Graham's consideration of 2016 upends SC landscape

COLUMBIA, S.C. South Carolina voters often think of themselves as presidential tie-breakers, enjoying their prime role as the next to cast ballots after Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary.

But what if there's a ringer in the race?

The state's senior senator, Republican Lindsey Graham, is flirting with running for president, an idea some initially saw as so unlikely that many thought his longtime Senate buddy John McCain was joking when he mentioned it the first time.

Graham is serious, launching a campaign-like organization and starting to lay the groundwork for a bid. He gave a well-received speech to the influential Republican Jewish Coalition last week in Washington. Next week, he is scheduled to visit California to meet with donors and then head to Iowa.

His potential entry into the race has put his state's political talent into a holding pattern. As they wait for Graham to decide whether to run in a state carried by every GOP nominee since 1980, with Mitt Romney's loss to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2012 the lone exception, they're debating among themselves whether he can or should mount a national campaign.

"Everything's kind of frozen here right now, waiting to see what he'll do," said Warren Tompkins, a longtime Republican operative who ran South Carolina campaigns for President George W. Bush and Romney in 2012.

Added Tompkins' sometimes adversary, Richard Quinn, who ran McCain's 2000 campaign in the state: "I've been with (Graham) since he ran for Congress in '93, and whatever Lindsey does this cycle, I'll be in his corner."

Such loyalty shouldn't be viewed as a harbinger of Graham coasting to an easy win in South Carolina, however. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack was one of the first candidates to enter and then leave the 2008 campaign, and Romney, who owns a vacation home in New Hampshire, came up short that same year in his adopted state's primary.

South Carolina is deeply conservative in the "upstate" around Greenville and Spartanburg, less so near the state capital of Columbia, with a coastline that's home to thousands of retirees and members of the military who have moved from elsewhere, bringing their brand of GOP politics with them.

"When you come to South Carolina and win, it means you've checked off all the boxes: social conservative, fiscal conservative, strong defense, all of it," said Katon Dawson, a former state party chairman who backs former Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2016.

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Graham's consideration of 2016 upends SC landscape