Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008

Lindsey Graham for U.S. Senate

WHILE IT MAY seem superfluous, even redundant, to do so, we take the opportunity today to enthusiastically endorse Lindsey Graham for re-election to the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Graham, unlike his good friend and ally John McCain, is cruising along toward certain victory in next week’s election. That’s mainly because his opponent is no Barack Obama. Far from it. Sen. Graham was enough of a shoo-in — despite all the grumbling in his party about his having taken a strong stand (and the right stand, along with Sen. McCain) on comprehensive immigration reform — that no Democrat with electoral credibility even sought to run against him. Between the two who did seek the nomination, the weaker candidate made it onto the November ballot.

Bob Conley is one of those anomalous candidates who occasionally step into political vacuums — a nominal Democrat who takes the position of the angry right wing on immigration and would abolish the Federal Reserve. His Web site touts words of support from Ron Paul and the wife of Patrick Buchanan.

Mr. Conley is up against one of the brightest, hardest-working members of the U.S. Senate.

Please forgive us if we merely repeat the arguments we presented for Sen. Graham’s re-election back during the primaries:

When his own Republican Party was ready to bring all Senate business to a frozen halt in the face of Democratic obstructionism over judges, he became one of the bipartisan “gang of 14” that refused to play that game. As a result, conservative judges were duly considered and approved.

As a colonel in the Air Force Reserves, Sen. Graham is the only member of the Senate currently serving in the military. No one has been a more steadfast supporter of our nation’s battles in Afghanistan and Iraq — or the once-controversial “surge” strategy of Gen. David Petraeus — with the possible exception of Sen. Graham’s close friend and ally, John McCain.

Sens. McCain and Graham also took leading roles in trying to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year, and ran into a buzzsaw of opposition from those in their own party who would rather have no solution to illegal immigration than one that treated those already in the country in a fair and logical manner.

We did not endorse Lindsey Graham when he first ran for Strom Thurmond’s seat six years ago, preferring former Court of Appeals Judge Alex Sanders. As much as we like Judge Sanders, we regret that decision, because of the exemplary job Sen. Graham has done once in office. He won high praise early on from the other senator from South Carolina, Democrat Fritz Hollings: “(H)is coming here as a senator is like going over on the wall and turning on the lights. Here I had somebody diligently working to get things done.” If anything, Sen. Graham seemed to have a more cordial working relationship with Sen. Hollings than he sometimes seems to have now with Sen. Hollings’ replacement, Republican Jim DeMint.

We expect more good things from a second Graham term, and endorse him without reservation.

For all of The State’s endorsements in this election, go to thestate.com/endorsements.

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