Free Republic

... Beltway Republicans say they consider Donald Trump the lesser of two evils. Cruz wears their loathing as a badge of honor...

Sen. John McCain declined on Wednesday to criticize Sarah Palin, his former running mate, for endorsing Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. "I respect her view," McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters in the Senate on Wednesday, a day after Palin endorsed the man with whom he has had a bitter feud. "I have great affection and appreciation for her," he said. "I respect what she does." Palin's decision isn't affecting his own thinking about the race, McCain added. "I'm not considering anyone," he said. "I've got my own race to run." McCain had previously endorsed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of his...

Sen. Lindsey Graham says that Sen. Ted Cruz is not a more acceptable nominee than Donald Trump. Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Graham said Trump’s “message is not a good message for us. And it will catch up with us in general. So if you really want to make Hillary Clinton president of the United States, vote for Donald Trump. Dishonest beats crazy.” Graham, who has endorsed Jeb Bush, was asked by NBC’s Willie Geist, “If Donald Trump is not acceptable candidate to you, Ted Cruz is close behind him in a lot of the polls. Leading him a little...

Sen. Lindsey Graham endorsed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for president on Friday, the campaign confirmed. The Seneca Republican dropped out of the presidential race on Dec. 21, and most of his S.C. backers endorsed the son and brother of two presidents. George Bush and George W. Bush won the Palmetto State’s presidential primaries. Graham said last week, in weighing whether to back a 2016 hopeful, that: “No. 1, will my endorsement matter? I’ve got to see what, if any, damage I have done to myself here at home.” Bush needs a big push as voters begin soon to cast...

Sen. Lindsey Graham will endorse former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for president, according to two sources familiar with the plans, and the two are slated to appear together in North Charleston Friday morning for the announcement. The GOP field had been scrambling to secure the support of Graham and his backers since the hawkish South Carolina senator, an influential foreign policy voice, dropped out of the race last month.

"Frankly, he isn't ready for the job." WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) still isn't sure which candidate he'll back in the GOP primary for president, but it won't be Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). "Ted's smart, but I think that Hillary Clinton would do a number on him," Graham told Fox News radio host Brian Kilmeade on Friday. Graham, who dropped his own presidential bid late last month, has said that challenging Cruz -- as well as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- was one of the main reasons he launched his campaign in the first place. He has called Cruz...

Sen. Lindsey Graham admitted on the same day he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race that the more moderate wing of the Republican Party is a thing of the past. "What's happened here is sort of my lane of the party has collapsed," Graham said in an interview with CNN's Kate Bolduan, when asked why he isn't holding out until the South Carolina primary on February 20th. "At the end of the day, I'm not going to be competitive in my state if I'm not competitive outside my state," Graham said, noting that he was once a front-runner in...

Lindsey Graham appeared to become resigned to, even revel in, being the race’s meta-commentator, warning against the dangers of Trump and Cruz.Sen. Lindsey Graham has pulled the plug on his struggling presidential bid. In a video posted on his website Monday, he announced that he’s suspending operations immediately. “You have honored me with your support. I believe we have run a campaign we can be proud of,” Senator Graham said....

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) blames the GOP’s two-tiered debate system for hurting his presidential candidacy. Graham, who on Monday dropped out of the GOP race for the White House, called the system "strange" and said Republicans should "never do this again." "You just can't punch through when you've got a two-tiered system," added Graham, who never made the main stage of a GOP debate, where he might have been able to trade barbs with front-runner Donald Trump. "I just don't see a way for me to get on the main stage in time to make a difference," Graham told CNN....

Another candidate for the Republican nomination for president has dropped out of the race. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham announced Monday that he is no longer seeking to become the nominee, ABC News reported. He made the announcement on Twitter and YouTube Monday morning.

Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham is dropping out of the 2016 race for the White House. The South Carolina senator, who revealed the news in a CNN interview Monday morning, is the fourth GOP contender to drop out of the race, following Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The move leaves 13 candidates remaining in the race for the Republican nod.

Graham pulls out

Sen. Lindsey Graham would work with Hillary Clinton on a range of issues if she became president in exchange for concessions on fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The South Carolina Senator, who is trailing in polls of the Republican presidential field, told TIME after a town hall meeting in Londonderry, N.H., that he would give a hypothetical President Clinton “political cover” on other issues if she fought ISIS. “If she’s willing to be more robust in terms of destroying ISIL, I’d give her political cover,” Graham said. “If she wanted to be more muscular in her foreign...

When President Obama addressed the nation after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., he reiterated the call to resist animus toward Muslims. This was a familiar message — the same we had heard from President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks. We aren’t at war with Islam, both presidents have said, but with an ideology built on distortions (or medieval-minded interpretations) of the Islamic religion. Even so, many Americans still need to be reminded that Muslims, rather than our enemies, are our friends, neighbors, colleagues, scholars, leaders, doctors, mechanics. They’re our fellow Americans. Even so, we continue to...

<p>If you vote for, support, donate to or otherwise have anything to do with these candidates you are a traitor to this nation and deserve to be stripped of your citizenship and deported to North Korea.</p> <p>Senator Lindsey Graham Senator Rubio, who did not show up to vote.</p>

Is it “hawkish” to empower the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East? What about arming Al Qaeda affiliates and creating chaos for Jihad to thrive? Thanks to Tuesday night’s debate, the American people finally observed a substantive debate that highlights the false choice and phantom labeling of “isolationist” vs. hawk.  There legitimately are some isolationists who believe the Islamists are not a problem so long as we don’t “bother” them.  But that is not the position of most conservatives.  In fact, most conservatives fully understand the threat of Islamic supremacism.  It is those who subscribe to the Graham/McCain/Rubio foreign policy...

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham hit back against the far right wing of his party a day after the CNN Republican debate in Las Vegas, saying Barack Obama "is my President" and calling the anger against him "unhealthy." "To those people who think Obama's a Muslim who was born in Kenya, I lost you a long time ago," Graham said Wednesday on CNN's "New Day." "There's a dislike of Obama in my party that's unhealthy, there was a dislike for President (George W.) Bush in the Democratic party that was unhealthy. He is my President."

The most potent illustration that Republicans have shifted their attitudes on immigration came Tuesday morning when all GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected an amendment from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to severely limit the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country. The committee’s overwhelming ‘No’ vote shows that the battle for Republicans’ souls on immigration has shifted away from groups that want to reduce the influx of foreigners, like the Heritage Foundation, NumbersUSA, and Fairness for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), toward free-market groups that applaud increased immigration, such as Americans for Tax Reform and the CATO Institute....

Winners included Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and ... Lindsey Graham? When Dan Fitzmier, director of debate for reigning national debate champ Northwestern University, watched CNN's Republican showdown in Las Vegas, the event's underlying theme was clear: "Who could pass the commander-in-chief mug shot test?" From that perspective, the field narrowed sharply, he might tell a student looking for his post-mortem on Wednesday's two debates (remember, there was the early one for the real long-shots). Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham stood out. Each exhibited...

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