Jay Stamper on Lindsey Graham: "There Is Something Disturbing About Someone Who Has Never Seen Combat Being So Consistently Eager To Deploy Other People’s Sons And Daughters Overseas"

Lindsey Graham (R-Meet The Press)

If Lindsey Graham loses his Senate seat in 2014, it's probably not going to be because he's a self-loathing closet case. In the South, that's how they like their homosexuals-- self-loathing and in the closet. And it's probably not going to be because the DSCC spends $3,862,547 or their Majority PAC puts in another $3,711,835, like they did in Claire McCaskill's race against Todd Akin, or $4,150,132 plus $2,996,159 like they did for John Tester in Montana or even the "mere" $882,789 and $300,000 they spent against Scott Brown in Massachusetts to win back that seat. As of now, the DSCC isn't looking to South Carolina as a likely pickup and is more likely to squander their money on hopeless ConservaDems Mark Begich (AK) and Mark Pryor (AR) and trying to defend open seats in South Dakota and West Virginia. I might point out at this point Obama's losses in those 5 states. Oh, look which one was the least red:

• South Carolina- 44%
• Alaska- 41%
• South Dakota- 40%
• Arkansas- 37%
• West Virginia- 36%

But they're ignoring South Carolina in favor of these 4 redder states because... well, it can't be because Lindsey Graham is less well-known or less loathed among Democrats. Meanwhile, though, Blue America has endorsed the one Democrat brave enough to take Graham on mano a mano, Jay Stamper who pointed out on his own campaign blog why Graham can be defeated next year. Among the 10 reasons are that Graham's last opponent, right-wing Democrat Bob Conley, spent only $15,000 against Graham's $6.6 million and still got 42.25% of the vote. In 2010, despite Democrats suffering massive defeats nationwide and votes being siphoned off by a Green Party candidate, Democrat Vincent Sheheen won 47% of the vote to Republican Nikki Haley’s 51.4% in the gubernatorial race. Sheehan is taking on the unpopular Haley again next year. Meanwhile, to protect his right flank, Graham has moved way to the right to please teabaggers and theocrats (many of whom detest him) and that makes him even less attractive to mainstream and independent voters.

When we first heard from Stamper back in April, we were still vetting him as a candidate. He checks out and he's now on the Blue America Senate page. Today he has a guest post for us about the importance of this race, not just for South Carolina but for all Americans.

Why We Should All Care About Retiring Lindsey Graham
by Jay Stamper

The outcome of the 2014 Senate election in South Carolina will affect all Americans-- not just South Carolinians.

As one of the leading obstructionists in the U.S. Senate, Lindsey Graham has abused his filibuster power, holding legislation and important confirmations hostage for purely political reasons. His conduct is hurting our entire country.

When Graham kills common sense background checks for criminals and the mentally ill, it doesn’t just affect South Carolinians. We’re all less safe-- no matter where we live.

When he supports cuts to Medicare and Social Security, seniors and the disabled are affected not just in South Carolina but in South Dakota, California, New York, Florida and everywhere else.

When he advocates warrant-less wiretaps, restrictions on free speech and suspending the bill of rights, our rights are threatened everywhere.

But the main reason we should all care about retiring Lindsey Graham is the carelessness with which he advocates the use of American military force abroad. There is something disturbing about someone who has never seen combat being so consistently eager to deploy other people’s sons and daughters overseas. Maybe that’s why he has falsely and repeatedly claimed to be a Gulf War veteran.

I believe that Graham may be one of those people who appreciates our military’s capabilities and are frustrated when they aren’t being employed. It’s like having a brand new sports car in your garage all gassed up, the keys in the ignition, but not being able to take it for a spin.

Having voted to authorize the use of force in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was Graham not chastened when these two wars left over 100,000 civilians and U.S. soldiers dead or wounded and our economy on life support. Did he consider resigning, maybe to write a memoir in the hope that we could at least learn from his mistakes. At the very least, did he shy away from any future discussion of foreign policy. No-- not Lindsey. Instead, he’s weighing in on Syria. After reviewing all the facts, he’s come to a conclusion that we need boots on the ground and we need to bomb the country with cruise missiles.

