When he makes his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa Thursday night, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will attempt to rally the troops and convince undecided voters that he is the man to be the next President of the United States and right the country’s economic ship.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks in Columbia earlier this month (File)
One of the interested listeners will be U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Graham says for Republicans to take back the White House, the party must first admit that mistakes were made when they were last in power from 2002-2006.
“We had a Republican-controlled House. We had 55 Republican senators and a Republican President and we spent too much money and we expanded entitlements instead of reforming them,” he told Greenwood affilaite WCRS, ”Second acts are hard to get in life.”
Graham says just blaming the present administration for all of the country’s woes will not be good enough. He says Republicans must campaign on a platform of substantive change. “Try not to win the election for political power reasons, try to win the election to change the country. If you really desire some change in the country, then making amends for your own mistakes and I think we are in good shape. It’s one thing to say that Barack Obama failed, but we have to acknowledge our own failures. A do-over is a chance to do that.”
Graham says it is always tough to unseat an incumbent, but he believes Mitt Romney has a solid chance to unseat President Obama in the race for the White House. The senator says it can be best described as three races that will be a fight to the finish. “There’s an economic job creation race— we’re winning that because Obama has failed miserably. There is a personality contest that we’re losing, but I think Ann Romney (with her Tuesday night speech) helped a lot. And there’s a demographic race— we’re just going to have to connect with a wider group. We’re going to have to register people to vote, and we’re going to have to have a good turnout campaign.”
Anne Eller, WCRS Greenwood contributed to the story.
