Free Republic

During his remarks before the Concord City Republican Committee last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that robust military spending is absolutely necessary to defeat ISIS forces abroad, and that, as president, he would use the military itself to force Congress to reverse budgetary cuts to defense and intel. In brief audio obtained by BenSwann.com, Sen. Graham purportedly suggests he would use the military to restrict the movement of Congress until they complied: …[A]nd here is the first thing I would do if I were President of the United States: I wouldn’t let Congress leave town until we fix this....

South Carolina has been where underdog Republican presidential candidacies die and front-runners begin to look toward November. The only asterisk to its 32-year streak of picking the eventual GOP nominee came in the whack-a-mole 2012 contest that placed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich over eventual nominee Mitt Romney. “Romney never closed the deal with the voters,” said legendary South Carolina Republican strategist Chip Felkel about Romney's inability to win the first-in-the-South primary. “Voters cast with their hearts, not their heads, in that cycle.” Everyone understandably focuses on who is coming and going in Iowa, the first contest of 2016's presidential...

Ted Cruz delivered on Sunday what looked like a dry run of his 2016 presidential stump speech to the South Carolina activists who will help decide that election. In his first visit to the state, which will host the third presidential primary in February 2016, since October, Cruz told the state’s Tea Party activists that nominating a moderate in 2016 would lead Republicans to lose just like they have when those moderates led the ticket in the past. “If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, all of...

The Hill reports: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will headline the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention this month, joining a pair of other potential presidential candidate[s] also weighing bids to enter the 2016 field. . . . The roster of speakers also includes former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who ran for president in 2012, and Ben Carson, the Tea Party favorite and former neurosurgeon who’s debating entering the fray. It’s not uncommon for Cruz to play to this sort of crowd. He is a favorite among the most conservative members of the GOP, where he doles out one-liners (Abolish the...

In a new poll of likely Republican primary voters nationwide by Zogby Analytics, 2012 GOP nominee Romney leads the pack with 14%, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (12%), Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (10%), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (8%), former Arkansas Governor and now Fox News Host Mike Huckabee (7%), Florida Senator Marco Rubio (7%), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (5%), Rep. and former Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan (4%), Texas Governor Rick Perry (4%), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (3%), Texas Senator Ted Cruz (3%), South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (2%), former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (1%), and both...

So Lindsey Graham is on the warpath ... again. In the past month, South Carolina's senior senator has been busy - which stands in stark contrast to most members of Congress this time of year. Or any time, for that matter. Not only has the hawkish Graham renewed his call to send troops into Syria, he also criticized the release of a report that detailed the CIA's rather torturous methods of extracting information from suspected terrorists. Graham didn't exactly endorse waterboarding, mind you, but he made it clear that enemy detainees really don't want to be locked in a dark...

There's no official Sen. Ted Cruz presidential team — yet. But the Texas Republican is already surrounding himself with key strategists and advisers that could make his transparent White House ambitions a reality. The tea party firebrand relies on a small circle of advisers to inform his views and amplify his ultraconservative message. The inner circle breaks down into two groups: his chief advisers in the Senate office, and the chiefs of his nationally-focused political operation, which he beefed up in the summer of 2014 by hiring a crop of seasoned Republican campaign operatives. These are the key players that...

Sen. John McCain is prodding one of his closest allies in the Senate to consider a run for the White House – Sen. Lindsey Graham. “I think he is looking at it, and I am strongly encouraging him to take a look at it,” McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC News. “I know of no one who is better versed and more important on national security policy and defense than Lindsey Graham, and I don’t think these challenges to our security are going away.” “He is eminently qualified,” McCain added. In an interview with The Weekly Standard last month, Graham, R-S.C., said...

