Up and Running: Chris Christie

I thought there was a chance that Christie would sit out the 2016 race. Well, joke's on me because no one is sitting out the 2016 race. Everyone is running for president. Ask your family, your friends, coworkers, tinder matches...they are all in the race. This year and next are going to be insane.

But let's get back to Chris Christie, our newest candidate: He joins Rand Paul in the category of "candidates with two first names." He's been governor of New Jersey since 2010, and his slogan is "Telling It Like It Is."

I like this! Christie has no pretense about being for all Americans, for every single person in the country. I'm sure he thinks well of most Americans, but Christie is that rare candidate who will admit that some of us are idiots. At a press conference when Christie specifically asked for on-topic questions - a reporter asked an off-topic question and Christie called him out: "Did I say on-topic questions? Are you stupid? On topic, on topic. Next question...Okay, thank you all very much and I'm sorry for the idiot note there."

There was also the time he shut down a heckler who repeatedly interrupted the governor's commemoration of the second anniversary of Hurricane Sandy: "I'd be more than happy to have a debate with you, guy, anytime you like, because somebody like you doesn't know a damn thing about what you're talking about, except to stand up and show off when the cameras are here...I've been here when the cameras aren't here, buddy. I've been here when the cameras weren't here and did the work...all you've been doing is flapping your mouth and not doing anything! So listen, if you want to have that conversation later, I'm happy to have it, buddy. But until that time, sit down and shut up!"

So it goes without saying that I want to see Gov. Christie on a debate stage. Christie is pretty standard on the minor issues. He's fought to lower taxes, make the government less bureaucratic, remove barriers to fracking, and is pro-life and pro-school choice. He also opposes the recreational use of marijuana (though he did help pass a law expanding the availability of medical marijuana).

The whole "Bridgegate" thing will undoubtedly come up in his campaign, though only because our obnoxious lapdog media won't stop talking about it. New Jersey Democrats ran an investigation and found nothing to suggest Christie had any idea it was going on. And if that's not enough, federal prosecutors also investigated Christie and cleared him of any wrongdoing. CNN would like to pretend that this is a scandal, while their candidate hid her emails and lied about it and also took foreign bribes. 

On the big issues, Christie shows promise in Middle Eastern relations. New Jersey has this weird tradition of sending its governors on tours of the region, and Christie made his a few years back - and has a very strong relationship with Netanyahu.

Christie doesn't really have a plan for health care, at least not one that we have heard yet.

The big issue where Christie really loses me is immigration. He has previously stated that "being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime." Yes, it is. It's called illegal immigration. It is against the law. Hence, the "illegal" part.

Christie needs to state his plans on the big problems facing our country. But if there is one thing he's really good at - it's stating his case clearly.

Friday Fun

In honor of National Take Your Dog To Work Day (it's today!) I'm using this post to feature the four-legged employees in offices across America.

There's Buddy, commanding his corner office at the Wilmoth Group...

...and Molly, Office Dog and Chief Greeter at a Texas law firm.

These two team players work 9-5 at a California accounting firm.

This is Podgie at "For the Makers," getting a pat on the back from a corporate higher-up.

Source: Barkpost

And there's this pup, who's been at a DC public relations firm since 2009.

According to Belle's company bio, her hobbies are "modeling, eating, and sleeping." Belle is living my dream life. Whether or not your office is going to the dogs today, I hope you have a very happy Friday!

Up and Running: Bobby Jindal

Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, is running for president.  Jindal has served as Louisiana's governor since 2008 and - unlike our other governors in this race (Jeb Bush and Martin O'Malley) is still currently in office.

He's young.
He's 24 years younger than Hillary Clinton.
Like Jeb, he converted to Catholicism.

Bobby Jindal also delivered his third child, when his wife woke up in very fast labor and there wasn't enough time to get an ambulance. This is super weird, but also a pretty good way to see how Bobby Jindal works quickly under pressure.

He also oversaw an evacuation of millions of people before Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana a few years back. When a crisis hits - this is the guy you want in charge.

When it's business as usual, though, Jindal isn't exactly my fave. He supports Common Core, opposes marriage equality, and his office consistently rates really low on transparency.

Jindal does score some points with his ideas about immigration: Namely, that it should be done legally. He opposes amnesty and supports building a fence.

