Are we feelin' that Grahamentum?! | Hour 1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the peak calendar show.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. And who's with me feeling that Graham and. Dumb, huh? Yeah. So exciting. And just a dynamo of a campaign. Yeah. Darlene Graham won the runoff yesterday against Congressman Ralph Norman. As the Charleston Post and Courier reports, the duel to succeed her late brother on the November ballot She secured her place in a race many saw as a referendum on President Donald Trump's influence following a string of endorsement defeats elsewhere in the country this primary season. And for the love of me, can we please stop framing every single race as Donald Trump endorsement? Oh, gosh. Like this focus on, will Donald Trump's pick win? Oh, if this one loses, that means Trump's done. If he wins, that means he still has an iron grasp on the party. Can we just acknowledge that candidates matter, campaigns matter, voter demographics, voting history matters, economic factors on the ground, all of these things matter. And when you reduce a campaign down to you know, a single factor that Donald Trump made an endorsement in this race. And, oh, he lost it. Oh, he won it. As if that is supposed to give me any indication about some other race somewhere else. Like, guys, I don't know who needs to hear this in journalism-ing, but reporters are supposed to tell you what happened. What happened. Not make. these sort of namby-pamby predictions about what could happen in the future. Yeah, anything could happen. We could all start pooping gold and be rich. Well, actually, that wouldn't happen. Mainly because if we all started pooping gold, then it wouldn't be a precious commodity anymore and then everybody would have it. So it would kind of devalue the gold, right? But this idea that I could say, well, this could be an indication of whatever, whatever. Yeah, and it could also not be an indication that you're just, you're not saying anything. So just don't say than not saying anything. I mean, I'm not saying. Ignore the fact that Donald Trump endorsed Darlene Graham with no experience, no record to speak of, no really good debate performance, actually the opposite, right? She benefits from using. Her maiden name and writing the, the, the family name of Graham into the office. Maybe like, All of those things probably played more of a role, but I don't know. Maybe Donald Trump's endorsement was the thing that the voters in South Carolina cared about. Maybe that was it. I don't think so. But maybe that was it. Maybe that's all. It's like people were just like, oh, Donald Trump endorsed Darlene Graham. Come on, honey. We got to go out and vote for Darlene Graham. Remember, Lindsey Graham was winning this state handily yesterday. for decades. So, and, and I know people outside of South Carolina don't understand it. Hell people inside of South Carolina don't understand it. Why is Lindsey Graham still winning all these races, right? Darlene Graham led us representative Ralph Norman, 52 to 48%. Uh, she will now face the Democrat, a Mount Pleasant pediatrician named Dr. Annie Andrews. You call her Dr. Andrews. in the November 3rd general election. She's a pediatrician. Ooh, I wonder where does she stand on the transing of the children as a pediatrician? Does she break with the, uh, the American pediatricians association? Remember they, they came in on the side of the, the transing, the, the minors. So I'm wondering maybe somebody could ask her that maybe at some point, maybe Darlene Graham could ask her that because Andrew's immediately challenged Graham to three televised debates. and had already committed half a million dollars in advertising in the days following the election. Graham's backers outspent Ralph Norman by a 10 to 1 margin. Norman focused on his. As the Post and Courier calls it, hardline conservative stances. As a 10-year congressional veteran from Rock Hill, labeling himself the target of the establishment. Here's something else. I don't even know what this term means anymore. I really don't because I can make the case, right? That Darlene Graham is now part of the establishment. Lindsey Graham, part of the establishment. But then what about Donald Trump? He adores Darlene Graham and Lindsey Graham. Thank you, Lindsey. Right? Like he, is he the establishment now? I, These terms are just so nebulous now. It seems like people slap these labels on candidates that they don't like for whatever reason, whether that candidate beat their preferred candidate in a primary at some. Point, they voted a certain way on one bill. I don't know. She had the backing of President Trump, but she also got endorsed by Governor Henry McMaster as well as U.S. Senator Tim Scott. Graham. dominated the Myrtle Beach area, as well as most major counties across the state in a runoff that saw tens of thousands more votes cast than the primary before it. So you had greater turnout in this runoff than we saw in the original primary. Now, people who did not vote, who are unaffiliated. But