Posted on 10/20/2009 7:23:59 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
When a runaway hot-air balloon reported to be carrying a six-year-old boy made headlines last week, many were surprised to find out it had all been a hoax. Admitted the six-year-old boy on live television, We did this for a show.
Another hot-air balloon by the name of Lindsey Graham also made headlines last week by putting on a show of his own, as the South Carolina Senator held court at a town hall meeting, touting his conservative credentials before an angry crowd that wasnt buying it. Theyre a political fringe group Graham said of his critics, Im the conservative in the room.
Is Graham a conservative? Are his detractors merely a political fringe? In a headline reading Graham aims to tackle radical views, The Greenville News reports:
Political experts say a burgeoning group of right-wing activists long seen as the fringe of the party is growing in influence, fueled by economic fears and populist ire over Washington spending and magnified by the power of the Internet Whether they represent a vocal minority or the seeds of a serious election challenge for Graham remains to be seen, though at least one Republican consultant believes the states senior senator has real problems outside of just a raucous town hall meeting If he were running right now, hed be in serious trouble, said Dave Woodard, a Clemson University political science professor and former campaign manager for Graham who said he has Upstate polling to support his view.
Woodards findings coincide with another story published in the Wall Street Journal the same day entitled Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy in which the author Naftali Bendavid notes:
The rise of conservative tea party activists around the country has created a dilemma for Republicans. They are breathing life into the party's quest to regain power. But they're also waging war on some candidates hand-picked by GOP leaders as the most likely to win the tea-party movement appears aggressively nonpartisan, much like Ross Perot's supporters in 1992. The tea-party movement, in my judgment, has proven to be very real, but it's precisely the fact that it's real that makes it difficult to take advantage of, says Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and now a top Republican strategist. They don't want to be co-opted by the Republican Party.'
For his entire career, Grahams strategy for victory has been the same as his partys - dangle conservative-sounding rhetoric before easily duped constituents during an election year so that Republicans can be returned to Washington to do as much damage as the Democrats. Its refreshing to learn that according to some experts, a growing number of grassroots conservatives are tired of being duped.
Not that establishment Republicans wont stop trying. Graham is a master of this long-standing Republican hoax, in which politicians will float their own hot-button, hot-air balloons, especially concerning social issues like gay marriage, abortion and the 2nd amendment, but are actually far more concerned with the much more important business of spending trillions of dollars on needless bailouts and stimulus packages, even more needless trillions on unnecessary wars, collaborating with the Democrats to expand the domestic welfare state and appointing liberal justices to the Supreme Court. Said Graham in Greenville last week Ill put my record as a pro-life politician against anybody in this country Im a lifelong NRA member. It should be noted that alleged, staunch pro-lifer and gun rights advocate Graham has done very little to actually overturn Roe vs. Wade or federal gun laws, but has worked overtime to promote TARP, cap and trade and amnesty for illegal aliens.
Perhaps an even better example of Grahams posturing was his bi-polar treatment of liberal Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Said Graham at first When I look at her record, her ideology, I'm deeply troubled. The Daily Beast even ran the headline Lindsey Graham Attacks Sotomayor. A few short weeks later, Graham became the sole Republican on the senate judiciary committee to confirm Sotomayor.
The biggest difference between the so-called balloon boy and Graham, is that the six-year-old finally admitted his disingenuousness. Sheriff Jim Alderden, who worked on the runaway balloon case, rightly noted that the boys family had put on a very good show for us, and we bought it. Graham and his Republican Party have put on a show for years - millions of conservative voters have bought it - and yet the GOP still refuses to fess up. Said Graham of his critics without the slightest hint of irony, The reason I can stand up there and smile confidently and tell them I disagree is I know that most people are with me.
Whether conservatives continue to buy Grahams hot-air is something only time will tell. But rest assured that in the meantime, Lindsey Graham and similar self-described conservatives will never admit to their hoax - and worse - will insist that the same old Republican show must go on.
Good read!
The leadership of the GOP need to have a closed door meeting with this traitor to get his mind glued back together. They need to drag Snowe and Collins in at the same time. I’m sure these RINOs are too busy sucking up to the Fuhrer to take time out of their day.
He is doing more damage to the conservative cause than any single person I can think of right now.
The G0P party of RINOS need to get a clue. We hate your traitorous asses as much as we hate the socialists.
You sc’ers gott’a defeat this clown.
SC just re-upped with LITL Graham last year. They screwed the rest of the nation and reinforced the RINO GOP.
Graham is a disgusting POS!!
scuse me but the “leaders” are the problem the are no better than Gramnesty
When all of the GOP are RINOS, the term ceases to have any meaning. They are all simply Republicans.
Make a pledge today that you will not vote for a RINO or a faux-conservative. Let's take our country back from liberals and RINOs. They are the same species and they are breeding in Washington.
The leaders are all busy searching for their gonads with both hands and a mirror and coming up empty. IMO, they’re spineless, gutless, gonad-less schmucks.
He can try to co-opt them but he can’t. The TEA Party is not the Republican Party, it doesn’t follow any leaders.
Last week saw “I want to help Obama be a success Mathews MSNBC” defending Grahm on his show. He likes Grahm just like he used to like McCain.
The leadership of the GOP agrees with them.
D@mn straight.
Hence, my name for him..."Flimsy" Graham...I can see right through his rhetoric.
Lindsay Graha, and all other RINOS who have been bloviating for YEARS need to GO
Anyone who has been around for 20 years IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MESS!!!!
We can have this level of incompetance from any place
THE NEXT TEA-PARTY MARCH SHOULD BE ON GOP HEADQUARTERS!
AND SOON!!
“Lindsey Graham also made headlines last week by putting on a show of his own, as the South Carolina Senator held court at a town hall meeting, touting his conservative credentials before an angry crowd that wasnt buying it.” THe Senate and House are filled with liars and thieves, with “D” or “R” after their name (and one with “I”). It is liars like Graham who have known for more than a decade that the debt accumulation was unsustainable. The thirty trillion dollar unfunded liabilities didn’t pop up in Bush’s administration, it took decades to accumultae, following the little sneaky move of dumping all revenues in ‘the general fund’, making IOUs the means to raid the tax collections for FICA and spending them then going in debt each year. Graham is just another ... no, that’s incorrect, since Graham is more pernicious than the typical R or D politician because he lies so openly for both sides of the aisle! A degenerate mind like Graham’s is so easily extorted for leverage ... he cannot conceive of giving up his power, so he sells it for the silence of those who hold his secrets. The Republic cannot survive with such pernicious corruption so completely ignored.
I disagree. We have a national platform and 50 state platforms. These spell out our identity as a party and what it means to be a "Republican". RINOs give lip service to our values and work against us where it counts. They are not simply republicans...
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