There are so many ways this can backfire. Cornering Assad with U.S. force would make it more likely-- not less-– that he would resort to using chemical weapons out of desperation. The Arab proverb is “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” and intervening would make us friends with the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaida. We could end up spending money and American lives replacing a brutal dictatorship with a radical theocracy. Lindsey actually wants us to arm fractured rebel groups, many of whom have already committed war crimes. Their empowerment would risk the disintegration of any central government and could turn Syria into a sort of lawless failed state like Somalia, even more of a refuge for terrorists than it is currently. Not to know how wrongheaded it is to intervene is to ignore the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and also to ignore the complexity of the Syrian situation, which virtually guarantees undesired and unintended consequences.

Lindsey, can you look into the eyes of these troops, or their parents, and honestly tell them that deploying on a mission to Syria has a high probability of making Americans safer, advancing the interests of the United States or contributing to regional stability in the Middle East? In fact, intervening in the crisis will not do any of these things.

Can you look into the eyes of the veterans of past wars who are disabled and homeless and tell them they just need to wait longer to get the help they need because we need those billions of dollars to fight yet another war? And how can we claim to support the troops when we send them to war and forget when they get home, voting to cut benefits for people who risked everything to serve our country?

Has Lindsey Graham thought about how $1.4 trillion in war spending could have been used to improve people’s lives? We could have increased funding for the National Institutes of Health by 600% every year for the last 10 years, speeding the development of treatments and cures for cancer, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, MS, and countless other diseases that destroy more lives every year than any Islamic terrorist could dream of. We could have provided low-income healthcare to 70 million people for 10 years, or hired an additional 2 million public elementary school teachers for 10 years. We could have provided 17 million military veterans VA medical care for 10 years, or provided 4-year university scholarships to 40 million students.

Don’t let Lindsey Graham (or anyone else) question your patriotism because you disagree with his foreign policy views. This is a senator who single-handedly blocked President Obama’s popular choice for Defense Secretary-- not out of principled opposition-- but to gain leverage over the President on a completely unrelated issue. As a result, the United States was without a Secretary of Defense at a time of escalating tensions overseas.

Even though you may not be able to vote for me, I’m running what amounts to a national campaign against Graham because it’s going to take the support of people from all over the country to defeat Lindsey and the millions of dollars that he's raised from special interest groups.

We will never be able to recoup the $1.4 trillion in war spending and we'll never be able to undo the unnecessary suffering of thousands of grieving families. But together we can make sure Lindsey doesn't get another 6 years to make the same mistakes all over again.

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2016 Cycle Has Begun

Republicans are counting on incredibly bad leadership at the DCCC and the DSCC to work magic for the GOP in 2014. Steve Israel has shown himself either uninterested or incapable of winning and Michael Bennet seems determined to take Patty Murray's incredible work that led to a breathtaking string of unlikely victories in 2012 and turning them into a smoldering ruin in 2014. Despite record contempt for Congress by American voters and a recognition that Republican economic sabotage is undermining everyone's financial well-being, the Republicans are likely to win back the Senate and retain the House. As veteran Democratic Party strategist Doug Sosnik explained in this week's DC big buzz memo, the Democratic Party is one hot mess. The Republicans know their big problem will come in 2016, not 2014. With only four vaguely, semi-vulnerable red Senate seats to worry about (Kentucky, Georgia, Maine and South Carolina, none of which have top tier Democratic recruits yet) and a half dozen solid opportunities in traditionally red areas with weak or no Democratic incumbents (Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Alaska, North Carolina, and West Virginia), the Republicans aren't panicked about the Senate. Steve Israel is such an inept strategist-- handing out free reelection passes to senior Republicans like they were candy and showing more concern for winning nominations for fellow conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems than for actually electing real Democrats-- that the GOP knows the House is safely in their hands for as long as the DCCC stays in Steve Israel's hands.

