This is one ambush that backfired.
When two liberals accosted Sen. Lindsay Graham at Reagan International Airport on Monday to oppose the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, they might have had visions of leftist greatness in mind.
After all, two women who trapped then-Sen. Jeff Flake in an elevator back in 2018 managed to delay the confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for a week to allow for an FBI investigation into the spurious claims that Kavanaugh committed a sexual assault when he was a teenager.
Maybe accosting Graham with the claim that Barrett — a woman who has adopted and raised two black children from the troubled country of Haiti — is some kind of closet “racist” would have a similar effect? (It’s not the first time the left has played that card.)
Fortunately for Barrett’s nomination – and for the future of the country – Graham is not so easily cowed.
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He not only wasn’t backing down from Barrett’s cause, he posted a video of the encounter to his own Twitter account.
I arrived in DC today & was confronted by 2 women – one of whom was from Seattle – who called Judge Amy Coney Barrett a racist & unqualified. This is the modern left, hostile & unhinged. I won’t be intimidated. I can’t wait to #FillTheSeat. STAND WITH ME: https://t.co/ZwkiWzOfR7 pic.twitter.com/sGkyzpCdxw
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 20, 2020
“I arrived in DC today & was confronted by 2 women – one of whom was from Seattle – who called Judge Amy Coney Barrett a racist & unqualified,” Graham wrote.
Do you think Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed to SCOTUS prior to the election?
“This is the modern left, hostile & unhinged. I won’t be intimidated. I can’t wait to #FillTheSeat. STAND WITH ME.”
As most of the political world knows, the South Carolina Republican is in a re-election fight this year against a Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman who has raised record-breaking sums for the effort.
In the third quarter alone, according to The Hill, Harrison’s campaign pulled in $57 million, dwarfing the then-record $38 million raised in the third quarter of 2018 by Democrat Robert “Beto” O’Rourke in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham is a top target of Democrats this year, and the airport ambush was no doubt aimed at putting him on the defensive.
It did the opposite.
It didn’t help that one of the women was from Seattle. There are no doubt many fine people in Seattle, but the troubled town is not exactly an exemplar of the American middle these days.
(The city is probably best known to most Americans for allowing the short-lived experiment known as CHOP to grow up inside its borders like a malignant tumor this summer. It might be about a half-step up from Portland, Oregon, in terms of public perceptions of its unhinged politics, but it’s a short half-step.)
Graham’s response to the women in the airport was uncompromising. He’s supporting Barrett, he said, because “she’s highly qualified.”
And while there were plenty of leftists chipping in snarky remarks on Graham’s Twitter post (astroturfing is all the rage), his supporters were even more encouraging.
Thank you for standing up for truth and justice as you support Judge Barrett! The left is going a little crazy knowing their end is near.
— Jane Kizer (@janekizer) October 20, 2020
Not to worry. We DO stand with you! Thank you for the great job you’re doing with the confirmation hearings. You are a champion for right and justice, and we appreciate you more than you could ever know.
— Linda Thompson (@Linbob1949) October 20, 2020
You rock @LindseyGrahamSC . God bless and make sure ACB gets that seat!
— Tony Davis (@tonydavisnc) October 20, 2020
I don’t agree with him all the time but he is no Jeff Flake.
— David Chavez (@WataStrangeLife) October 20, 2020
For leftists, bringing up memories of the disgraceful treatment that surrounded the Kavanaugh nomination is a bad tactic to choose when it comes to Barrett’s elevation to the high court.
Trying to brand a white woman as “racist” when she’s raising two black children is even worse.
And thinking Lindsey Graham — the senator who delivered a heroically furious speech aimed at Democrats near the climax of the Kavanaugh fight — would back down in the face of an airport ambush was probably the worst move of all.
How South Carolina votes in Graham’s re-election remains to be seen, but one thing is unquestionable: This ambush backfired – badly.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.