I’m pretty sure that Lindsey Graham was going to get a primary challenge anyway, but voting for Elena Kagan in committee definitely assures one. He has four years to prepare for it and a lot of things will have changed by then, but being somewhat reasonable on things like judges and climate change has made Graham one of the right’s least favorite Republicans.
I think Graham is a clever man who isn’t actually all that bright. He’s got political smarts and he’s a pretty good lawyer but I don’t think he’s very well educated overall and he doesn’t understand a lot of things. His main virtue is that he doesn’t see the other side as pure evil and he doesn’t pretend to see us that way either. He does recognize the need to tackle some problems even with the Democrats in power. But it’s not like we can trust him. His word is not good. He’s about three-quarters of the way to being a decent human being, but he’s not there yet. For the Republican base, though, he’s a heretic and a traitor, and he’ll have a hell of a time keeping his seat in 2014.
