Lindsey Olin Graham was born on July 9, 1955, in Central, S.C., to parents Millie and Florence James “F.J.” Graham. Graham’s parents were owners and operators of a local restaurant that also served as a pool hall and a liquor store. Both of his parents died when he was relatively young. His mother died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 52 — when Graham was only 21 — and his father died of a heart attack only 15 months later.

Following his graduation from D.W. Daniel High School in Central, Graham became the first member of his family to attend and graduate from college. He also enlisted in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, who granted him permission to attend the University of South Carolina in Columbia to be near his orphaned 13-year-old sister, whom he adopted. Graham was a member of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity during his years at USC. He graduated in 1977 with a B.A. in psychology and received his J.D. from USC Law School in 1981.

Following his graduation, Graham received his commission as an officer and a judge advocate in the United States Air Force. After serving for four years in Germany, Graham left active duty and joined the South Carolina Air National Guard in 1989. He returned to South Carolina, and there he entered into private practice as an attorney. Graham would continue to serve in the South Carolina Air National Guard until 1995 when he joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

Graham was recalled to active duty during the Gulf War. He served at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover, S.C., where he briefed departing pilots on the laws of war in his capacity as a judge advocate. He was promoted to colonel in 2004. He served in Iraq for two short periods in 2007, working on detainee and rule-of-law issues, and for a short time in Afghanistan in 2009. In May 2015 he resigned from the Air Force, presumably to allow him to run for president.

Graham made his first bid for elective office in 1992, being elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. After one term, Graham ran for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. With the help of powerful U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, Graham won the GOP primary with 52 percent of the vote. He defeated the Democratic nominee by 20 percentage points in the Republican wave election of 1994. Graham was the first Republican to hold the seat since 1877.

Graham easily won re-election to his seat several times before he ran for the U.S. Senate seat that was being vacated by Thurmond, who was retiring, in 2002. He ran unopposed in the primary, and defeated Democrat Alex Sanders, 54-44 percent. He was easily re-elected in 2008, won a contested primary in 2014 and then easily won re-election again.

Graham has never been married. He is a member of the Corinth Baptist Church in South Carolina.

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Though Graham terms himself a “Reagan-style Republican,”¹ he has earned a reputation among his more conservative critics and constituents as a “moderate Republican.”² He is also recognized as having a “twang of moderation”³ and “an independent streak.”⁴[4]

He is generally regarded, however, to be consistent in his views, with his actions in office reflecting his public statements and positions. In a 2015 profile, Molly Ball of The Atlantic wrote of Graham that:

“[H]e has also refused to change his ideological stripes. Though his opponents blast him as an election-year conservative, he has been remarkably consistent, saying he believes voters will reward sincerity above opportunism.”

Interestingly, Graham’s most recent rankings by key conservative groups such as Heritage Action and the American Conservative Union are actually lower than his lifetime and earlier ratings, suggesting he does not vote based on political expediency or pressure, but instead based on his own views.

One area where is has been particularly clear is on the issue of immigration. Graham has long pushed for comprehensive immigration reform and has generally been opposed in those efforts by many conservatives and tea party activists. Writing about Graham in The Daily Beast, columnist John Avlon called Graham “courageous” for supporting the issue in an election year (2014) where he had much to lose politically. Avlon added:

“Of all the Gang of Eight senators, he was the most unvarnished in his advocacy and he has the most to lose. Immigration reform isn’t exactly a popular agenda item in South Carolina. It has no natural constituency, as in Arizona or Florida. There is no obvious political upside for a senator already viewed as suspect by the Tea Party crowd and facing reelection—and a possible primary fight—in 2014. A lesser public servant would shy away and let others do the heavy lifting, but Graham instead said: ‘I don’t want to stop being a senator to be a senator.’”⁵

Efforts like this, and his willingness to work to compromise with Democrats, have earned Graham a reputation as someone who is not afraid to oppose his own party and interest groups Republicans typically cater to.

