Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., started the week off right. He dropped out of the presidential race.
Whether or not you like his politics, the retired Air Force reservist with a knack for cornball humor was fun to watch in the undercard debates. But with poll after poll showing he has little or no support, he decided honorably to help unclutter the field by removing himself.
“At the end of the day, I’m not going to be competitive in my state if I’m not competitive outside my state,” said Graham who had over the last ten months fallen from first place in polls of the Palmetto state into a three-way tie for eighth place. “South Carolina’s been incredibly good to me. I would be competitive in South Carolina, but I’ve got to show traction outside the state.”
In dropping out, Graham follows in the footsteps of other candidates who saw the writing on the wall, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Each recognized that he had no remaining path to victory, and no hope either in national polls or in the polls of the early states.
Although he bemoaned the “collapse” of his hawkish brand of Republicanism, Graham also must be aware that in Florida Sen. Marco Rubio there exists another voice in this election for a robust national security conservatism.
We applaud Graham for freeing up debate time and attention for candidates who might actually win. Our only objection to this process is that so many other no-chance candidates are failing to show the same dignity.
New York Gov. George Pataki occasionally gets 1 percent in polls of Iowa, New Hampshire, and the nation. Other than that, he’s a solid zero. Neither Rick Santorum nor Mike Huckabee, both former winners in Iowa, have gotten any traction this time around. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore has had not detectable support anywhere at any time. His continued ghostly presence is an insult to his party and its voters.
These candidates have by now said all that they had to say, and in most cases others are saying the same thing anyway. This is a free country, and anyone can run for president, but candidates who cannot tell when the moment has come to stop bothering people with their continued presence evidently lack the judgment needed for the job they seek.
As Christmas draws near, Carly Fiorina and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, tied for eighth place nationally in the RealClearPolitics polling average and doing not much better in Iowa or New Hampshire, should also be considering dropping out. Fiorina has made an impression but doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Paul has a Senate re-election ahead of him, and his messaging goals can be carried forward at least partly by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who shares his libertarian position against government surveillance of Americans and (at least in part) his commitment to more realism in foreign policy.
Other longshot candidates, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for example, at least have a state (New Hampshire, in their case) on which they can reasonably pin their hopes. This seems less and less the case for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
All of these candidates and their donors must think about whether their presence in the race is worth the effort, or whether it has become an exercise in vanity that can only help Donald Trump destroy their party and help elect Hillary Clinton.
The GOP field remains far too full at 13 candidates, and we encourage some Christmas soul-searching by all of them.
