Republican Senator from the Great State of South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, apparently isn’t chummy enough with one of the major constituencies of the Republican Party. Neoconservatives? No, not them. Religious Fundamentalists? Maybe, but he’s still talking the talk. Glenn Beck and the tea-baggers? You betcha, but that’s not the group that he’s really offended. Offended enough that they are running advocacy ads against him in his home state. No the group that is really pissed off at Senator Graham is the group that thought he was always in their hip pocket, bought and paid for, as it were: Big Oil:
WASHINGTON — A Washington advocacy group with close ties to Big Oil started running ads Thursday on South Carolina radio stations, targeting Sen. Lindsey Graham for supporting taxes on carbon emissions.
The American Energy Alliance, funded in part by oil and natural gas companies, utilities and other energy-industry firms, launched the initiative in response to Graham’s recent collaboration with Sen. John Kerry on cap-and-trade legislation. [..]
“This is going to be more than a radio campaign,” Creighton said. “We’re going to roll out additional TV and Internet ads in the next few weeks.”
Oh my. What did Lindsey do? Well, he had the nerve to attempt some real bipartisanship on the issue of climate change and energy with John “The Purple Bandaid” Kerry, that’s what:
Graham, a military lawyer and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and the party’s 2004 presidential nominee, wrote an Oct. 11 column in the New York Times.
“Our partnership represents a fresh attempt to find consensus that adheres to our core principles and leads to both a climate change solution and energy independence,” the two senators wrote.
Their column sketched a potential compromise in which Democrats would allow offshore oil drilling and new nuclear power plants, while Republicans would recognize global warming as an urgent problem and accept caps on carbon emissions from big factories and power plants.
Poor Lindsey. Being a hardcore Republican isn’t enough anymore. You cross one little line and Ka-BOOM! out come the big guns to blast you back into the fold. I wish the “Far Left” had this kind of power over Democrats. But then, we don’t have entire industries at our beck and call to enforce party discipline. All we have is phone calls, boycotts and the occasional small political contribution. Funding major ad campaigns to target a Senator for not supporting the public option? A little beyond our means.
What is this man‘s long list of sins that makes him a bad Democrat?
Is anyone running ads against him?
Mini-me getting drilled? Glad it’s not dinner time or anything!! I did find the post title funny though.
No, although the lack of a primary probably had a lot to do with that – who would run attack ads against Casey for the benefit of Santorum?
As far as I know, Casey is a heretic on only one issue with the Democratic base, but when he was recruited to run for the Senate all that was heard was how some crappy Democrat was being foisted upon Pennsylvania. All he did was cross one little line…
Sweet. Maybe the warfare against Graham will provide an opening for a strong Democrat to decide to run. Graham has lost popularity with the teabagger folks in South Carolina and was heckled at a recent town hall in Greenville.
There is a strong progressive Democrat, Dwight Drake, running for governor of South Carolina. He had experience working for Governor John West and for Governor Richard Riley and probably has the support of the state Democratic Party. I would not write him off.
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Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, is taking heat in his home state for teaming up with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts to outline a bipartisan approach to a Senate climate bill.
In an opinion piece published in The New York Times last Sunday, the two senators mapped out a possible compromise that would link cap-and-trade policies to increased nuclear power and offshore drilling. Environmentalists immediately hailed the piece as a crucial step toward Senate action on a climate bill.
But in a town-hall meeting earlier this week at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., some of Mr. Graham’s constituents angrily challenged him.
…
Climate bill advocates are fighting back
The South Carolina Wildlife Federation, whose membership includes many sportsmen, is backing Mr. Graham, according to Reuters. And a veterans group called VoteVets has unveiled a 60-second radio ad — created after this week’s town-hall meeting — calling for cuts in oil dependence and “carbon pollution.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I’m still trying to imagine the ‘Republicans would recognize global warming’ part.
Coastal residents in NC and SC are not thrilled with the idea of oil drilling off their coast. That is what Graham is trying to deal with. Upstate GOPers in SC tend to be Palin and Ron Paul supporters. He’s caught in the middle.
Plus, for business interests he is playing the Olympia Snowe role. Maybe like Snowe, he is the designated mole for Democratic decisions on climate change bills.
There are corporate and country club Republicans who do recognize global climate change issues as legitimate and are concerned about the impact on their financial interests. A 20-foot rise in sea level puts a number of beachfront condos in 15-foot water. Closing off the first two floors and putting a pier to the third floor hardly qualifies as a solution. The places affected include Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and Hilton Head. And tourism is a major economic engine in South Carolina. But the Congressional Republicans are not focusing on the corporate donors who would be adversely affect; Big Oil has big bucks. It hard for the GOPasaurs to have it both ways.
Or digest it.. so the GOP admits climate change has always been a dire situation but they have decided to hold a gun to our collective head and use it as a bargaining chip for years and years, much to our peril.
Doesn’t admitting you’d do such a deal soon, pretty much let the “we’re faking the stupid” cat outta the bag?
I wish the “Far Left” had this kind of power over Democrats. But then, we don’t have entire industries at our beck and call to enforce party discipline.
True, but we still have a few arrows left in our quiver. I recall a couple of years back when our governator, here on the left coast, tried to take on the teachers union and the nurses union at the same time. He got an ouchie. Unions still have some clout.
Well, MoveOn and some others did a fair job of targeting ads at folks like Blanche Lincoln on healthcare. They weren’t vicious attacks, but made a strong point. Don’t know how major the ad buys were, though.
And there was an ad targeting Harry Reid that aired in Nevada.
And don’t underestimate the value of viral YouTube ads. Often they can get free airing on news shows if made well enough. Ed Schultz certainly profiled them, including the Harry Reid ad.