Early on in his life, following the early death of his parents, Graham adopted his 13-year old sister, Darlene, saying of the decision:

“You assume everything’s going to be like Ozzie and Harriet. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen that way. So here I’ve got a teenager on my hands. She’s turned out great in spite of me. I was probably a nut. I never let her date. I smelled her clothes if she smoked. I listened in on her phone calls. I was probably pressing too hard, just ’cause I felt such responsibility for her. I paid for her college and I did all the financial deals when I got in the Air Force. I thought that was my job and I felt very happy to have done it. She is the light of my life.”⁶

Graham was accused in 1998 of exaggerating or misrepresenting his military service for apparently referring to himself as a veteran of the Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign (first Iraq War).⁷ Graham was called up to active duty for that conflict but remained stateside. Graham had consistently stated he’d been stateside for his call up, however, so there is little reason to think this was more than a poor choice of words, as his duties were directly related to the military campaign.

Graham’s promotion record once he was elected to Congress has also drawn scrutiny, and it appears he may have received preferential treatment in receiving promotions to lieutenant colonel and colonel after he was first sent to Congress, despite putting in relatively little service time after being elected.⁸

In 2011, the CEO of a South Carolina biotech company was indicted of embezzling millions of dollars from federal grants and funneling $31,000 in foreign contributions to Graham’s 2008 re-election campaign.⁹ The prosecutor said that Graham had no knowledge of the scheme and cooperated fully in their investigation, although press coverage did note that Graham had helped to secure nearly $20 million in federal grants for the company.

Aside from these relatively minor incidents, Graham has never faced any serious and substantiated allegations of corruption or scandal or of dubious financial dealings while in office.

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Graham is regarded as a fairly effective communicator as a politician, and is a frequent guest on national news programs, particularly in areas related to national security. He has been described as having a “well-deserved reputation for being good humored,”¹⁰ and his recent speeches before conservative and Republican audiences have been well regarded.¹¹

His frequent appearances on television combined with his legal experience have made him a sharp and persuasive debater, and he is likely to benefit from the Republican presidential debates.

He has frequently shown an ability to work across the aisle, being a member of both the “Gang of 14” (judicial filibusters) and “Gang of 8” (immigration). While he holds no high-profile leadership positions or committee chairs, he is widely regarded as a leader on issues related to national security and defense. That said, there is no signature legislative achievement to Graham’s name.

Graham has faced few significant political electoral challenges in his career, winning most of his contests by double-digit margins. His most recent re-election to the U.S. Senate was his closest contested race, where he defeated Democrat challenger Brad Hutto by 5 points.

Graham’s Senate office has a reputation of providing excellent constituent services and paying close attention to South Carolina issues. Writing about Graham in Politico, Manu Raju said he “is known to treat problems at a water treatment facility or an effort to deepen the Port of Charleston every bit as seriously as a debate over Benghazi on the Senate floor.”¹²

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Taxes

Graham consistently supported lowering taxes and opposed tax increases during his time in office. He supported both the 2001¹³ and 2003¹⁴ tax cuts (commonly called the “Bush tax cuts), and voted for the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 which made permanent most of those tax cuts, but did allow tax rates to rise for those with high incomes.¹⁵ In August 2015, he suggested that tax reform should flatten rates and reduce or eliminate deductions, with some portion of the revenue raised from reducing deductions being used to pay down debt – in other words, a tax increase.¹⁶ He also specified he would only be willing to consider this if Democrats agreed to raise retirement ages for Social Security and Medicare as well as means-testing for those programs.¹⁷

He also voted to raise the inheritance tax exemption to $5 million¹⁸ and to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.¹⁹ Graham is a signer of the Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.²⁰

Regulation

In 2005, he supported giving greater power to the Federal Communications Commission through the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005. The action increased fines for broadcasting “obscene, indecent, or profane language” as determined by the FCC.²¹

Graham has opposed raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25.²²

Labor

Graham introduced the Job Protection Act, along with Sens. Lamar Alexander and Jim DeMint to preserve federal protection for states’ right-to-work laws, in response to the National Labor Relations Board moving to stop the Boeing corporation from building airplanes with non-union labor at a South Carolina plant.²³ He also supported a measure to end collective bargaining for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees²⁴ as well as amending the National Labor Relations Act to limit the power of the National Labor Relations Board.²⁵ He also voted against so-called “card check” union organizing efforts that would effectively eliminate secret-ballot elections.

