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Sen. Lindsey Graham: Trump 'Hurting His Chances' at Reelection by Fixating on 2020 Loss
Sputnik News ^

Posted on 02/13/2022 8:53:40 PM PST by frankis4liberty

Earlier this month, former US President Donald Trump chastised Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), referring to his longtime ally as a 'Republican in Name Only' (RINO) after the US lawmaker openly disagreed with him on whether a presidential pardon should be extended to Trump supporters prosecuted for participating in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Although the Republican nomination is reportedly Donald Trump's "for the taking" in 2024, the former US president should consider adopting talking points that aren't related to his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, Sen. Lindsey Graham declared, during a Sunday appearance on ABC's "This Week."

"I am not contesting the 2020 election," Graham said, qualifying that there are election reforms that need to happen. "The 2020 election is over for me."


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: lindseygraham; pence2024; rino
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To: JustTheTruth

Exactly. Unless it is actually going to change the legal result of the 2020 election, booting Biden and installing Trump as President (and it won’t), then he starts looking like Captain Ahab if he keeps.pursuing this.


81 posted on 02/14/2022 7:48:05 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: BushCountry

Yet, it’s a good forward thinking strategy geared toward winning. I would like to see him affect election change to protect future votes and do away with mass Vote by Mail.

There is a way to approach this constructively without sounding like the whiner that he is coming across as right now.


82 posted on 02/14/2022 7:59:27 AM PST by JerseyDvl (During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

“Do you really believe you’re going to convince a majority of Americans, and sufficient majorities in Congress, to actually overturn the election and install Trump into office before the 2024 election?”

Tried of this stupid strawman argument. No, Trump is not going to be president before 2024! Never said that. But the election was stolen, the country is being destroyed by a demented old man’s handlers. And I don’t think it should be left unsaid.

Do you really believe that we shouldn’t talk about election fraud because it makes you and the establishment uncomfortable? Stealing the Presidency is not a little thing. Millions of people are suffering because of this theft.


83 posted on 02/14/2022 8:09:42 AM PST by BushCountry (Jeffery Toobin is the only person at CNN that keeps his hands to himself.)
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To: frankis4liberty

Let crimes go unpunished

Lindsey Graham
Good old boy club member


84 posted on 02/14/2022 8:13:31 AM PST by Vaduz ( )
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To: frankis4liberty

What about the spying and the fake Russia crap? That ate up 2-4 years of his Presidency. Was Lindsey even paying attention? So now we talk about all the fraud and eventually when the proof emerges will Lindsey apologize like Leslie Stahl apologized?


85 posted on 02/14/2022 8:13:56 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

Only those that don’t care about free and fair election say “we have to move on”. No, we don’t move on until we get to the bottom of the stolen 2020 election. Then we can move on.


86 posted on 02/14/2022 8:34:16 AM PST by jpsb
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To: BushCountry
Tried of this stupid strawman argument. No, Trump is not going to be president before 2024! Never said that. But the election was stolen, the country is being destroyed by a demented old man’s handlers. And I don’t think it should be left unsaid.

Biden's performance is ongoing, so of course there is every reason to talk about that every day between now and the elections. But do you really think that the argument that "the election was stolen" has been "left unsaid"??? Are you out of your mind? We have been bombarded with that as the primary theme from Trump for more than 16 months. Far from being "left unsaid", we have been subjected to endless repetition of the exact same points and arguments for more than a year.

People have either accepted that the election was stolen, or they haven't. Repeating the same points and arguments ad nauseum doesn't change those opinions. And just to clue you in, a whole hell of a lot of people have just tuned that whole topic out completely at this point. All the repetition actually accomplishes at this point is to convince people that you're more concerned with talking about a past even that you admittedly can't change, rather than how to fix things moving forward.

It has become an Ahab-like obsession, except Ahab at least believed he could kill Moby Dick. You've acknowledged that the election isn't going to be overturned anyway, but still want to obsess over it. It is utterly and completely pointless. It accomplishes nothing other than venting that you find emotionally satisfying.

FWIW, I think the whole argument about the election being stolen was made very poorly by the Trump campaign. Way too much focus on red herrings and conspiracy theories rather than solid and verifiable criticisms of the perils of large-scale absentee voting. But...you don't get a second chance to make a first impression, and unfortunately, the misplaced focus on the conspiracy stuff caused too many people to tune out, and not listen to the rest of it. No way to regain that level of attention by the public. The chance to make a good, convincing case was lost, and it isn't coming back.

