Are you guys as sick of Trump's good buddy Lindsey Graham as I am? Sick of his excuse making and pandering? Sick of his nasty partisan attacks against Democrats who impeached Trump and tried to convict him in the Senate?
Then you will be heartened to know that a highly aggressive, effective campaign is being run against him by Jaime Harrison, a Yale educated African American in a state where African American voters gave former vice president Joe Biden a landslide victory in the Feb. 29 Democratic presidential primary.
Harrison is gaining national attention for his capabilities, his fundraising success, and for having a real chance of knocking off #SwampRatGraham in the November 3 general election.
This morning I woke up to a nasty anti-Harrison TV ad that said, in effect, that Harrison was trying to claim to be an "outsider" when he really is "an insider" and part of "the Washington swamp" because he once was a "highly paid lobbyist." The ad appeared to be sponsored by some mysterious superpac set up to support Graham. You know, the kind of ad with the paid for disclaimer in tiny type that you really can't read.
The Swamp
Like Lindsey Graham is an outsider? Like Lindsey Graham isn't part of "the Washington Swamp?"
If there was a Webster's definition of a "swamp rat," it would have Graham's picture next to it. Graham has been a senator since 2003 and before that he served for eight years -- four terms -- in the House of Representatives. Career politician. That's Graham. Sucking off the taxpayers for a quarter of a century. A political hog at the trough. Slurp.
Worse, though, is Graham's "weasleiness" (is that a word?)
When he was running for president in 2016, he said Donald Trump wasn't fit to be president, one of his milder criticisms of Trump. But now he's become Trump's biggest ally in the Senate, no matter what Trump does.
The Ad
A new ad by Harrison, using Trump's own words, puts that into perspective. Check it out here, along with some great commentary from MSNBC.
The ad begins with Trump trashing Graham:
TRUMP: This guy Graham is one of the dumbest human beings I have ever seen. The guy is a nutjob. I don't want his endorsement. I don’t want anything to do with him. He went literally crazy and I think you have one of the worst representatives.
Next, we see Graham calling Trump “a kook” and “not fit to be president of the United States.”
Then it’s back to Trump.
TRUMP: I don't think I've seen a guy so totally out of control. I don't think he could run for dogcatcher in this state and win again. I really don’t. I think Graham is a disgrace.
Uh huh!
This piece from CNN Politics points out that while Harrison has raised nearly $3.6 million during the last three months of 2019, outraising most other Democratic Senate challengers, Graham raised almost $4 million in the last quarter and is now sitting on more than $10 million, far more than Harrison's $4.7 million.
Fighting the Odds
Harrison, 44, was born to a single 16-year-old mother and grew up poor in Orangeburg, halfway between Charleston and Columbia in an area once dubbed the "corridor of shame" because of failing public schools. But he went on to Yale and then Georgetown Law School before going to work for Rep. Jim Clyburn, the most powerful Democrat in the state.
After working for Clyburn, Harrison served as the first black chair of the South Carolina Democratic party from 2013 to 2017 and is currently associate chair and counsel of the Democratic National Committee.
So, yea, he has Washington experience and surely knows where the bones are buried, so to speak. And from the looks of this latest TV ad, it appears his campaign media people do, too.
Oh, by the way, the latest statewide poll showed Harrison within two points of Graham -- probably why the senator has become such a supporter of President Trump, who overwhelmed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election in South Carolina and continues to have strong support in that deep red state. Simply put, Graham is scared.
So Harrison has a shot at #SendingLindseyPacking. Here's hoping it's back to the swamps of South Carolina for Graham, because that's where he belongs.