There is one thing I like a LOT about this guy - and that's his approach to birth control. Jindal says that birth control should be over-the-counter to everyone aged 18 and up. This is a great idea for lots of reasons:

1. It trusts women to make their own reproductive health care choices, minus having to do this annual charade: Going to a doctor's appointment that is not for any medical care or testing, but just to get a permission slip prescription for oral contraceptives.

2. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports OTC oral contraceptives.
3. Birth control would be available to all, no matter what their insurance plan (and no matter what their employer's religious beliefs).
4. Plan B - which is way more potent than most regular oral contraceptives - is over the counter, so Plan A should be, too.

Jindal is also the only 2016 candidate to have made a cameo appearance on "Duck Dynasty." For my take on the other candidates, check out the "Up and Running" series.

Cybersecurity: It's a Thing, and We Should Have It

We live in a country that will talk about anything - #TheDress, Rachel Dolezal, the latest antics of Florida Man - anything except things that actually matter. Rather than asking candidates about the economy or immigration or ISIS or cyberattacks, the elite reporting class has narrowed in on some molehills and turned them into mountains.

The first big issue (I'm using "big" and "issue" loosely here) was...gay cake. Remember how they harassed a pizza place in Indiana? That was a lot of outrage over...well, a pizza place in Indiana. Then, it was evolution. Someone's belief on the origin of human beings has little to no bearing on what he or she is like as an elected official.

Now we've moved on to something slightly more substantive: the Confederate flag. Pretty much everyone, besides maybe Kid Rock, agrees that they should #TakeItDown. The Confederates lost a long time ago. Racism is still a terrible problem; the Confederacy is not. SC took down the flag, now VA is taking it off of license plates, and MS is probably going to change their state flag design. We're 150 years late - but better late than never.

So once we've got that taken care of, I'd like to see the press start asking candidates about things that matter to the future of the country. And one of those things is cybersecurity. The short story on cybersecurity is that we do not have it: You will recall that someone broke in and stole data on 4 million federal employees.

Now, that number is looking more like 18 million federal employees. Just a casual "revision" of that number...like multiplying it by 450%. Oh, and remember how they said the hack probably came from China? This wasn't one rogue guy trying to mess with us -it was a coordinated attack, planned and sponsored by the Chinese government.

The President has said n-o-t-h-i-n-g about this. The privacy of millions of Americans got violated by a foreign government, and the President does nothing.

It's embarrassing that our government couldn't protect against this attack. It's also embarrassing how they handled the aftermath: With a phone line that kept people on hold for hours, crashed often, and generally didn't help the people who were looking for answers. 

Adding another layer of embarrassment to this is that the U.S. government's system for issuing visas has been down for two weeks now. There's a backlog quickly approaching 1 million visa applications. And our fearless leaders didn't need any foreign hackers to push them into this hole - nope, it was caused by an internal hardware error.

We know what Obama is going to do about technological security: nothing. So it's time to start asking his potential replacements what they would do. How do you keep American data/information safe? How do you do it efficiently? How do you fix the systems and processes that leave us vulnerable to cyberattacks? How do you prevent technology failures? What about countries who carry out cyberattacks, how should we deal with them? These questions are very hard, and very necessary. So. Let's see some answers.

13 Ways to Show Southern Pride that are Not the Confederate Flag

1. Dress the part.








 








2. Barbecue.

This one is all-American now, but make no mistake: It started in the South, and each state has its own specific spin on it.

3. Southern Charm

Like watching The Hills, except in Charleston.

4.  "If it's not moving, monogram it." - Reese Witherspoon

 5. Grits.

I brought a big batch of cheesy pepper grits to a potluck here in D.C. once...people started ladling them into Solo cups and drinking them. That night, I learned an important thing about Southern food: even if people don't exactly get it, they love it. And that is what counts!

6. G.R.I.T.S.

Stands for "girls raised in the South." It's a book, it's a store, it's a lifestyle.

7. The Mason Dixonary

Southern Living Magazine keeps a fantastic blog on Southern slang contributions to the English language.

8. College Football

I never fully understood planning every single Fall weekend around a team's football schedule, and I also know I can't say that out loud anywhere south of Richmond.

9. Country Music

 10. Whiskey, bourbon, etc.

Oh, and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka.

11. Southern writers

Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Harper Lee, and the list goes on and on and on....

12. Sweet tea

13. Southern manners

Good manners are definitely not exclusive to the South. BUT! Southerners are the only people I've ever heard say "please" and "thank you" while talking to Siri.