lean left, They probably turned out and voted for Darlene Graham. Why? They think she's going to be easier to beat. Now, I don't know if that means easy to beat in a state like South Carolina. Not sure that the people who voted for Ralph Norman are now going to vote for a Democrat over Darlene Graham. That doesn't seem smart or reasonable. On the campaign trail, Graham had spent the campaign focused on, quote, Red meat conservative issues. Love that. It's a Republican primary. Who are the reporters here? Nick Reynolds and Ian Grenier. Yeah, it's a Republican primary. Red meat conservative issues. I mean, I think just any conservative issue... in a Republican primary, kind of feels like that's the whole point, right? Like you are talking about your conservative credentials. Ralph Norman did too. So they were both focusing on red meat conservative issues? No? Yes, of course they would. Just like Democrats, they would be focusing on Marxism, right? Oh, no, sorry. Affordability, right? She tried to introduce herself to unfamiliar voters, hammering home her opposition to abortion, belief that transgender women should not be in women's sports, and her willingness to ditch the Senate filibuster to pass Trump's voter ID bill. Okay, red meat conservatism does not automatically align with abolishing the filibuster. In fact, there are a lot of conservatives that are opposed to doing just that. In fact, abolishing the filibuster is something the Democrats want to do. And the Republicans are saying, well, if they're going to do it, we should do it first and shore up the elections before. We lose in the midterms. Maybe I don't make predictions on elections. All right. For over a year now, you've heard me talking about create a video. Great local company in Mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos. VHS tapes, film reels, and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now, Creative Video is helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. Introducing group travel videos, perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destination weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams. 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You can email Katie, katie at grouptravelvideos.com. Group Travel Videos, from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Alrighty, so from the text line, Beth's favorite Russ. Says. If there's red meat conservatism, would the left, as currently structured, have tofu or veggie liberalism? I think a decent portion of their base would recoil at their ideas being called red meat. That's a good, I mean, that's a fair point. That is a fair point. I don't know, maybe blue meat? Blue meat Marxism? No, that feels like it would be red, definitely red for Marxists. blue tofu Marxism. I'll keep working on it. John says, yes, all the things you mentioned matter in the Graham race, but in this case, it truly was a test of the Trump endorsement. Without the Trump endorsement, Darlene would not have even gotten close to being in the top five in the primary. She won solely on the power of the Trump endorsement in South Carolina because all the other endorsements she got were a result of the Trump endorsement. Well, here's another thing, though. What about the Nikki Haley endorsement? I'll wait while you finish laughing. Yeah, okay. So, no, Ralph Norman... Ralph Norman. Didn't he endorse Nikki Haley? And didn't she endorse him? Do you think that hurt him? Probably so. Now, you could say that's sort of downstream maybe also of. The Trump endorsement. My pushback on this framing of every one of these primaries as all about basically Trump's record. It's just another version of horse race politics coverage. And I hate it. Because. It strips away all factors, all complexities, and it boils it down to just this. Scorecard-keeping effort. Like, oh, well, he had a couple of endorsements that didn't pan out. Yeah, and he had a bunch that did pan out. What is the actual record? Who cares at this point? Not to get all Hillary Clinton on you or anything, but at this point, what difference does it make? Exactly. Again, there were candidates he endorsed that did not win. And there are candidates he has endorsed that did. Covering every one of these races like this is myopic, I shall say. Let's see here. 704 number says, The Democrat in this race is in favor of transgender transitioning for the youth and abortion till birth. Oh, well, that'll play well in South Carolina. So you're saying there's a shot. 704 number says, I'm still trying to figure out if it was a sympathy vote that got Darlene in the lead or if it was loyalists being loyalists to Trump, just willing to go down the drain, I think. the Democrat will have no problem beating Darlene. Okay, well, that's a prediction, sure. Slap happy pappy Rob says, my only hope is she is better than her brother. I wanted Ralph Norman and I voted for him, but when you endorse Nikki Haley, there you go. When you endorse Nikki Haley, you know 47 ain't gonna forget. I disagree with his endorsement, but she