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The plot to oust Lindsey Graham
Washington Post ^ | 5/7/13 | Ezra Klein

Posted on 05/08/2013 7:16:34 AM PDT by cotton1706

If you’re a South Carolina Republican who doesn’t like Sen. Lindsey Graham, you’ve got a problem. Graham is popular. Really popular. His approval rating among the state’s Republicans hovers in the 60-70 percent range. Those aren’t the kinds of numbers that typically foretell successful primary challenges.

But as The National Review’s Betsy Woodruff reports, “the people that don’t like him really, really, really don’t like him. There are typically a lot of those people at the state convention.” And those people came up with a great idea: What if the South Carolina Republican Party chose its nominees at the state convention rather than in primary elections?

What makes this such a great idea is that it can be implemented by the hardcore Republican Party activists who attend the state convention with no input from the broader pool of South Carolina Republicans who vote in the primary election. And, in advance of Saturday’s South Carolina Republican Convention, a small band of Graham-haters tried to do just that.

There are two ways to view the conservatives who tried to change the rules to oust Graham. One school of thought holds that they’re what makes the Republican Party such a disciplined, fearsome force in contemporary American politics. “The most brilliant and effective tactical innovation of the American right is the use of the primary,” writes MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. (By the way, are you watching Hayes’s new 8 p.m. show on MSNBC? You should be. It’s excellent.)

But it’s also led to Republicans being out of power more — and facing larger Democratic majorities — than they would have been otherwise. And that gets to the second way of seeing the GOP’s reliance on primaries: It’s been a tactical success, but a strategic disaster.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: grahamnesty; primarygrahamnesty; primarytherinos; rinosbegone
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To: cotton1706

Down with Goober!
Down with Goober!
Down with Goober!


21 posted on 05/08/2013 9:09:21 AM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: cotton1706

South Carolina FREEPers, please tell me this notion that GrayHam’s popularity is WAY over-stated.


22 posted on 05/08/2013 9:29:44 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: cotton1706

If 60% of South Carolina Republicans like Graham they are some pathetic excuses for Republicans.


23 posted on 05/08/2013 9:46:06 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: cotton1706

With his support of the multi-trillion Rubio-Obama Amnesty....his donations from and ties to George Soros....Graham is quite beatable

Which is why you are seeing this Graham fluff piece


24 posted on 05/08/2013 10:26:05 AM PDT by SeminoleCounty (GOP - Greenlighting Obama's Programs)
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