87 posted on 02/14/2022 8:51:16 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

There is a very real chance that Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona will decertify their electors. If that happens then it’s an new ball game. I’m not saying it is going to happen but there is a chance it might.


88 posted on 02/14/2022 8:57:06 AM PST by jpsb
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

Over all a good description of things today. We have midterms
coming up and campaigning will begin shortly. The past is history
and should serve as a guide as Tuesday, November 8, 2022 approaches.
During this midterm election year, all 435 seats in the House of
Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested.
That should be our primary focus in the coming months. JMO


89 posted on 02/14/2022 9:21:52 AM PST by deport
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To: jpsb; BushCountry
There is a very real chance that Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona will decertify their electors. If that happens then it’s an new ball game. I’m not saying it is going to happen but there is a chance it might.<[p> So you're saying there really is a chance the 2020 election will be overturned, and Trump put back in office prior to the 2024 election?

Here's the thing -- the electors' votes for the 2020 election were already cast and counted. Whether those states decertify electors who already voted won't change a thing. It would be like a member of Congress changing their mind on a legislative vote after the law was already passed by Congress and signed by the President. They can certainly change their mind, and declare their own vote to be "invalid", but it doesn't change anything that already happened.

In terms of changing public opinion, most people have (quite rightly) concluded that this is a highly politicized debate. They'll just assume that any purported decertification of electors is just a product of Republicans getting more control in a few particular legislatures, and not draw any particular meaning from it.

You can scream to the heavens that they should, but they won't. That's just reality at this point.

90 posted on 02/14/2022 9:25:13 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: deport
Agreed. We need to win seats in Congress to prevent them from gaming federal election law for 2024, and to put the nail in the coffin of the rest of Biden's hard-eft agenda.

Tell voters that Republicans want to unscrew the country, and how we're going to do it. Voters don't want to hear about 2020 any more than they want to hear about January 6.

91 posted on 02/14/2022 9:28:08 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

“The chance to make a good, convincing case was lost, and it isn’t coming back.”

A decent argument. Thanks.

However, it was not lost. the case was not lost, it was hidden, buried. The facts are still there. Anyone with one-brain cell and two eyes can see that the election was stolen. However, the main-stream media (even including right leaning organizations) and gutless republicans will not report on election fraud for the good of the country.

Statistically the election theft can be proven today beyond a shadow of doubt by any news organization. Beyond the impossible voter statistics, new videos of ballot box stuffing, destruction of evidence, illegal ballots, voter registration fraud, etc... a case can easily made today, it is not lost, just weak, scared republicans and media refuse to do their job. In the case of Establishment Republicans (went along with Russia, Russia, Russia too), they got what they wanted, Trump gone.

Do not think for one second, the election theft could not be proven today. It’s just no news organization has the guts to do journalism and every republican is a coward because of that.


92 posted on 02/14/2022 10:40:18 AM PST by BushCountry (Jeffery Toobin is the only person at CNN that keeps his hands to himself.)
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To: BushCountry
I think in all honestly, it is a very difficult case to make. I personally believe the biggest fraud risk is in the absentee ballots. But unless you actually go to each person who submitted an absentee ballot and confirm their signature, you can't prove fraud. I also think the risk of things like vote-buying is huge, and that is extraordinarily difficult to catch because neither the payor nor the payee is going to report that it happened.

It makes zero sense to me to put all this emphasis on voter ID when we're not ever requiring people to come down to the polls in person at all to cast a vote. We're not "checking I.D.'s with a mail-in ballot, right? That's the biggest vulnerability in the system.

The problem with "the Kraken", and Mike Lindell (for all his good intention) promising and not delivering is that it taints the whole election challenge. People now just tune it out because they think it's just a bunch of nuts, and they won't listen. We can't get that back no matter how much we repeat it.

That's why I'd like to see a full-on pivot to improving election security moving forward. That's where I'd prefer to see Trump, etc., spend their political capital.

93 posted on 02/14/2022 10:53:43 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

“I think in all honestly, it is a very difficult case to make.”

You just have not looked. Sorry. Each battleground state picked up 500,000 extra democrat voters. More unbelievable vote totals. Now these 500,000 vote gains in each battleground are democrats only. Trump picked up so many votes the Democrats had to add the 500,000 mail-in votes to barely beat him. The idea that a 1,000,000 voter gain in each battleground state from one presidential election to the next is laughable.

