BUT I DID IT TO BE LIKED... (via AWW):

Graham gets heat for deal: His mediator role in filibuster drama upsets many in S.C. (LAUREN MARKOE, 5/25/05, The State)

In Washington, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham is being lauded for helping pull the U.S. Senate back from the partisan brink of a filibuster crisis.

In South Carolina, the Seneca Republican is trying to control the damage.

“The calls won’t quit, and they’re almost all against Lindsey,” state Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson said.

Dawson counted more than 900 phone calls to party headquarters in 36 hours — mostly from people who helped elevate Graham from the House to the Senate in 2002. [...]

But Graham said Tuesday he expects to regain his critics’ confidence when the compromise results in more of Bush’s conservative nominees winning spots in the federal judiciary.

Underscoring his “90 percent conservative voting record,” he said he disagrees with those who would have him spurn Democrats when the good of the country requires him to work with them.

“I will fight for the conservative cause, because I believe in it,” Graham said. “I will break away when I think the country needs me to break away to find a middle ground.

“But I will not use this job to hate people. There are some people on the right and the left, (who) expect you not only to vote with them, but to hate the people they hate. Count me out.”

He obviously thinks he's deprived Democrats of the filibuster.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 26, 2005 8:34 AM