Flashback: Meet Lindsey Graham, the Next GOP Maverick on Climate Change

nytimes.com ^ | 10/13/09 | DARREN SAMUELSOHN

[cotton1706]

Sen. Lindsey Graham spent his summer testing out lines on global warming.

As the Republican hit the town halls in South Carolina, a state with a major military presence and one of the country's highest unemployment rates, Graham would ask people if they thought climate change was a problem.

Few did.

But Graham quickly followed with another question, asking for a show of hands from those concerned about energy security. The response was strong, and Graham wasted little time making the connection.

"You can't look at it in isolation," Graham said in an interview last week. "I'm trying to say, OK, you're skeptical about global warming, you're worried about the compliance costs, and you think maybe there's not much benefit to the environment. I'm not there, but I respect that.

"What if I took something you agree with, that this country had a lot of resources that need to be explored and extracted, and every barrel of oil that we can find off South Carolina with South Carolina's permission, and natural gas deposits, make us more energy independent?" he added. "What if you married those two things up? And took some of the revenue from oil and gas exploration and put it toward reducing our carbon dependency? I think that's a deal that a lot of people would go for. You don't have to be a true believer of drilling offshore or that climate change is real. You've just got to be willing to give and take."

Graham's desire to trade energy provisions for his support on a major climate bill has won him audiences with leading Senate Democrats and the Obama administration. And while few of his fellow Republicans are willing to make such a leap, Graham is.

[Timber Rattler]

Backstabbing, finger-in-the-wind weasel.

[LMAO]

The GOP has too many “mavericks” which is code for “ being Democrat lite.”

[Breto]

The problem is the voters of South Carolina. The entire state needs to be burnt to the ground as just reward for foisting this creep on the country.

[pfony1]

That seems like a harsh punishment for simply failing to UNITE around a single CONSERVATIVE candidate.

But, thanks to the pride-fueled in-fighting, I STILL don’t know if Lee Bright is the best candidate.

[Resettozero]

REGARDING PRIMARY RACE FOR REPUBLICAN NOMINATION SENIOR U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA:

All challengers and the Incumbent are scheduled to appear on SCETV main channel in HD at 7PM this evening (Saturday) and an SD playback of the hour-long presentation on SCETV third channel at 8PM this evening, June 7, 2014.

Internet streaming may be available here:

http://scetv.org/index.php/etv_learn_blog/entry/etv_election_central—series_of_televised_debates_with_streaming_video/

Potentially live but definately recorded streaming should be available here later:

http://www.scetv.org/electionblog/

[Breto]

That seems like a harsh punishment for simply failing to UNITE around a single CONSERVATIVE candidate.

ok maybe a tad harsh.. how about most of it to the ground :)

[Din Maker]

All of these Flashback Posts are great Cotton. But, how can we get all of this info out to the people of SC?

[cotton1706]

“All of these Flashback Posts are great Cotton. But, how can we get all of this info out to the people of SC?”

Don’t know. It’s up to them now. However, I did see that Lee Bright used the “tell the bigots to shut up” quote in the debate last night. Don’t know if that’s because of my posts or not. I know his campaign manager is a FReeper. In any case, it was great to see!!

My hope is that FReepers saw them and sent them to who they know in SC that may have been on the fence. We’ll see on Tuesday.