rss
mobile
Feeds
It's an opinion Graham has expressed before, but it drew national attention recently in a profile published in The New York Times as he was leaving for the Middle East during the Senate's Fourth of July recess.
Ralph Billeter, 76, said he heard it on Fox News and it reinforced to him that Graham, a Republican from Seneca, is out of touch with the people of South Carolina.
Billeter, a member of the Carolina Patriots, said Graham might say he's a conservative Republican, yet he worked with Democratic Sen. John Kerry and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats, on an energy bill that included capping greenhouse gas emissions.
The debate over health care reform is what pushed Billeter, a Conway resident, to political activism, he said.
Billeter said he is speaking for himself and not his tea party group. Like most tea party activists, he believes in less spending and more government control at the state level to give people greater input and reduce the size of federal government.
"We lost our government when our government representatives we elected stopped listening to us," he said. "And if you want any proof of that, all you've got to do is watch Fox News. They've got all these town hall meeting clips that they play."
In a story published Saturday, Bob Inglis, a six-term U.S. representative who was soundly defeated in a primary runoff against Spartanburg prosecutor Trey Gowdy, spoke out against what he said is a conservative movement that preys on people's fears.
Inglis said he believes a majority of his fellow Republicans in Congress agree but keep silent for fear of being roasted on TV and radio talk shows. Ronald Reagan could not have survived Fox News host Glenn Beck's show, he said.
Inglis, too, said it's a movement that can't last.
Graham said he can understand the frustrations of tea party members when it comes to the increasing size of the federal government. But "for a political movement to sustain itself over time you have to be eventually for solving problems, and you've got to have an agenda that the middle of America will embrace."
"We ought to listen to the tea party when it comes to the way we spend money and programs that we create that get involved in Americans' lives," he said, but "America needs a sound foreign policy. America needs strong national security."