So their energy is free to wander down the road to 2016. Then the Senate table is set nicely for the Democrats, where they have better than even shots of picking up seats in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and legitimate worries only in Nevada and Colorado. Pelosi is likely to retire by then and no one in their right mind will reappoint Israel to head the DCCC. Literally anyone would be an improvement. And then, of course, the ace in the hole: Hillary Clinton. Polls show her capable of winning even the most hard-core Republican states, like Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia. As Greg Sargent asserted yesterday: the right is in full attack mode against Clinton already.

You saw the deranged GOP Benghazi nonsense jumping from Fox to infect the rest of the media this week as virtually every Republican immerses himself in full-time conspiracy theory insanity. Look at that ad up top that Karl Rove's shady PAC is already running! They are petrified that a Hillary sweep will not just mean a victory for her but that she'll help Democrats win back Congress. They are panic-stricken. As Sargent reminds us, in the '90s "you could go on the TV-- night after night-- and accuse the Clintons of literally anything and no one blinked. There were multiple investigations into whether Hillary Clinton had somebody killed.” And they plan to do that again-- right into 2016... for the next three years! The NY Times editorial board explained the right-wing Benghazi Obsession. The Republicans don't care. They just want it in the news so that lo-info voters in those red states where she's ahead start thinking that where there's smoke, there could be fire.

Before Wednesday’s hearing on the attack in Benghazi, Libya, Republicans in Congress promised explosive new details about the administration’s mishandling of the episode. Instead, the hearing showed, yet again, that sober fact-finding is not their mission. Common sense and good judgment have long given way to conspiracy-mongering and a relentless effort to discredit President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

...The hearing did not prove anything like an administration cover-up or other hysterical allegations of crimes equal to Watergate that some Republicans, such as Representative Steve King and Senator Lindsey Graham, have alleged. Republicans have held numerous hearings and briefings on Benghazi and are threatening to hold even more. It is a level of interest they did not show during George W. Bush’s administration when there were 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets or in the years they spent cutting back diplomatic security budgets.

The real scandal is that serious follow-up on security in Libya is going unaddressed. Congress needs to make sure that State Department budgets for personnel and security improvements are sufficient and that security reforms are put in place as soon as possible.

Well... the real scandal is that the Republican Party is wasting government resources and avoiding addressing real issues so they can grandstand on their electoral priorities for 2016. Or, if you want a real scandal... there's always this one in Massachusetts, where Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez scammed the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and refuses to discuss it. Watch-- because this is a real scandal:

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Will Michael Bennet Be As Bad At The DSCC As Steve Israel Has Been At The DCCC? Take South Dakota...

US Attorney Brendan Johnson-- Michael Bennet forced him out of the race

Anna Madsen is a progressive theologian from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She's also a trusted Daily Kos blogger who understands the difference between a real Democrat and a side of bacon. In March we talked about why reactionary Blue Dog Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, would be a disaster for the Democrats if she runs for the South Dakota Senate Seat Tim Johnson is giving up next year-- a disaster whether she wins or, more likely, loses. This week, Anna explained it from the perspective of a Democrat living in South Dakota-- and I highly recommend that you read her entire post, since these excerpts strip out the poetry.

I know that South Dakota is predominantly Republican.

I know that often, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted Democratic.

But I also know that on the big issues, on issues central to the Democratic party, on the no-thank-you-we-don’t-eat-that issues, she voted with the Republicans.

  South Dakota Democrats, please do not forget:

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2004, a position which was discriminatory then and, by looking at national trends, is considered regressive now.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted against the Affordable Care Act of 2009, a bill overwhelmingly supported by the Democrats, rallied for by President Obama, and which protects the most vulnerable of our society (and, keep in mind, any one of us can become vulnerable in this way at any sudden moment). All the while, she had health insurance paid for by the very ones who could not afford it for themselves, and against whom she was voting.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (was the sole Democrat who) voted nay in 2009 to a bill that protected consumers from credit card companies’ abusive and regressive policies against which customers had no recourse.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted against extending unemployment benefits for those deeply hurting in the economy of 2010.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted against the Energy bill of 2010, which would have allowed for higher safety standards for off-shore drilling, removed a liability cap for oil companies, and boosted solar and wind power on federal land (to name a few benefits of the bill).

