Sen. Graham finds himself in hot water back home

WASHINGTON — Lee Rogers, chairman of the Republican Party in Anderson County, S.C., was at the beach last week when his cell phone rang.

It was an urgent call from one of Rogers' GOP activists.

"He asked me what I was going to do to find somebody to run against Lindsey Graham (next year)," Rogers said. "I explained to the gentleman that's not something I can put together as a single county chairman. That's got to happen with the people."

It could be happening.

Graham, nearing the end of his first Senate term, has taken plenty of heat before, but perhaps never like this.

Thanks to his high-profile help in crafting an immigration reform bill that has stalled in the Senate, constituents call and leave screaming messages on his office voicemail.

"NO AMNESTY! NO AMNESTY!" one repeat caller yells for a minute or more in angry overnight messages that greet his aides in the morning.

Graham's staff estimates that his Senate offices have received about 3,000 letters, phone calls, e-mails and faxes about immigration in the last month, most of them critical of him.

Talk radio hosts within and beyond South Carolina deride Graham as a Ted Kennedy toady.

Rush Limbaugh has taken to calling him "Lindsey Grah-amnesty."

Bloggers challenge his manhood, assault his patriotism, mock his intellect.

Still worse for where he comes from, they belittle his Southern bona fides.

Furious Republican loyalists lobby online for someone — anyone — to step forward and challenge Graham in the 2008 primary when he seeks re-election.

One Web site, http://www.dumplindsey.org, gets dozens of comments a day, few of them friendly.

With Graham's high national as well as statewide name recognition and his campaign war chest approaching $4 million, GOP political operatives say, any window for mounting a viable campaign against him is closing fast.

"There could be some potential political damage, but whether or not his nomination is in jeopardy, I don't know," said Rogers. "If somebody's going to do it, they need to do it now, and they need to get at it."

Graham said he's ready for any opponent, Republican or Democrat.

"Anyone who runs against me better get up early and stay late because I think I've been one heck of a good senator for my state and my party," Graham said Thursday in an interview. "I intend to seek office on the basis that I am not afraid to do what needs to be done."

To claim that Graham takes all the anger directed at him in stride would be a stretch.

But he says the political fire and brimstone comes with his job — especially the way he views it.

"You can call me by any name you want to call me," Graham said. "I'm 51 years old, and I'm not going to be deterred by ugly things being said about me. If I am no bigger than that, I'm in the wrong job. If I cannot withstand the ugly things being said about me in order to do what I think is right for my state and my country, then I'm letting most people down."

While Graham expressed confidence that he will gain re-election next year, he said he is willing to risk losing his Senate seat if that's the price for taking on tough problems.

"I had rather lose my job as a senator than to pass the buck and not deal with the hard problems," Graham said. "I have never been afraid of talking about difficult, emotional issues because I believe that's what most people want me to do. People are really upset that our borders are broken, and I am, too."

Graham is no stranger to controversy. Sometimes he seems almost to revel in it.

From floating the idea of raising taxes to solidify Social Security and advocating due process for alleged terrorists, to joining the "Gang of 14" centrist senators who prevented a Senate showdown over judicial nominees — Graham has been in the middle of the thorniest issues.

Liberals exorcised Graham in 1998 for his leading role in the House impeachment trial of President Clinton.

Now, hard-core conservatives are accusing him of giving lawbreakers a piece of the American dream by backing legal status for the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the country.

Whether the immigration bill becomes law or dies in Congress, many GOP operatives back home believe that Graham will survive the struggle.

"Lindsey Graham's shopping basket of talents and performance on a range of issues is pretty big," said Rick Beltram, chairman of the Spartanburg Republican Party. "He has support in the manufacturing base, he's got support on trade and textile issues. The polls that we've done privately show that he's still a pretty popular guy in the Upstate of South Carolina."

CONTROVERSIAL POLITICS

Sen. Lindsey Graham's outspoken stances on high-profile issues have often put him in the spotlight. His current support for immigration reform is the most recent in a series of flaps that have angered some conservatives in South Carolina and beyond:

DETAINEES: In the last two years, Graham was among a handful of Senate Republicans who successfully pushed for less aggressive interrogation methods in questioning suspected terrorists. He also insisted that detainees see the evidence used against them during trials before new military commissions.

At the same time, Graham's leading role in denying detainees habeas corpus rights to challenge their confinement in federal court has infuriated many legal scholars and human rights activists.

JUDGES: Graham was in the "Gang of 14" senators — seven Democrats and seven Republicans — who in 2005 forged a compromise in handling President Bush's judicial nominees.

Though Graham's willingness to work with Senate Democrats outraged some conservatives, he says the deal led to Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

LAWSUITS: A military lawyer, Graham was one of three Senate Republicans who helped block Congress last year from capping medical malpractice lawsuits.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: While completing his House tenure in 2002, Graham supported the landmark bill putting new limits on political contributions. He and Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, introduced a bill last year to prohibit incumbent senators from fundraising more than 18 months before their next general election.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Graham pushed an ambitious proposal in 2003 to introduce voluntary private accounts in exchange for higher taxes to cover the loss of revenues from such accounts.

CIVIL RIGHTS: Graham cosponsored a successful resolution last year apologizing to lynching victims, most of whom lived in the South, for the Senate's decades-long failure to pass legislation aimed at stopping such murders.

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