Less than a week before Election Day 2014, Democrats in South Carolina finally got what they’ve long been waiting for: proof that dirt on Senator Lindsey Graham does, indeed, exist. No one expected it to affect his re-election, but the glimpse into Graham’s unscripted life was noteworthy nonetheless. The big secret? That the venerable senator from South Carolina apparently has his eye on bigger and better things. The public may or may not be inclined to take Graham at his word when he says that he was just being “earthy” when he told a group of white males in Charleston...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said his experience passing an immigration bill with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) left him convinced his younger colleague isn't up to the presidency, in part because he's “so afraid of the right.” Graham made the comments to the Weekly Standard's Steven Hayes, and in the interview declared that he may run for president himself, saying he would want to inject his hawkish national security views into the debate. But his remarks about Rubio were perhaps more notable. Graham, for instance, compared Rubio's level of experience to President Obama's before taking offfice – albeit just before saying...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

In Dallas at an Americans For Prosperity event, Heritage Foundation president and former-Sen. Jim DeMint put his thumb firmly on the scale for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) over fellow Texan Gov. Rick Perry for the coming 2016 presidential contest. “I think Cruz even more than Perry right now,” DeMint told the Associated Press. “Ted has become really the national conservative leader.”(continued)

Forgive South Carolina voters if the looming 2016 presidential contest is giving them a strong sense of deja vu. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leading the Democratic pack among this state's voters, according to a new Palmetto Politics poll, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is receiving the most love here on the GOP side. "I think it's hilarious," College of Charleston political scientist Gibbs Knotts said. "This is not 1992 all over again, but we've still got Bush and Clinton. Of course, we're talking about a different Bush and a different Clinton." About one-third of 1,000 likely...

Some Congressional leaders are coming out in support of creating an emergency refugee program that they believe would help deal with a massive surge of child immigrants coming to the U.S. from Central America. Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain said that establishing refugee application programs in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador is “key” to help stem the tide, according to Reuters. Since October, 52,000 Unaccompanied Children, or UACs, have been apprehended at the U.S. border. That is up from 6,000 in 2011. Another 39,000 parents with children have been apprehended as well. The surge has strained resources at the border...

Richard Cash can replace Lindsey Graham SC Rep. primary debate tonight shows Richard Cash is the man who can take out L.G.

Please join Senator Lindsey Graham for an ice cream social TOMORROW at 3 p.m. (Tuesday, October 22) at Besto (1606 N. Main Street) in Anderson! All ages are welcome, so please stop by after school with the whole family to visit with Senator Graham. Free ice cream will be served until 3:45 p.m. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to tyson@lindseygraham.com or call 803-748-0300. Senator Graham hopes you can stop by for fellowship and a cone of your favorite ice cream!

What are we going to do with John McCain who is helping Obama “save-face” by supporting his phony war on Syria? It is clear Americans do not want to get involved. Like Sarah Palin says, “Mr. President, please give America justification before you spend blood and treasure to intervene.” Sarah Palin and John McCain don’t have much in common, except being on the same ticket in 2008. They don’t agree on much politically, especially Syria. The Governor does what the Senator is supposed to do, but that is as far as it goes. John McCain’s transgressions seem to be getting...

War Hawks are getting so desperate that they are using fear tactics in order to motivate constituents to support the war in Syria. Syria and Iran maybe allies, but Sen. Lindsay Graham's analysis of their connection is simplistic and misguided. According to the senator, if the US does not intervene in Syria, Iran will not take the US seriously and will have a nuclear weapon by the end of 2014. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, such weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists. He ended his analysis by describing the fear-inducing-if-unrealistic situation of a nuclear bomb dropping on...

Chris Christie is ditching the Jersey Shore for the Hamptons this weekend to woo big GOP donors for his re-election campaign, far away from South Carolina where other star Republican governors will gather Monday to support Nikki Haley. Bill Palatucci, a longtime Bush family donor, and the New Jersey governor’s brother, Todd Christie, are hosting a Southampton soiree Saturday at the home of Clifford Sobel, an ambassador during former President George W. Bush’s administration. Tickets start at $3,800 a person. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sofia Vergara’s fiance, Nick Loeb, will also be attending....

The mainstream media refuses to give it up. ABC News is trying to fool people into believing that Sarah Palin will be a presidential candidate. Check out this graphic and see it for yourself. Before RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was interviewed on This Week, ABC aired a pre-recorded video package with the announcer saying at the end, “There’s no shortage of prospective Republican candidates, and that makes it even more challenging for the party to resolve its ideological divide.” So let’s take a look at who ABC News thinks is a potential Republican presidential candidate: Ted Cruz? Check. Donald Trump?...