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2010 insisting that Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy be extended.

But reports from Inside the Beltway are that conservative corporate whore Michael Bennet, who has taken over the DSCC chair from the startlingly successful Patty Murray and is likely to fail as gigantically as she succeeded, is adamant that the DSCC get behind Herseth Sandlin, a kindred spirit, while many DSCC staffers are expressing a preference for Johnson's son, Brendan, South Dakota's U.S. Attorney. Brendan Johnson is a regular, normal Democrat, not a Republican calling himself one like Herseth Sandlin. Did I mention she' was one of the most lock-step NRA shills in Congress?

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) is already working behind the scenes to brush aside Brendan Johnson, son of Senator Tim Johnson, in favor of former U.S. Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin... Herseth Sandlin is probably more conservative than half the Republicans currently in the U.S. Senate... The Republican Party of South Dakota might actually have a hard time finding a more philosophically solid conservative candidate.

Because of his job as U.S. Attorney, the younger Johnson can't discuss politics. Ryan Casey, chairman of the Lincoln County Democratic Party, is spearheading a Draft Brendan Johnson drive. Six other county Democratic party chairmen have signed onto the effort, remembering all too well what a disaster Herseth Sandlin was for South Dakota working families. Early today Rick Weiland, a former Tom Daschle aide, semi-officially threw his hat into the ring, amid reports that Brendan Johnson isn't going to do it.

“Brendan and I have had some pretty serious conversations about this,” Weiland said. “He’s focused on his job. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel that Brendan (wasn’t) going to get into this race.”

Meanwhile Ryan Casey, who led the “Draft Brendan Johnson” movement, related a similar conversation he had with Johnson on Tuesday.

“He informed me that he was going to continue to focus on his responsibilities as U.S. Attorney,” Casey said. “I’m pretty certain at this point that Brendan won’t enter the race for U.S. Senate.”

Casey said he’s now supporting Weiland, and sent an email to “Draft Brendan” backers urging them to do the same.

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Whose Fault Was The Gun Control Vote In The Senate?

I don't know anything about Andrew Kaczynski or his politics. He writes for a website called BuzzFeed and he tweeted the above just after every Republican but 3 voted against a moderate, bipartisan background check amendment and after every Democrat except 4 voted for it... some of those Democrats voting against it being very much red state Dems, including Red state Dems facing difficult reelection battles. Many observers were shocked that Arizona freshman Jeff Flake voted NO and some say that had he or Portman signaled they would be YES votes, the 4 Democratic cowards would have steeled themselves to vote YES as well.

The fact remains, though, that depending on what polling data you look at, between 86 and 91% of Americans favored that bill 45% of senators, all but 4 of them Republicans voted down. And, as Jesse LaGreca responded to Kaczynski's tweet, even if every single Democrat voted yes, along with the 3 Republican cross-aisle voters, it would have still failed to get through the Republican Party filibuster, announced in advance and organized by Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Miss McConnell (R-KY).

But even with all that evidence, I want to go beyond just blaming the Republican Party. The real culprits were not the red state Democrats or the GOP. The real culprits in this-- as in everything that has always been wrong throughout American history (we'll leave the world for another discussion)-- are conservatives. The nature of conservatism is where the problem lies. Keep in mind, by it's evolution and ideology, it is patently impossible to separate conservatism and corruption and that comes into play as well, but let's take a look at the history of the role of conservatism in this country-- right from the beginning.

Guess who was aghast at the idea of breaking away from the British monarchy and declaring independence. Guess who fought on the side of the British during the American War of Independence. Hint: it wasn't liberals or progressives. I wish every DWT visitor would read Mike Lux's classic American history book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. Here's a little summary by Mike:

The two parties which divide the state, the party of conservatism and that of innovation are very old, and have disputed the world ever since it was made. Now one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under new names and hot personalities.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is the contention of this book that American history consists of one long battle between the forces of reaction and the defense of wealth and power, on the one hand, and the forces of progressivism and community, on the other.

