit of a tell https://t.co/smgJa9xuIK
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 2, 2018
It may be a tell, but it ain’t no mystery. Graham’s seat comes up again in 2020, in South “Too small for a republic, too big for an insane asylum” Carolina. You don’t need to postulate Russian kompromat or other mysterious Oval-Office-Occupancy blackmail threats to explain his behavior; Senator Graham knows what his voters want, and he’s prepared to give it to them. THA SAKERD SUTHRUN TRADITIONS may be changing… but the people who donate to Graham’s campaign and who pull the lever by his name in the voting booth are, defiantly, *not*.
So he’s going all out on Kavanaugh. Last night, per Rolling Stone:
As America continues to vet the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, we are handed competing narratives. One thing, however, is clear: Lindsey Graham has jumped the shark. On Monday night, the senator from South Carolina sat down with Sean Hannity to discuss his feverish obsession with forcing Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court, sexual allegations be damned. So laser-focused is Graham that he thinks President Trump should re-nominate Kavanaugh for the position should the Senate vote against him after the FBI concludes its investigation at the end of this week.
“I would appeal the verdict of the Senate to the ballot box,” Graham said. “This good man should not be destroyed. If you legitimize this process by one vote short, woe be unto the next person. I’d hate to be the next person nominated. I would feel horrible that we destroyed Kavanaugh. I’d renominate him and I’d take this case to the American people. I’d ask voters in Indiana and Missouri and North Dakota and other places where Trump won, saying who he would nominate if he got to be president, and see if the voters would want to appeal the verdict of their senator.”…
That wasn’t all. Graham also veered into “enemy of the people” territory by pointing a finger at NBC, whom he accused of working with the Democrats to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination. “They’ve been a co-conspirator in the destruction of Kavanaugh from my point of view,” he said, going on to suggest they wouldn’t report on sexual assault allegations if they were made against a Democrat…
if Kamala Harris ever lost it like this, she would be hounded out of DC by the pundit class.
Graham does it and he's being toasted on cable news. https://t.co/qL5jM6e50I
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) September 27, 2018
Emma Dumain, at McClatchey, “Graham’s defense of Kavanaugh has conservatives applauding. How long will that last?”
…[D]uring a speech that could become his campaign ad two years from now, the South Carolina Republican on Thursday delivered a scathing takedown of Democrats and full-throated defense of Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee to be a Supreme Court Justice accused of sexual assault.
By Friday morning, Graham had cemented himself as the most public face of the Republican Senate’s support for the embattled federal judge — a role that has endeared him so greatly to the conservatives he needs to fend off primary challengers.
But Graham knows how such love is fleeting: Conservatives could turn on him at any moment…
Repub Venality Open Thread: Lindsay Graham Is Giving His Voters What They WantPost + Comments (275)