LF: Lindsey Graham pleads with John Kasich to get out of the race so that Ted Cruz can take out Donald Trump

Title: Lindsey Graham pleads with John Kasich to get out of the race so that Ted Cruz can take out Donald Trump
Source: Daily Mail Online
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... ace-Ted-Cruz-Donald-Trump.html
Published: Mar 20, 2016
Author: Nikki Schwab, U.s. Political Reporter Fo
Post Date: 2016-03-20 18:04:24 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 1227
Comments: 6

Sen. Lindsey Graham already held his nose and said he would be supporting Sen. Ted Cruz going forward, but this morning took things a step forward by pleading with Ohio Gov. John Kasich to get out so that Cruz can take out frontrunner Donald Trump more easily.

'And I hope John Kasich is listening,' Graham said this morning on Face the Nation. 'John, if I thought you would win, I'd be behind you, because you are the most electable candidate.'

Graham called on Kasich, who is in third place of the three remaining GOP candidates, to work with Cruz to deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination outright.

'And if you're not willing to work with Ted, then you're hurting the cause,' Graham said. 'By Kasich going to Utah, you're making it harder for Ted to get 50 percent.'

Graham, who was formerly in the presidential race, surprised the political world on Thursday by telling CNN that he was going to start fundraising for Cruz, who he's said a number of critical things about in the past.

'It pales in comparison to my differences with Trump,' Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill.

'I think Ted Cruz is a reliable Republican: Strong on Israel, would repeal and replace Obamacare, would be good on the Supreme Court. So we have many things in common but we also have many differences.'

But in a CNN interview last month, Graham pulled no punches in his assessment on Cruz, who is unpopular among his Senate colleagues.

'If you're a Republican and your choice is Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a general election,' Graham told CNN. 'It's the difference between poisoned or shot — you're still dead.'

Graham also joked at a Washington dinner last month that 'a good Republican would defend Ted Cruz .... That ain't happening. If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.'

At last month's Washington Press Club Foundation's dinner, Graham added, 'I was asked the hardest question of my political life. Do you agree with Donald Trump that Ted Cruz is the biggest liar in politics? Too close to call.'

On Thursday Graham also said that Kasich was his preferred candidate but that 'I don't see John having the path that Ted does in terms of stopping Trump, which is most important to me.'

'I love John Kasich,' Graham said. 'But if he stays in this race, or they don't coordinate the efforts between Cruz and Kasich, we're going to wind up giving the nomination to Trump,' Graham said.

The South Carolina senator was particularly critical of Kasich's decision to campaign in Utah for fear that he would siphon votes away from Cruz, who's more demographically-suited for the state than the Ohio governor, allowing Trump to win a majority of its 40 delegates.

On Tuesday Arizona also votes and those delegates are winner-take-all.

Republicans in American Samoa will also make their pick.

'John Kasich is the most electable Republican,' Graham noted. 'I don't think he has a chance to win at the convention because it's an outsider year and John Kasich is an insider, and most of the delegates are looking for an outsider.'

Beyond his personal beefs with Cruz, 'he's the best alternative to Donald Trump,' Graham said.

The ex-candidate and senator then went on a tirade about his party's current frontrunner.

'The bottom line is, I believe that Donald Trump would be an absolute, utter disaster for the Republican Party, destroy conservatism as we know it, we would get wiped out, and it would take generations to overcome a Trump candidacy,' Graham said.

'Ronald Reagan had a three-legged stool of conservatism: fiscal, social and strong national security,' Graham continued.

'Donald has a four-legged stool 'cause he's "The Donald," it's got to be bigger: Economic populism, xenophobia, race-baiting and religious bigotry are the stools that he has formed,' Graham said.

'That is his campaign, that is not conservatism,' the senator added.

Graham, despite signing the Republican National Committee's pledge to support the GOP nominee, hinted that he might buck the pledge if that nominee is Trump.

'Ask me after the convention that question, but I'm making it pretty clear to you that I think Mr. Trump destroys the party that I love – and as much as a I disagree with Ted Cruz, I think he's a real Republican, he would nominate conservative judges, he will not sell Israel out, he's a reliable Republican conservative,' Graham explained.

'Mr. Trump is an interloper and ... a demagogue of the greatest proportion,' Graham said .