...and since there are all these positive, fun, inclusive ways to celebrate Southern pride...there is no good reason to use the Confederate flag.

Friday Fun(ish)

Given the tragedy in Charleston, it didn't seem right to do a typically fluffy post this Friday. But when things like this happen, it only becomes more important to seek out people who are doing good things. People are rallying around the community - in a way that is compassionate, generous, and heartwarming - and I thought I'd use this post to share some of their stories:

1. The people who filled Morris Brown AME Church at a memorial service on Thursday

Source

2. The crowds who gathered at Emanuel AME Church, the site of the shooting, to pray together as a community (IJReview has some powerful photos of this memorial)




3.  The Charleston RiverDogs, the city's minor league team

The RiverDogs, along with city officials, decided not to cancel their 7:05 Thursday game. Instead of cancelling, the team is sending all the proceeds from the game to a fund for the victims' families. A part of the team's statement read: “We feel it is our duty not to let the acts of one radical human being dictate our lives...the RiverDogs will continue on as scheduled in hopes of providing a sense of normalcy and comfort to the Lowcountry. We understand the donation is a small gesture during this terrible time; one for the families of the victims, the church family, and the entire community.”

4. The restaurants who are donating to the church's recovery

If you are in or around Charleston - please consider making one (or more!) of these places part of your weekend plans.

You can donate directly to the church here.

Hope everyone has a peaceful, restful weekend.

Get Ready for Women on $10s

So this is kinda random: the U.S. Treasury is going to start phasing out the usual ten dollar bills, and replacing them with a new design featuring a woman. This project is not exactly what this country needs to be focusing on right now. We're in gobs of debt and definitely don't have the money to redesign and print new currency. But this is Washington and darnit, we're going to do it anyway!

The premise behind this change is that women and girls should be represented on currency. Very cool idea, and I mean that sincerely. But I can honestly say I never once looked at a dollar bill and thought, "Hmm, this is not a lady." It just didn't register with me, let alone bother me in any way at all. The Women on 20s campaign ran a very impressive push to kick out Andrew Jackson and put a woman on the $20 bill, but it turns out that the $10 was next in line for a redesign, so sorry, Andrew Hamilton, your time in the spotlight is up (he'll be sharing the new design with whichever woman is selected).

Kind of a bummer that Andrew Jackson gets to stick around, because by most accounts he was a jerk. (Does the Trail of Tears sound familiar? Yeahhhh that was Jackson's doing.) Another good candidate for a redesign is the $10,000 bills, which carry the image of a man named Salmon Chase. Besides sharing his name with a bizarre outdoor activity (what were his parents thinking?!) Mr. Chase also served as Secretary of the Treasury and the country's Chief Justice. Unfortunately, bills of that size have been out of circulation for quite awhile now - so it wouldn't do much good to redesign a bill that no one is going to use.

So we bid a farewell to the standard Alexander Hamilton $10 bills. He was a Founding Father, a Revolutionary War veteran, and a driving force behind the establishment of the U.S. Mint. He also lost a presidential race (to John Adams) and was killed by Aaron Burr in a duel. You would think that it can't get much worse than helping establish and build the country, then losing the presidency and then getting shot by the Vice President, but oh, it can...because now he's getting upstaged on the one big public thanks he gets for his life's work.

We don't know who is joining Hamilton on the new bills, other than it has to be 1) a woman and 2) not a living person. That leaves us so many options. Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth would be a good choice, as would Susan B. Anthony/Alice Paul/Elizabeth Cady Stanton. There's been some enthusiasm for Wilma Mankiller (the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, with a fiercely feminist last name to match). The lucky lady will be announced later this year. Though this is far from the most pressing issue in the country, let's hope they choose a woman who represents the best of America - someone who is right on the money.*

-The Bear

*That pun. I had to, it was too easy, and I'm not sorry. Ha!

DC Dating...How to Lose a Girl's Interest in 5 Text Messages

Okay, men of DC, we need to TALK. You guys are some of the most educated, motivated, driven men in the country - for many of you, that's why you moved here. This town has a hypermotivated culture. DC men (and women!) work crazy hard because they know what they want, and they put in the effort to get it...

