Posted on 05/24/2005 11:18:01 AM PDT by AFPhys
In the last hour of the show, Lindsey Graham was on the Mike Gallagher show. Here is a synopsis of what he said
- I pretty much leave out the other side of the conversation since it is usually pretty clear what Mike said:
- It's tough to disagree with your friends...
- I'd like to give you my reasoning here...
[interrupted by Mike with clip played of Reid crowing: sent a message to Pres & Radical R's]
- He's just playing that to his base. The bottom line is that Reid and the D's lose the battle over these three that they most wanted to block. Pryor, Brown, Owens will be confirmed real soon.
- If filibusters are allowed, that will damage the judiciary. We had to end that. This is a chance to start over and reinstate the Senate tradition of parties working together. But ...
- I am a YES vote - a solid YES - for the Constitutional Option - if the D's resume filibustering.
- I predict all eight of these nominees will get back in the process, and that seven of those eight will be confirmed - but that one will not.
- This is all about the Supreme Court, though.
- The real big problem I had is "what happens if the Constitutional option failed?" There are FIVE SOLID NOs against the Constitutional option. There are 4 or 5 unknown. This was too close. Failure would be a disaster and really cause problems.
- Best is to get these conservative justices on the bench, and that will reframe the debate for the D's since these are not now "too extreme".
- [What if D's Filibuster USSC justices?] - D's said they would not filibuster unless "exceptional circumstances" - and that's not a wide open phrase - they aren't sinning this.
- Conservative justices will now make it through the judicial process.
- I will vote for the Constitutional option if they filibuster Supreme Court and so will at least one more of the 12.
- [lost momentum?] - Maybe - but don't forget that they have now put "Neanderthals" (Kennedy/ Reid's words) to be judges, and so these are not "too conservative" to be on the bench.
- This has been the hardest thing I've done ...
- If they filibuster, I'll fight back hard - I'll start over with the "nuclear option" - but we'll be in a far stronger position when we're discussing the Supreme Court justices with the public.
- I may be wrong and hope I'm not about all this - time will tell.
...
Unfortunately, this confirms what I feared, which was that we NEVER had a solid 51 votes. I will be calling DeWhine's office, and telling him that I expect action on these, and while I can't vote against him this year, I can work like hell to derail his son's congressional seat.
Your tagline, I love that quote and the context of it.
http://www.gobrinkman.com/ for those of like mind, State rep. Tom Brinkman for Congress running against Pat DeWine in the primary
Steeped in gayness.
The problem is that he took on all kinds of things, like vote counts, that WERE NOT HIS JOB. Every senator does not know the overall picture and the fact that he did not know that he could equally cause damage to the voters, his party, and the remaining 48 senators makes me wonder how he ever got to be a senator in the first place. I hope he is as naive as he sounds and is not just trying to play it both ways. No matter, he is still a baby playing with wolves.
Graham: '..."exceptional circumstances" - and that's not a wide open phrase...'
Good grief, what a tool.
I don't have a transcript from 5/24 yet. Is that what you are looking for?
http://thomas.loc.gov/r109/r109.html <- Congressional Record by day
What Graham Says everytime MCCain sidles up behind him...
Ill take Potent Potables for 400 Alex...
If the senate ":leadership" has any B@LLS they will strip mcpain of his chairmanship!
Until then SCREW THE REPUBLICAN LEADERS and WITHHOLD ALL $$$ FROM THE rnc.
Pingety-ping.
Of the seven GOP compromisers, Graham is the one who surprises me most. And, as it happens, he is the most vulnerable of the seven to being taken out by a conservative.
The true RINOs in the gang of seven (Collins, Snowe, and Chafee) probably enhanced their future reelection prospects in their red states, and in any event are most unlikely to be toppled in a GOP primary.
McCain undertook no political risk in organizing the compromise; it's impossible for conservatives to dislike him more than they already did.
Warner will be 81 when reelection time rolls around in 2008; I have to believe he'll hang it up, but of course conservative alternatives should be cultivated.
DeWine is a possible target for angry conservatives, and could feel the heat in a 2006 primary. But Ohio is very marginal state, and we run the risk of opening the door to a Dem gain if DeWine survives a tough primary. That's a risk I'd be willing to take, by the way.
But the biggest opportunity, in my judgment, to make a real change is in South Carolina. What follows is pretty much the same thing I said on another thread, so if you read it before, forgive the repeat, but I think it's relevant here.
If ever anyone needed a primary opponent, surely it is Lindsey Graham. He's not a true RINO in the Collins/Snowe/Chafee sense, but he has been moving in that direction. Conservatives have a great opportunity to go after him in 2008, for three reasons.
First, Senators are most vulnerable to defeat in their first reelection bid; after two terms, they tend to get entrenched. Graham won his seat in 2002, and will be in his first Senate reelection contest.
Second, South Carolina is now safely Republican (absent a cataclysmic national GOP meltdown); so the winner of a 2008 primary would be an overwhelming favorite in the general, especially in a presidential year. No worries about losing the seat to the Dems as a result of a tough primary fight.
And third, there's a deep pool of electable conservative talent in South Carolina: current Governor Mark Sanford, who will probably be reelected in 2006; Congressman Bob Inglis from the Greenville-Spartanburg area, who gave Hollings a good run in 1998; Charleston real estate developer Thomas Ravenel, who narrowly lost the 2004 senate primary to Jim DeMint; and many others.
To me, Lindsey Graham should be the focal point for conservatives' efforts to build a long-term Senate majority. Sure, there are plenty of Senators who are far more odious than Lindsey Graham; unfortunately, most are entrenched, or likely to be replaced with equally unsatisfactory public servants. Graham, however, increasingly finds himself at odds with a South Carolina electorate which has moved rapidly to the right in recent years. He presents the #1 target of opportunity. Let's go get him, y'all.
So you believe DeWine and Graham....wait I have this bridge for sale.
Oh yes, I like that idea.
I just heard him on C_SPAN , I like what he said regarding his vote if any one of the 7 Demos start Filibustering that he would vote for the Constitutional option!
Now if we could hear from the other 6 pubbies to support that, I would say we won a battle....
He also said that with brown, Owen and Pryor it was no longer valid for any Senator to say that a nominee was an extreme nominee just cause they were Conservative!!!!
That is a BIGEE!!!
I am coming around to that view, but more needs to play out!
Unfortunately, Jackson said this in regard to the forced march of the Cherokee Indians to Oklahoma in cold weather beginning in October of 1838, resulting in the death of more than 1/4 of them. The Cherokee had adopted American ways, educated their children, some of whom became lawyers, and appealed their case to the Supreme Court, where they WON. Then they were removed and killed anyway. I'm sure you didn't mean THAT context.
"There are FIVE SOLID NOs against the Constitutional option. There are 4 or 5 unknown."
Then dammit, thats when you grab the bull by the horns and tell these clowns "It's time to pick sides...permanently. You don't get a pass on this one. It's too important". The Morons from Maine and Chaffee wouldn't care, but the others would line up. Call Dick Cheney to the Senate and get 51 votes.
No guts, no glory.
Mike Gallagher doesn't have a lot upstairs. Graham chose well in going before an interviewer who can be easily outgunned.
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