Does anybody really think that Biden beat Obama with the Black population in select Swing State cities, but nowhere else? That he would lose 18 out of 19 bellwether counties, and 27 out of 27 “toss-up” House races, but somehow miraculously receive the most votes in American history with absolutely no coattails? That he would lose Florida, Ohio, and Iowa and win, even though it has never been done before? That he would beat Obama in his prime by millions more black votes yet lose 10% less counties. In these swing state cities that there would dozens of precincts with over 98% Biden vote totals with 100% voter turnout.

Statistically, there are so many outliers with impossible vote totals, one only has to look. But, statistics alone is not largest proof. You must not have read about video evidence of ballot boxes being destroyed within two months of the election, or seen the videos of ballot stuffing, or seen the video of county officials destroying data, or heard about shredding of mail-in envelopes, illegal mail-in ballots with no matching envelopes, there has been so much evidence of fraud that has been dribbled out since the election.

If a news organization gathered the proof and presented all the statistics and illegal activity surrounding election they could prove the fraud to anyone willing to see. The only reason that 90% of the country doesn’t believe the election was stolen is because the evidence of fraud and illegal activity by election supervisors is being delivered piecemeal. No one is seeing the big picture.


94 posted on 02/14/2022 11:19:39 AM PST by BushCountry (Jeffery Toobin is the only person at CNN that keeps his hands to himself.)
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To: BushCountry
You can't make a conclusive argument based on historical vote totals when the rules were changed to make it easier to vote. Many states made it much easier to vote than it had been previously, and while there are tons of people who probably wouldn't make the effort to go to the polls, they would drop a ballot in the mail (or have it picked up) if one is deliberated to their house. Especially if there was door to door canvassing.

Fact is, Trump got 12 million more votes than he got in 2016, and Biden got 15 million more than did Hillary. So unless we're saying there was massive fraud on Trump's end too, we have to accept the reality that changes in voting rules -- particularly the pushing of absentee ballots -- changed the turnout models.

Didn't help that some Republicans kept making the ridiculous "more votes than registered voters" argument, either. Crap like that drowned out whatever legitimate arguments there were to be made.

95 posted on 02/14/2022 11:51:03 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: BushCountry
I forgot to address the second part of your post.

Do I think there was some illegal stuff going on? Of course! The problem is quantifying provable illegality to the degree necessary to prove that it swung an election. You have to be able to count the number of actual votes impacted -- not just guess -- and then the evidence for that must be conclusive, not speculative. That is very difficult to do, especially when a lot of that evidence was destroyed, or based solely on testimony.

96 posted on 02/14/2022 11:53:55 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin ( .)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

“Fact is, Trump got 12 million more votes than he got in 2016, and Biden got 15 million more than did Hillary. So unless we’re saying there was massive fraud on Trump’s end too...”

Wow. You must not been paying attention during the campaign. The demented barely functioning Biden could not draw a crowd of 50 people when he left his basement. He insulted blacks every chance he got and had Klan buddies.

There were boat parades of 50,000 in Tampa harbor for Trump. I personally seen a convoy of cars 20 miles long for Trump on I75 in Florida. Biden’s convoy in Florida was 35 cars. Every Trump rally had over 35,000 people. In spite of the news, Trump was popular, he achieved great things, so of course he was going to get more votes than when he outsider.

But, the silliest thing you might have said is that there must have been voter fraud on Trump’s end. You do realize that over 90% of Trump’s votes were on election day or in person voting where ID was required. Far different from the massive mail-in ballot stuffing/harvesting voter fruad.

You can explain away the big picture (easier to vote), but if you take a magnifying glass and look at the totals and voter dumps the results are statistically impossible for Biden.


97 posted on 02/14/2022 12:11:57 PM PST by BushCountry (Jeffery Toobin is the only person at CNN that keeps his hands to himself.)
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To: frankis4liberty

If I was Trump, I would do the exact opposite of what Lindsay says. Why would anyone care what he thinks?


98 posted on 02/14/2022 12:14:11 PM PST by Joann37
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To: BushCountry

“That is very difficult to do, especially when a lot of that evidence was destroyed, or based solely on testimony.”

Most people are convicted on circumstantial evidence. Cumulative evidence is as good as direct proof. If someone said, these totals are impossible and the evidence was destroy to keep it from being proven. I would believe those numbers were impossible.


99 posted on 02/14/2022 12:22:31 PM PST by BushCountry (Jeffery Toobin is the only person at CNN that keeps his hands to himself.)
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To: SPDSHDW
Vote him out, replace with a D if needed.

Oh please. What an irresponsible strategy.

You would probably be one of those FReepers that would then be bellyaching about the Dems having control of the Senate.

100 posted on 02/14/2022 12:30:30 PM PST by Fury
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