can't be any worse than Lindsey Graham was. And, and maybe that's it. The sympathy vote. This, I mean, this was a very unique situation, right? Lindsey Graham, who, you know, chastised Trump. He ran against Trump and he was a vocal opponent. And then next thing you know, he's a golfing buddy with Donald Trump, defending Donald Trump and everything. Lindsey Graham was a survivor. He would, he would win elections even though it seemed like nobody liked him in South Carolina, but he always seemed to win. Um, then he dies in office and, um, his sister gets appointed to the seat and there's a lot of sympathy for her, for the family and all of that. How much does that then impact the vote? Yeah, probably some degree. She only won by 4%. Um, Ralph Norman is, coalesced his support from hardline members. Of the U.S. Senate, like Utah Senator Mike Lee, Florida's Rick Scott, complementing limited in-state support from members of the House Freedom Caucus and one-time Governor Nikki Haley, whom Norman supported against Trump in her 2024 bid for president. There you go. He told supporters in Rock Hill after the race was called that he would support Graham in the general election, which he said he had not even written a concession speech for. He did not strike a particularly conciliatory tone toward his former rival, though, whom he later called and congratulated. He said, quote, I hate it for the state. I really hate it. Before criticizing Graham for her PAC funding and saying that Democrats got what they wanted in the race. And there may be some truth to that. Democrats might be super excited about going up against someone with No experience because their candidate doesn't really have any experience either. Right. From the text line, Gary says, I think there's something to say that Darlene will go along. Darlene Graham will go along with Trump. If you want to get Trump's agenda through at this point, you may vote for her because you think she will vote for what Trump wants. versus fight against Trump. I think people are tired of, tired of GOP members fighting Trump's agenda on things that are popular like voter ID and immigration. That is a fair point because Darlene Graham constantly talks about her love for Donald Trump. Lindsay's love for Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump for your support. You know, everything Trump has done, like, like every other sentence has Trump's name in it. It seems like, so she will, she will do what Trump wants. Right. She owes her job to Trump. So. I mean, that's how she that's what she's been saying, whether it's completely true or not. So, I mean, he was the one that said, yeah, you should pick her to fill the seat. He went to her, said you should fill the seat, then said you should run for the seat, endorsed her campaign for her, all of that. So she credits him with her position. She's not going to cross him. Now look at Ralph Norman. He has voted against Donald Trump. So maybe that's why Republican voters wanted her in there because they want somebody in there that's going to fall in line with Donald Trump's agenda. This is from Anthony. She won because a lot of us did not want to give Ralph a promotion with the economy and other things in the state that they are currently in. Tom says any chance that Trump wanted her in there to expose her corruptness, that which is not unlike her brother. Uh, yeah, that's, I, that's a stretch, Tom. I doubt it. I don't think you elevate somebody all the way up like that just to be like, now I shall expose your corruption. Um, 980 number says, was it Operation Chaos? Yeah, there were, I have no doubt, there were Democrats that crossed over to vote for Darlene Graham, thinking she's the weaker candidate. There's always going to be, in open primary states, there are always going to be those kinds of voters. Bain says, let's say Darlene wins, gets overwhelmed after two years. Would it make sense for the governor to appoint Ralph Norman then? Yeah, I don't, no idea. I mean, that is so far down the road and a lot of hypotheticals. There's I don't know the purpose of spending time speculating on that. 864. Thank you, President Trump, for allowing South Carolina to have two Democrats running for the U.S. Senate in November, Darlene Graham and Dr. Annie Andrews. Dr. Andrews has to be excited about potential live debates with her, and with good reason. This race is going to be much closer than anyone can imagine right now. Big D should prevail. Maybe it's time for South Carolina to have a Democratic senator again. Tim Scott is doing his part by refusing to financially support Ken Paxton in Texas. Scott controls the NRSC. Had Trump not appeared in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina would very likely be on the way to having the most conservative senator in the U S Senate. Oh, well have a great afternoon. Um, yeah, there are a lot of people who are pretty angry about this. Um, there's a, she goes by, uh, Texas saltwater on Twitter. Um, so there's no election that has angered me more than Republicans giving their