...except when it comes to dating. What's up with that? I have experienced or witnessed so many weird instances of a guy trying to date a girl, and doing pretty much everything except asking her on a date. This is common enough that I've started to see a pattern, a standard set of text messages these man-children use to try to get a girl's time and attention without having to make the slightest hint of actual effort. Here are the worst offenders:

1. "I'm doing (insert activity here) if you want to join."

That is not asking a girl on a date. That is asking a girl to invite herself to tag along. And that puts the lady in the awkward position of having to guess whether or not you actually want her to be there. If you're going to pull this little trick, then you should at the very least say something like "I hope you'll join me!" or "it'd be great if you could come with!"

2. Boy asks girl to get a drink sometime. Girl says yes. Boy says, "Great! Where would you like to go, and when?"

This is different from asking a girl if she's free for happy hour on Wednesday, or what part of town works best for her. Those are totally normal, totally polite things to ask! The scenario above, though, is asking a woman on a date that she now has to plan...and sorry, but that's just lazy.

3. The 8:00 PM "what are you doing tonight?" 

Chances are, the woman in question already has plans. Plans that were made more than a few hours before they were supposed to start. Plans with friends, plans she isn't going to bail on on short notice (because that's tacky, yo). There's a worse version of this one, too: "Doing anything this weekend?" DUH we're doing things. We're not just staring at our cell phones waiting for whatever semi-coherent text message you crafted between beer pong shots. 

4. The inevitable follow-up to #3..."Can we meet up?"

This almost always ends up with the guy trying to get the girl to come to HIM. The guy can just do whatever with his friends, and thinks he can expect the girl to show up on demand at a location of their choosing, at a time of their choosing. That's just plain tacky and I don't know a single woman who falls for it, anyway. There is a totally normal and conventional way to meet up, and that is called a date.  

5. "Am I going to see you this weekend?"

DUDE, if you had asked me on a date, you would have an answer already! 

People in this town are savvy.  That's why I refuse to believe that a big chunk of the male demographic just somehow missed the memo on how dating works. This isn't about chivalry - it's about politeness. It's about respecting another person's time, and having the confidence to be honest about what you want, instead trying to get a woman to make all the effort for you. So, guys, please keep in mind that good manners are attractive (as is confidence!) before you hit send.

Friday Fun

WOOO HOOO today is my last day of summer intensive class!  It's been a good one - a small group, with a great professor who has forgotten more about the subject than I will ever know. Now, I'm trying to knock out some papers on the Arab-Israeli conflict...about several groups of people who are very bad at making peace. They are bad at negotiating, bad at figuring out what they want, bad at planning, bad at compromising...

So in celebration of being done with all that, this week's Friday Fun post is all about people who are really good at things:

1. U.S. Women's National Team

Source

 The Women's World Cup is underway and USWNT is off to a great start! The WWC is in Canada this year, and Team USA faced Australia on Monday night. Team USA has pretty good odds of winning the whole thing (or at least going head-to-head with powerhouse soccer countries like Germany and Brazil).

2. This talented balloon artist

An anonymous imgur user updated his balloon sculptures to the web, and they've been getting lots of buzz ever since. The flamingo above is my favorite, and you can see more at the link!

3. Triple-Crown Jockey Victor Espinoza

Source

Last Saturday was Espinoza's third chance at the Triple Crown - he had won both the Derby and the Preakness before, first on War Emblem and then on California Chrome. The Derby win is great, but Espinoza deserves mention as a great humanitarian - he's donating his winnings from the Belmont to the City of Hope Cancer Center.

4. Figo, the fearless service dog

Source

This pup saved his owner's life by running between her and a moving bus on Monday in New York. Bystanders said that he wouldn't leave her side after the accident. Both the dog and his owner are expected to make a full recovery.

I'm off to go celebrate Friday drown in a pile of term papers, but hope you all have a great weekend!

- The Bear

Paris is taking down the love lock bridge, and I have some ideas about that.

It's a bummer of a news story: Paris's famed "love lock bridge" - the Pont des Arts bridge - is at risk of collapsing under the weight of the locks. The French government is removing all the locks, and then installing new side railings on the bridge that will stop people from adding more locks.

Though the renovation is not fun, it's necessary. A walk across the historic bridge wouldn't be quite so romantic if it ended with an unexpected plunge into the river below. But throwing out the locks is a waste of some really great memories, and love stories.

And everybody loves a love story. If the locks have to go - we as a culture should at least be able to keep the stories that, over decades, built a world-famous monument to love.

