Democrat Jaime Harrison Running for Senate in South Carolina

The Jaime Harrison senatorial campaign to take out incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham in South Carolina could be a bellwether for politics in a new New South. Can a moderate, business-aligned black Democrat, who learned his politics at the elbow of Rep. Jim Clyburn, defeat the entrenched Lindsey Graham, the sycophantic chameleon who now smooches the ass of a man he once called “a kook”? Graham said of Trump in February 2016, “I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.” He now bows to him as Lord and Master.

MotherJones.com

According to reporter Kara Voght, Harrison has been a dynamo at fundraising, raising $3.5 million in the last quarter of 2019 which makes Harrison a champion in the money race though he's still some $5 million behind Lindsey Graham.

He came up from extreme poverty in South Carolina but got a degree at Yale and then at Georgetown Law and sought out a staff position with Rep. Jim Clyburn, where he learned the personalities and the ways of the Hill. From there he went on to work for the Podesta Group with clients like the pro-coal American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Walmart. In other words, he's well educated and well connected to corporate America.

But for our hyper-partisan age, he's also decided on a softer approach to campaigning, mainly refusing to draw distinctions to Graham or even mentioning his name. Gibbs Knotts, who teaches political science at the College of Charleston, said of Harrison's campaign, “To characterize this as a long shot would be accurate.” A long shot not just because of the money disadvantage and not just because he's a black man running in the former Confederacy but because he's trying to rise above partisanship when the tide of history is flowing the other direction.