Senate seat to the, to Lindsey Graham's sister, not MIT losing to Obama, not DeSantis losing to Trump, not Trump losing to Biden. Because this one was so obvious. The candidate was transparently unqualified and had she run on her married last name, would never have even been on the ticket. Her biggest appeal? She'd be easy to control by the sitting president for the next two years. It's a six-year gig. Her opponent, everything that the quote-unquote right loves, massive track record on conservatism, so good that the sitting president, who adores mocking people, didn't throw a single jab at him, nor any of the other major players and pundits. The PACs and Darlene had to flat-out lie about his record. Meanwhile, he threw no punches, just touted his own record, ever the gentleman. Facing your vote on an endorsement is openly admitting you're too stupid to think for yourself. Now, from what the Post and Courier reported, they talked to voters at the polls, and they asked people who they were voting for and why. One fellow named Scott King, who supported Norman, said that she shot herself in the foot when she said she did not really know about international affairs and security. Now, to counter that. Maureen King, I don't know if she's related to Scott King, but also a Lexington. Resident. Yeah, so I guess they were in Lexington. So Scott King and then there's a Maureen King. Don't know if they're related. But Maureen King said, I get that she screwed up, according to people the other night about national security. But would it have been better for her to lie or just make something up? I mean, I would have maybe preferred that she knows something. That would have probably been preferable. I'm not advocating that she lie about something, but the fact that you're going into a U.S. Senate race and you don't know stuff about national security and then you say that as your answer in the debate, should people hold that against you? I kind of feel like, yes, it's part of the job as a U.S. senator, which, by the way, brings me to my good friend Ray Cooper. Anybody going to ask him any questions about national security, international diplomacy, anything like that? No. It's just all about Medicare for all. Still, we're just going to affordability. We're just going to keep letting him say that stuff. Though Trump remains popular, his heavy-handed support of her turned some voters off, with some seeing it as an undue attempt to influence the election. Well, isn't that what all endorsements are? Attempts to influence the election, right? There is a write-up by. Dr. Chris Cooper from Western Carolina. He's got a sub stack and the title of this piece is the surprisingly old fashioned geography of Darlene Graham's win. And he says she wrote a Trump endorsement and a recognizable last name to a primary victory. You know, mentioning the subpar debate performance, that was not enough to derail her. He says at the most basic level, she did well in the same places. She did well in the first primary. She won by, not breaking the pattern of the first primary, but by doubling down on it. This may seem obvious, but this isn't always the case in runoff elections. Sometimes when the field gets whittled down, the patterns of support change. That did not happen here, he says. If you are in a party primary, right, there is no heuristic as you have in a general, right? If you have low information voters going out there, they just see the D, they see the R behind someone's name, and they just say, oh, Republican, boom, or Democrat, boom, right? I vote for that person. In a party primary, primary voting may still follow what political scientist V.O. Key called in 1949 the friends and neighbors voting. V.O. Key was writing in a time of the solidly Democratic South, where the Democratic Party was a guarantee, the primary winner was a guarantee of a general election win. even more stark than the Republican domination of South Carolina today. OK, the solid South. In other words, people what this this theory is that who people knew and where they lived mattered a lot in primary elections. Not so much general, but the primary elections, because you don't have the queue. You don't have that heuristic. Ralph Norman performed well in the upstate, while Graham performed well everywhere else. That's about as. Clear a regional pattern as you will find in modern politics, and it looks an awful lot like the friends and neighbors voting that Key described. More comments here from the text line. This is from a 414 phone number, anonymous Wisconsinite. Fort mill did not vote for Ralph Norman because we knew that he lied supported and was supported by self ab the company that put a chemical plant next to two schools with Norman's knowledge and backing conservative, but business over community. Um, wouldn't that actually be the local elected officials that did that? Aren't they in control of their zoning? Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's a local decision that they brought themselves. SILFAB or approved the rezonings and the land use for that area. But yeah, people, I have not pulled the precinct data to find out where people, you know, how they voted in all the different precincts and counties and all of that. But that would not surprise me because I know Ralph Norman was getting the anti-SILFAB stuff directed at him. And Mark says a factoid, love the factoids, on yesterday's special primary election, Horry County put Darlene over 50% plus one because Donald Trump came to Myrtle Beach and an open primary election. Yeah. Regarding the open election. Hang on. I got a tweet here from Melissa who said, please point out that because South Carolina has open primaries, I see posts claiming fraud in the runoff. Real. I have not seen these really. People are claiming fraud. If Democrats who did not vote in the primary in June crossed over in an Operation Chaos fashion voting for Darlene Graham yesterday, that's not fraud on sportsmen like chicanery, perhaps, but not fraud. South Carolina does not register voters by party. Yeah, this is one of the knocks on the open primary system. is that people from the other side, if they register unaffiliated, can go into the opposing party's primary and vote for the weaker candidates, right? That's long been the criticism of the open parties. Now, the downside, if you close the primaries, that you sometimes end up with far more, you know, hardline right or left candidates because now it's a closed primary. And if you have dwindling numbers of registered voters in the party primaries, you end up with fewer and fewer people actually able to vote in those primaries. And then you go to a general election and then you find out your candidate isn't great, right? So, but again, it's like Thomas Sowell said, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. There is no perfect system. There are going to be pros and cons to either one of these mechanisms. And one of the cons on an open primary is that your political opponents can go in there and nominate, help to nominate somebody That's going to be easier for them to beat in the general election. Is it a critical mass? Doubtful. The majority of people voting in the Republican primary or special election in this case, in this runoff, the majority of them, I would wager, are Republicans and conservatives, right? Um. David says, listening to you read all these liberals gripe and complain about Lindsey Graham's sister. Okay. I don't think any of the ones that I've been reading are liberals. These are Republicans. These are conservatives. They have different opinions. I don't know if they're, I don't know if them not wanting Lindsey Graham makes them a liberal. Um, in fact, I'm old enough to remember when, if you liked Lindsey Graham, it meant you. Were the liberal. So, um, Complaining about Graham's sister winning the nomination makes me wonder what happened to all these people to take the joy out of their life when someone doesn't agree with them. And that's often they are doom and gloom and hate. And it must be horrible to live like that. Well, I mean, again, these are Republicans and conservatives, David. Gary says plenty of people loved and pushed Thomas Massey, but he ruined himself and soured a lot of people. When you can get things accomplished and you would rather fight with your own side. Um, Shane says, in Smyrna says if the Democrat wins this seat, hopefully it'll teach us a lesson. Honestly, I don't understand this cult like sway that Trump holds over the electorate. He is no conservative and actively opposes those who are truly conservative, such as Thomas Massey, not really a conservative. He's a libertarian. Rand Paul, also more libertarian and Ralph Norman. So again, like I don't think you can just say Thomas Massey is a conservative. Um, He was more libertarian. And that's kind of the challenge that a lot of these... I saw somebody make this comment yesterday, is that there are a lot of people in the Freedom Caucus, and I don't oppose the Freedom Caucus. I like a lot of the members of the Freedom Caucus. But a lot of them are just not good at politics. As a former capital L registered libertarian, I will also tell you there are a lot of libertarians, they're not good at politics. And they seem to only get a real fire in their belly when they're going after conservatives. Okay? So.... These labels mean less and less and less, and particularly in the era of Trump, and I've been saying this for years, the parties are in realignment. There is a realignment occurring. Donald Trump brought in a lot of people to vote Republican, to vote for him, and then the down-ballot races that are not conservatives. Donald Trump is a 1980s Democrat. He always has been. I'm not fooled by any of the relabeling of this stuff. Jim Y says the South Carolina race reminds me that my plumber died last week. Fortunately, his wife who's never turned a wrench is available as his replacement. Oh my goodness. But too soon. It's too soon. Probably too soon. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalinershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.