If you look at our country’s long history, from the days of the first stirrings of our revolutionary impulses against Britain to today, progressive leaders and progressive movements have moved this country forward in the face of bitter-- and frequently violent-- opposition from reactionaries and defenders of the status quo. Consider the major advances in American history:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Every single one of those reforms, which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were trying to preserve their own power. American history is one long argument between progressivism and conservatism.

The striking thing about this long debate is how much the arguments that have occurred are repetitive over time, in terms of their rhetoric, constituencies, philosophy, and the values they represent. From generation to generation, the conservatives who oppose reform and progress have used the same kinds of arguments over and over again. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described the division as one between “public purpose and private interest.”

...The arguments by conservatives all too frequently invoke fear-- of change, of one another, of foreigners and foreign enemies, or of certain people. They proclaim a loud and fervent patriotism and a love of traditional values, quite often quoting the Bible to justify their point of view, while ignoring those patriots and Bible quotes that don’t fit their agenda.

Progressives, on the other hand, have called for hope, rather than fear, and for changing things for the better, rather than just leaving things the way they have always been. We have been for more power for regular folks and less power for elites. And we have been for a stronger sense of community, rather than the sense that each of us is on his or her own.

The central theme of this book is to show how these political arguments have been repeated over time and time again since the American Revolution, how the same alternative visions of America keep being argued over and over, and how when progressives have won the day politically, the country has moved forward.

The good news is that a more progressive vision of what America can aspire to has prevailed enough times over the years to make us a far better country. While it is certainly true that the United States is more conservative by many measures than the industrialized countries in Europe, and that progress has been uneven and painfully slow, we are also the country that invented the modern notions of democracy and equality, and that legacy has echoed down through the generations and inspired new movements to make their claims on the American dream.

American history has always been a mixed bag, with vision and courage and progress mixed together with slavery, the brutal killing of many millions of American Indians, wars shouldn’t have fought, and altogether too much greed. There have been plenty of times when the progressive movement was too weak and small to stop bad things from happening, or when it settled for compromises on fundamental issues, such as slavery and women’s suffrage.

Even leaders who pushed for progressive policy in some areas failed us in others... [T]his is especially true in terms of the way otherwise progressive leaders, such as Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, and FDR, have failed us on racial justice issues. But it applies to other leaders as well. For example, Teddy Roosevelt created the national park system, partially broke apart the big trusts, and brought us some measure of food safety, but he had no use for unions or women’s suffrage, allowed some of the worst lynchings in the nation’s history to occur in the south, and was a military adventurer. Woodrow Wilson brought us the single most important economic reform in the country’s history-- a progressive income tax-- and his ideas set the stage for many New Deal-era reforms and the United Nation, but he got us into a stupid, wasteful war that we had no business being in. Kennedy and Johnson helped push through civil rights laws, Medicare, and Medicaid, but got us into the Vietnam War.

Yet even with all of the disappointments that are part of America’s history, we also know that the progressive arguments and movements have prevailed again and again and have created democracy where progress is always possible. Movement leaders such as Tom Paine, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, John L. Lewis, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Rachel Carson have always been ahead of the politicians and have pushed our country to become better. Our history is full of progressive leaders fighting the good fight, and winning much of the time, to create a better nation. The battle between conservatism and progress will continue to be fought as long as there is a United States of America.

Wednesday the conservatives won a battle. Ultimately, of course, they will lose the war. Because, by their nature, they are losers and always lose. I might add, the Senate candidates on this page all support strong gun control measures. If you give money to the DSCC-- which is chaired by cowardly NRA shill Michael Bennet who himself voted against Feinstein's assault weapons ban Wednesday-- much of it will wind up going to elect conservatives. Money invested on this page, only goes to progressives-- and you pick the ones yourself you want it to go to.

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