Lindsey Graham is Refreshingly Unfiltered

WASHINGTON -- Ask Sen. Lindsey Graham his greatest political accomplishment, and the South Carolina Republican does not point to any individual piece of legislation. Rather, he says, it is that "I have not become job scared. I have not been so enamored with the job that I'm scared to lose it."

It is possible to respond to this with a shot of cynicism. After all, there is a making-lemonade-from-lemons aspect to Graham's answer: His quests to bridge the bipartisan divide on issues such as immigration and climate change have not produced a big bill emblazoned with his name.

There is, as well, a Janis Joplin, freedom's-just-another-word-for-nothing-left to-lose aspect to Graham's current quest: His bid for the Republican presidential nomination job is so much of a long shot that he might as well say exactly what he thinks.

And yet, there is, and has long been, something alluring about Graham's relative lack of a filter, an unvarnished authenticity in the age of the relentlessly focus-grouped pol. I was reminded of this quality when Graham sat down for an interview Monday with me and my Washington Post colleague Michael Gerson (it was his question that elicited the "job scared" answer).

Most notably, Graham has been the GOP field's swiftest and most barbed critic of Donald Trump and his noxious comments about illegal immigration.

While other Republican politicians may be "worried about offending people who are upset," Graham said of Trump's remarks, "this is not about illegal immigration anymore. It's about how Republicans view people. ... If we don't speak clearly here, we're making a mistake for the ages."

Graham himself drew the connection to "radical Islam," yet it is telling that, when asked which book besides the Bible has most shaped his thinking, Graham cited William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."

He was particularly struck, Graham said, by the author's depiction of "how you could take a very educated public and, due to economic distress, they could turn into something very evil. Demagoguery. Making someone the scapegoat. Germany as a cultured country: How could it go from there, before World War I, to where it was in 1939? It's a fascinating understanding of people. And you always have to be on your guard."

Graham's presidential candidacy is most impelled by, and most identified with, his concern about radical Islam and his conviction that defeating this threat will require more time, and far more U.S. troops, than President Obama has acknowledged.

But he speaks with near-equal passion about a domestic issue that has all but disappeared from the campaign conversation: entitlement reform, and the importance of a balanced approach to achieving it. Here Graham is the only candidate willing to say two words that have become ideological poison for both sides: Simpson-Bowles.

That debt-reduction proposal has become anathema for Republicans because it calls for trillions in new tax revenue and, equally, anathema for Democrats because it calls for entitlement changes such as raising the Medicare eligibility age and changing the method for calculating Social Security cost-of-living increases.

Among Republican presidential candidates, the discussion of entitlement veers from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who would take on entitlements but is silent on the new revenue front, to Mike Huckabee, who termed such means-testing proposals "absolutely ridiculous" and vowed "to protect Social Security and Medicare. Period."

Among Democrats, the entitlement conversation ranges from irresponsibly absent (Hillary Clinton, who launched her 2008 bid citing "the deficits that threaten Social Security and Medicare," scarcely mentioned the issue in her economic speech) to even more irresponsibly overpromising (Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley are pressing to expand Social Security benefits).

Which leaves Graham, once again, as the candidate in the middle -- willing, he says, to press his party on the need to agree to raise taxes in order to forge a deal.

"Most Americans are one car wreck away from needing somebody's help," Graham said, invoking his own background as the guardian of his younger sister after both their parents died. "So the goal for a conservative is not just to run the government down, but to make it sustainable; ... to say that Medicare and Social Security are important for the future of the country, so important it's worth both sides giving."

Graham is surpassingly unlikely to become the GOP nominee. But his presence in the race, his willingness to press both sides on their orthodoxies, at the very least increases the likelihood that this essential conversation will occur.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.