I always said…South Carolina sealed McCain in the 2008 election, and Sen. Graham and McCain are who they are.
Check where Graham and McCain money is coming from. They are two peas in a pod.
My guess is he is reading the “tea leaves”, and buttering his “toast”. …..Put
pressure on him big time…he “flows” with the wind. If not, follow the money. He no longer has integrity.
He thinks he is protected because he is a “jag” attorney.
That would be great, but he behaves like a “loss leader”. In McCains campaign he came out with all kinds of self-condensending jokes but little substance.
Every once in a while he embelishes us with his intelligence on defense issues…
Whatever you believe about McCain…Graham is with him…

It would be less surprising than even Specter’s defecting. He embraces the “RINO” tag with the fullness of his weasely spirit.

If this weren’t an election year for McCain, it’s more than obvious he’d be right there with Graham on all these “ideas”.

gasoline tax, we have been doing hundreds of road projects in out state. Some major projects are coming like a mile long 4 lane tunnel under a hill, and a six lane floating bridge that spans a mile of water. What is the fed going to get for it’s 15 cent tax?. Who is really going to pay for this? The working poor are going to turn into the walking poor.
.15*1000 gallons a year=$150 per car/year non deductible. These people are regressives.

And big bank, and big airline….

Cowardly corporations will end up undoing us all.

…in a nutshell why I loathe BIG business. Once they’ve achieved critical mass they seek to exit the competitive market and seek protection in the cold embrace of government because they can afford punitive taxes and regulations while their smaller competitors cannot. What I really hate is that a few executives represent thousands to hundreds of thousands of employees, shareholders, and customers of the company who probably hold views opposite the official company representatives and often times actively work against them.

Case in point. Walmart is HQ’d in very conservative Bentonville AR and most of the HQ staff are conservatives, Republicans, or independents that lean to the GOP yet our CEO Mike Duke signed a joint letter with Andy Stern, the despicable head of the SEIU, supporting Obamacare.

It doesn’t matter to Duke apparently that his employees don’t want anything to do with Obamacare, nor probably do the shareholders, many of whom are Walmart employees.

I’m a free market capitalist and believe competition is the only way to keep businesses honest but also believe when that critical mass is reached the former fierce competitors head for the exit.

How do we stop this? They have the money to buy OUR representatives who then vote against OUR interests.

In Walmart’s case I have to believe that Duke has fallen under the influence of former Democrat strategist, Kennedy staffer, and vice chairman of Lefty Edelman Wordwide and now EVP of Walmart corporate (government ) affairs, Leslie Dach.

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/leslie-dach.asp?cycle=08
http://www.nlpc.org/category/people/leslie-dach
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/walmart_leslie_dach.php
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2008/08/leslie-dach-wal-mart-democrat/8624/
http://www.wri.org/about/board/leslie-dach

I thought the Obamacare cram down put an end to all this bipartisanship nonsense. Why in the world would Grahamnesty even think of doing any favors for the Dems at this point? They just got their holy grail. That’s it. They get nothing else.

economic conditions to deteriorate, unemployment to rise, and inflation to worsen. You can not have energy prices rise like this again with out consequences, of course if the media continues with this bogus storyline of the recovery is on its way who knows, what you don’t know won’t hurt you right? No, what you experience will hurt you.

I don’t think voters are going to be concerned with “bipartisanship” when they see the tax at the pump. big or small, I think this would hurt Democrats more than ObamaCare.

I doubt Graham is going anywhere without a serious primary challenger.

these people intend to inflict?

These two are THE major players in the almost-unlimited oilsands of western Canada- where production is very expensive as they steam, seperate, process, desulfurize, and dilute for piplelines this product.

These two don’t just want, but NEED $100+ oil… if it went to $50 they’d probably have to shut down up there, where the sands have reserves rivaling Saudi Arabia. And Big Oil is most long-term in their thinking… don’t rule out they’re just playing games with Obama and buying time until his political neutering this fall.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/

In SC, we tend to elect Senators once. After that, the question at reelection becomes “Oh, he’s still around? Okay!”

This was never more apparent than in Fritz Hollings’ last two races. Once a much-admired figure in SC, after his abortive attempts to position himself as a Presidential candidate (and I do believe he would have been a much better President than Carter), he veered left, more in lockstep with the national party and generating a great deal of scorn from his constituents.

Yet, in his last two races, he managed to win against solid Republican challengers, sitting Representatives Tommy Hartnett and Bob Inglis. If we’d keep Fritz over those two men who were light years closer to the SC electorate on the issues, there was no way to beat the guy.

Former LA Governor Edwards, he of the long and corrupt history, once bragged he would carry the state as long as he “isn’t caught in bed with a live girl or a dead boy.”

It’s about the same for Graham now – he attracts enough out of state money to scare off serious primary challenges, and no Democrat can ever beat him. And, NO, I will not speculate as to which side of the Edwards postulate is more likely in his case.

I don’t give two shakes for Graham, but from the point of view of the Oil Companies, It makes sense to support something that is not as destructive as cap and trade.

After all, they just saw the Democrats push a wildly unpopular legislation through, and they have to hedge their bets. A gasoline tax is probably one of the least onerous of all the taxes we are going to get thrust upon us in the near future.

And has many believers on both sides of the aisle, damage control is probably the best that can be done right now.
Until the movement falls apart, it is dangerous to resist it.
Showing that the science is fraudulent, as in climategate, was not enough to wake people up. Showing that the IPCC is run by people with massive conflicts of interests made basically 0 impact in the public square. Showing people graphs that demonstrate clearly today’s temps are no big deal makes no real difference to majority.
So do we get really really bad bills or do we get something less bad?

I don’t know about other oil companies but Exxon is not a foe regarding cap and trade etc. They have a giant target on them and they do have an enviro shareholder group (Rockefellers etc) that make things pretty tough on them from all sides. They are fact based on their take of things. They were one of the first to say Obama’s view of a renewable paradise was a pipe dream. Obama himself later attested to the same outlook. They have stated that nat gas will not be the auto fuel of the future and oil will be the dominant trans fuel for many years. They have said that the “new” technology that will transform the future is not here yet. They deal in a world of difficulties in discovery , political tensions, and hostile enviros . They have been burned with this stuff in the past (70s) and try to do things that really work. They pay enormous taxes of around 50% to governments who threaten their existence. They are trying to be environmentally sound and still provide needed fuel and chemicals while making a profit for shareholders ,help communities through taxes , provide good jobs and survive the politics and then deal with just the complications of exploration and production. I think they should be defended not demonized.