Every lock has a story of two people who loved each other (and hopefully, still do). So my idea is this: instead of throwing out the locks, take a photo of each one and upload it to the internet. Then let people write in and claim their lock by telling the story of how it got there.

People might try to lie about it, but that's unlikely - there is no incentive to make up a story to claim something that has no meaning to you as a person. And since nearly all of the locks had initials carved into them, it'd be harder to claim a lock that isn't yours - since you'd need to have the same initials as one of the initial lovebirds. Many of the locks have dates on them, too, and that could be used for further verification (theoretically, the French authorities should have record of who was in the country on what dates).

If a person can verify that the lock is theirs though some combination of initials, travel dates, the story of the lock, and maybe even photos from the trip, then that person would have two options: Either pay a shipping fee to have the lock shipped to them, or volunteer the lock to be part of a permanent exhibit (that the French authorities could keep somewhere less, um, collapsible, but still accessible to tourists). All the stories that people submit would be preserved in that exhibit, along with the corresponding lock (or photo, if the lock itself was returned to the initial owners). Imagine walking through a museum of locks from all over the world, and reading the unique story behind each one.

Building an exhibit like this would preserve history of individuals and also the history of Paris - that it has been a romantic destination for centuries.The whole point of fastening a lock on a bridge and throwing a key in a river is to create something permanent and public. Paris should honor the wishes of its travelers, and build a new - safer - monument to what brought them to the world's most romantic city.

Friday Fun

Hey everyone,

I am swamped this week so please excuse the short post today! However - I gotta say, I did find some really great reads for this installment of "Friday Fun" and am excited to share them with you.

This week's theme is badasses - people who are doing amazing things. Check out these stories about some very cool humans:

1. A hip-hop star who's bringing electricity to hundreds of millions of people in rural Africa
2. A 92 year old woman who runs marathons
3. These tough-guy bikers watching out for a bullied little girl
4. This formerly homeless teenage single mom who graduated at the top of her class

I hope these stories make you feel all warm and fuzzy!

- The Bear
(Bears are always warm and fuzzy :)

Up and Running: Rick Perry

They never learn, I tell ya. Rick Perry ran for president in 2012 and crumbled early in the game...so, naturally, he is running again in 2016. He's announcing his campaign today. The timing of this announcement is either an attempt to steal Jeb's thunder (Jeb is slated to announce later this month) OR just a very strong commitment to Throwback Thursday.

Perry actually has some good ideas, the problem is that he can't always remember them. In one of the earliest 2012 debates, Perry was discussing which federal government agencies he would close if elected. Here's his answer:

"And I will tell you, it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, Education, and the... what's the third one there? Let's see...The third agency of government I would, I would do away with, the Education, the... Commerce and, let's see...I can't. The third one,  I can't. Sorry. Oops."

Rick Perry follows a familiar template...a Republican former governor of Texas, who also used to be a cheerleader, who continually messes up his wording in front of the camera.

He's pro-gun, pro-life, and has repeatedly affirmed his position that immigration reform has to start with first securing the border. 

Here's where it gets weird: Rick Perry REALLY can't stand The Geighs. He doesn't want them serving openly in the military, which is like saying "Sure, you can dedicate your career and possibly give your life to your country, but you're not allowed to be open an honest about who you are or about your relationships." It seems...creepy? Rude? Unnecessary? I'm gonna go with "all of the above."

Perry also has the special distinction of being the only candidate who has been indicted by a Grand Jury. Perry vetoed a bill that would have funded something called a "Public Integrity Unit," which was headed by District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. Lehmberg had been caught driving the wrong way down a freeway, and threatened a cop. She was drunk (shocker!) with a BAL about three times the legal limit. She refused to resign her office (I guess she has a very broad definition of "Public Integrity"). Perry thought that he could nudge her toward resignation by pulling funding - so he vetoed this appropriations bill, which was totally legal for him to do, but the Dems got cranky and convinced a Grand Jury to indict him.

He turned himself in, took a mug shot, and then went for ice cream.

I would like to see Rick Perry will drop his opposition of gay marriage/military service/etc., and focus on the legal issues at hand in 2016. He has some good ideas about how to make government smaller and more effective - so here's hoping that he can clearly articulate them this time around.

Up and Running: Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, is running for president. Meh. This latest Bush in the news is the brother of noted amateur painter George W. Bush, and the son of elderly skydiver and sock trendsetter George H.W. Bush.

