The good people of SC are not happy at all with their Senator.
Graham gets heat for deal
His mediator role in filibuster drama upsets many in S.C.
By LAUREN MARKOE
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — In Washington, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham is being lauded for helping pull the U.S. Senate back from the partisan brink of a filibuster crisis.
In South Carolina, the Seneca Republican is trying to control the damage.
“The calls won’t quit, and they’re almost all against Lindsey,” state Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson said.
Dawson counted more than 900 phone calls to party headquarters in 36 hours — mostly from people who helped elevate Graham from the House to the Senate in 2002.
Graham unleashed this anger Monday night, when, as part of a bipartisan group of senators, he announced a last-minute compromise to end the Senate’s filibuster crisis.
The deal — allowing some but not all of President Bush’s most conservative and controversial judicial nominees a vote on the Senate floor — was accepted by Senate leaders.
But Cheryl Dashnaw, a Summerville housewife and active Republican, is appalled by the senator she voted for two years ago.
“He’s helping the Democrats subvert the Constitution,” she said.
As for Graham’s next election, in 2008, Dashnaw said she will “look at other options who to vote for — but it won’t be him.”
But Graham said Tuesday he expects to regain his critics’ confidence when the compromise results in more of Bush’s conservative nominees winning spots in the federal judiciary.
Underscoring his “90 percent conservative voting record,” he said he disagrees with those who would have him spurn Democrats when the good of the country requires him to work with them.
“I will fight for the conservative cause, because I believe in it,” Graham said. “I will break away when I think the country needs me to break away to find a middle ground.
“But I will not use this job to hate people. There are some people on the right and the left, (who) expect you not only to vote with them, but to hate the people they hate. Count me out.”
In contrast to Graham, Jim DeMint — South Carolina’s junior senator since January — aligned with most GOP senators on the filibuster.
He decried Democrats for using the technique, which ties up the Senate floor indefinitely, to deny judicial nominees a vote of the full Senate.
“The wisdom or ignorance of this deal will be determined by whether the Senate fulfills its constitutional responsibility to give judicial nominees the respect and the courtesy of an up-or-down vote,” DeMint said in a statement.
In heavily Republican South Carolina, Graham this week is booking time on local radio and television stations from Greenville to Columbia, trying to sell the compromise to wary constituents.
Most already know him as a senator who often goes his own way.
Graham made headlines earlier this year as the Republican most willing to work with Democrats on overhauling Social Security. While he has a plan to introduce GOP-favored private accounts into the system, he also criticized Bush for focusing narrowly on the accounts.
Graham also has attracted attention for teaming with each of New York’s Democratic senators during the past two years.
With Hillary Clinton, he worked to increase benefits for members of the National Guard and Reserves. With Chuck Schumer, he is pressuring China to revalue its currency.
Would-be challengers take these alliances, and Graham’s role in the filibuster compromise, as an opening.
Charleston businessman Thomas Ravenel, who lost to DeMint in the 2004 GOP Senate primary, said Tuesday he is seriously considering challenging Graham in 2008.
“He’s the third senator from New York,” Ravenel said.
Asked about Graham’s sky-high approval rating in South Carolina — he is the most popular politician in the state according to a recent poll of S.C. Republicans — Ravenel said he wasn’t worried.
“That’s nothing a little bit of money can’t take care of,” he said, adding that voters need to learn more about Graham’s record.
Graham, however, will count on Republicans like Tom Fort, the secretary of the First Tuesday Republican Club of Richland and Lexington Counties.
Fort isn’t thrilled with the filibuster compromise, but he won’t blame Graham for working with the opposition when needed.
“There are a lot of Democrats in Washington, too.”
Staff writer Lee Bandy contributed to this report. Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com
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