I read a hilarious report today that is just so asinine I don't know what to make of it. It seems Lindsey Graham, Republican In Name Only Senator from South Carolina, is hopping mad at Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, because Reid is going ahead with an Immigration Reform Bill ahead of their previously agreed schedule-originally after the 2010 mid-term elections. Graham is so upset at this, he has threatened to pull out on the Cap And Trade legislation he has been working on along with Senators Kerry and Lieberman. In response, Kerry has pulled the plug on the planned unveiling of the legislation until further notice. For the time being, it is in effect dead.
Graham's reasoning, however, is what is so mind-numbingly obvious it almost comes across like a comedy routine. Graham is certain that Reid is just doing this for political purposes, a way to possibly salvage his political career, which no doubt is the truth. Reid is in trouble and such a bill might be the only way he can salvage his own political career, by appealing to the Latino voters in his state.
In the meantime, Graham-who I should here point out has long been an advocate and supporter of Immigration Reform (he supported the last controversial attempt at such legislation co-authored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy and supported by then President George W. Bush), but he is certain this is just another way for the Democrats to gain a political advantage for the up-coming 2010 mid-term elections over the GOP, whose base has long let it be known in no uncertain terms that any GOP Senator who supports any kind of liberalization of American immigration policy will do so at their own peril.
Graham has worked hard on the Cap and Trade bill in the probably futile hopes of making it palatable to most conservative voters, by working for the inclusion of calls for more exploration and drilling of oil and natural gas, development of clean coal technology, and even construction and expansion of more nuclear plants.
It's obviously an important issue to him, and so is Immigration Reform, and moreover, Lindsey Graham is not up for re-election this year. In fact, he's not up until, I think 2014. So what is his problem here?
Enter-John McCain, who is in the fight of his Senatorial career, in a primary contest with former Republican House member JD Hayworth, currently a conservative talk radio host in Arizona. Although McCain is for now ahead in the polls, it is by no means a comfortable lead-some polls show the lead held by McCain to be as slight as five percent-and Hayworth seems to be steadily gaining ground. He seems to in effect have the momentum.
So there you have it. McCain can't afford to vote for an Immigration Reform Bill at this stage. That would certainly be political suicide, especially given the current climate in Arizona, his home state. He would like to vote for it. He would love to vote for it, for all the self-serving rhetoric he's been dishing out on the stump lately about securing our borders. But he knows he can't vote for it before the 2010 elections, and so does Lindsey Graham. More to the point, McCain not only can't afford to vote for it, he also can't afford to sabotage any filibuster attempts by any of his fellow GOP Senators, something for which he also has an unfortunate history. McCain is in a real bind now, and he-and Lindsey Graham-know that only too well. Lindsey Graham is like a little kid playing hide-and-seek in the middle of the living room, laying in the middle of the floor with a blanket pulled over him, and thinking no one else can see him.
Of course, while this is funny on one level, on another it is really quite sad. What you have here is a United States Senator throwing a temper tantrum because a key ally is being put in a position where he has to oppose a bill in order to retain his seat, when he would ordinarily love to support the bill-as would Graham himself, who has therefore removed himself from the negotiations from yet another bill they would both also love to support, one they had hoped to be able to do so while including elements they hoped would prevent the disintegration of their core support.
In the meantime, there is yet a second factor at work as regards Grahams seemingly untypical meltdown-
Grahams recent actions in fact gives him plausible deniability as regarding the charges made against him in the preceding video, recorded at a recent Tea Party in South Carolina, Grahams home state.
It seems like Graham has the balls to stand up to the Democrats after all, seems to be the intended message, not of course that they have anything on him that he has to worry about, by God. Yes Graham has balls, and while they might be tiny little round ones, they are straight ones nevertheless.
By the time Graham does come up for reelection, don't be surprised if he isn't married to Katy Holmes
As for McCain, he knows full well that if he is elected to yet another term, it will in all likelihood be his last one. Given his past history, what possible reason does he have to improve on it now? He has it in his senile mind that he is an elder statesman, the kind of guy who can "reach across the aisle and get things done for the American people". What that translates into is he is a conservative of convenience, but a liberal by inner sentiment. He dare not vote for or support an immigration reform bill now.
But if he is elected, to what will in all probability be his last term in office, you had better understand this-he will have no reason to pretend to be anything other than what he is. And he will act accordingly. Thus you have Lindsey Graham, throwing the equivalent of a Senatorial hissy-fit, all because he knows if his buddy McCain is put in a position where he can't support his cherished dreams without risking the loss of his Senate seat due to those pesky little inconvenient things known as the voters, its all the Democrats fault. They should have had enough class to wait until after the election-when it would be too late for the voters to punish McCain accordingly.
In the meantime, to all those Arizona Republicans who might be thinking of whether they should support McCain in the primaries, if you fall for his lies and manipulations now, you have only yourselves to blame. JD Hayworth is by no means perfect, but what politician is? When it comes to John McCain, what he says now and what his actual legislative history and voting record is might well be-in fact is-two different things.