With Jeb and Hillary both in the running, both left and right wing media outlets will shy away from what we all know is true: political dynasties suck. We don't want another Bush or Clinton in the White House (except for Barney the dog and Socks the cat, who I would completely trust to run the country had they not both already passed on to the giant Petsmart in the sky).

Instead of talking about political dynasties, the major news networks will seize on this: As governor, Bush signed Florida's "stand your ground" bill into law - the first such law for any state in the country, and the bill often cited during the Trayvon Martin trial.

Jeb is Republican but not exactly conservative. He's pretty relaxed on immigration - he doesn't seem all that concerned about securing the border, which this Bear says should be the first part of any immigration plan. Jeb is quite concerned with illegal immigrants getting drivers' licenses and in-state tuition, which is nice, but 1) very expensive and 2) does nothing to stop more illegal migrants from coming over and 2.5) actually, kind of encourages more people to enter the US illegally.

Jeb is also a supporter of Common Core. Eww. If elected president, he could paraphrase his brother and call his education plan "Every Child Left Behind."

This is not to say that Jeb is all bad news. He's done some innovative stuff, like requiring all hospitals in Florida to disclose their patient outcome statistics on the Internet. The pundits call it transparency - I call it Yelp for hospitals. A good move for giving patients the tools to make their own health decisions. He also gave Floridians $19 billion in tax cuts. 

Jeb waded into the politically treacherous waters of race relations during his time as governor. He eliminated affirmative action in state universities. In addition, he ended a policy that used race to help decide which people and companies were awarded work contracts by the state government. It is insane that such a policy existed in the first place - the idea that race could make someone a better or worse candidate for a contract, is really, well, racist. Like, on a scale of "1" to "racist," that rates "hella racist." Good for Jeb for putting a stop to it.

Some more interesting facts about Jeb: if elected, he would be the country's second catholic president. Jeb converted to Catholicism when he married his wife. Columba, in the 1990s. Columba was born in Mexico and is an extremely private person...who also got caught "misleading" customs officers on the spoils of a shopping spree. Oops.

The bottom line of all this? Jeb is no Hillary Clinton - he hasn't run a slush fund disguised as a charity, he hasn't destroyed government property, he hasn't taken bribes from foreign governments - but he's also not a conservative. I think he could make a good VP pick - and help the GOP get those Florida swing votes.

Up and Running: Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina, is running for president.  Let's discuss.

The Good:

Graham has experience. He has served in the Senate since 2003, and served eight years in the House before that. Graham would make a knowledgeable Commander-in-Chief, too - he's a decorated Air Force veteran.

This is a tough guy we're talking about here: When he was in his early 20s, both of his parents passed away, and he took over raising his 13 year old sister. Graham went through college while living with a teenage girl, and for that alone he deserves respect.

There's also this quote: "If I'm President of the United States and you're thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL...I'm not going to call a judge, I'm going to call a drone and we will kill you." Is it constitutional to do something like that? I don't know. Is it fierce American leadership? Oh yes it is.


The Bad:

How much war could a war hawk hawk if a war hawk could hawk war? Graham's interventionist ideology could be a turn-off for many voters.

He is also generally pretty weak on immigration, too...if only he could be as hawkish about our own borders as he is about war abroad. Graham has worked with Democrats on trying to pass climate change legislation, and supports phone companies turning over data to the NSA. Graham is decisively not a Tea-Partier, and he'll have a VERY hard time rallying a voter base in the GOP primaries.

Also - as of this past March, Graham went on the record saying that he had never sent an email before.

The Weirdly Personal:

Graham, a Southern Baptist, has never married and has no children. This has led some people to think that Graham may be gay. I do not know if Lindsey Graham is gay. I do not care if Lindsey Graham is gay. He has supported proposed bans on gay marriage and gay adoption - so, regardless of his personal views, those are his political ones.

The Footnote: 

Viewers of the reality show "Southern Charm" will remember that the show chronicled cast member/insane person Thomas Ravenel's Senate campaign in 2014. Ravenel lost badly...to none other but Lindsey Graham.

The End: 

This will be an interesting campaign season, to say the least. While the racist liberals see how many ways they can make "Graham cracker" jokes about this guy, I'm just waiting to watch him go head-to-head with Rand Paul and Ted Cruz...let's see which version of the GOP comes out on top.