Energy & Environment

Graham is supportive of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, having co-sponsored a bill in the Senate to approve its construction.²⁶ He has been supportive of nuclear energy,²⁷ and has supported legislation embracing an “all of the above” approach to American energy development, including “investing in clean, renewable, and alternative energy resources, promoting new emerging energy technologies, developing greater efficiency, and creating a Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve to invest in alternative energy, and for other purposes.”²⁸

Graham has regularly supported government action to address climate change, having remarked that “global warming is happening and that it is largely man-made.”²⁹ He joined with then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in penning a joint op-ed in The New York Times that encouraged “aggressive reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases that cause climate change,” investing in nuclear power, reducing dependence on foreign oil by providing “new financial incentives for companies that develop carbon capture and sequestration technology,” imposing a border tax on countries like China and India that avoid environmental standards and developing “a mechanism to protect businesses — and ultimately consumers — from increases in energy prices.”³⁰

However, Graham has been critical of expanded power for the Environmental Protection Agency, saying, “EPA regulation of carbon is the worst possible scenario.” He has said he believes that “[r]egardless of whether you view climate change as a real threat or some grand hoax, carbon will eventually be regulated – either through congressional action or by the EPA.”³¹

Budget & Spending 

Graham co-sponsored the conservative-backed Cut, Cap and Balance Act of 2011, which proposed cutting federal spending, putting a limit on future spending, and increased the debt ceiling.³² He voted against the 2011 debt ceiling increase,³³ releasing a statement criticizing the deal because it “locks us into more debt, bigger government and most devastating of all, a weakened defense infrastructure at a time when we face growing threats.”³⁴ He supports a balanced budget amendment.³⁵

Health Care

He voted against the 2003 creation of a prescription drug benefit in Medicare³⁶ and co-sponsored an amendment to the legislation to require wealthier beneficiaries to pay more for their Medicare drug benefit.³⁷ Graham criticized the final legislation, saying:

“Medicare is already scheduled to go bankrupt. Reform of the Medicare system and adding a prescription drug benefit were supposed to go hand-in-hand. Instead of sticking with that approach, we went 180 degrees the other way by adding a costly new benefit and dropping reform.”³⁸

He voted against allowing the federal government to dictate prices on prescription drugs through negotiations with manufacturers in 2007,³⁹ a reversal from his 2005 vote in favor.⁴⁰

Graham has been outspoken and critical of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. He has sponsored several bills to defund and repeal Obamacare⁴¹ as well as measures that would have allowed states to opt out of one or more of the provisions of the law.⁴² He co-sponsored legislation expanding Medical Savings Accounts in 1999⁴³ (HSAs were created under the Medicare prescription drug benefit legislation he voted against).

Entitlements & Welfare

Graham voted for the 1996 welfare reform bill⁴⁴ and also for the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act in 2013 that reduced funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.⁴⁵

In 2011, he supported a measure that would have increased the eligibility age for Social Security to 70 in graduated stages⁴⁶ while also slowing the growth in benefits.⁴⁷ In 2005 Graham was the lead author of President George W. Bush’s Social Security reform proposal that would have reduced the growth in benefits, established voluntary private accounts that workers could invest up to four percentage points of their payroll tax into while also allowing additional contributions, and would include significant federal dollars to support the reform.⁴⁸ He has noted on the campaign trail that his sister relied in part on Social Security survivors’ benefits after their parents died, and suggested he would seek a bipartisan solution similar to what Reagan achieved in the 1980s.⁴⁹

More recently he has suggested that means-testing for entitlement programs, presumably Social Security and possibly Medicare, should be part of serious reforms to safety-net programs.

He also was a co-sponsor of Sen. Rand Paul’s 2012 Medicare reform plan that would transition all beneficiaries into the federal employees’ health benefits plan, allowing them to choose private coverage using Medicare funds.⁵⁰ The bill would also have raised the retirement age to 70 over the following 20 years.⁵¹

Trade

Graham has voted for free trade agreements with Panama and Korea in 2011,⁵²⁵³ Peru in 2007,⁵⁴ and Oman in 2006.⁵⁵ However, he has voted against free trade agreements with Chile⁵⁶ and Singapore⁵⁷ in 2003, and CAFTA in 2005.⁵⁸ He voted to grant President Obama fast-track trade authority in May 2015, but only after receiving a pledge that the Senate would hold a vote on whether to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.⁵⁹

Immigration

Graham has been a proponent of comprehensive immigration reform. He has said he would veto any immigration bill that didn’t include a pathway to citizenship,⁶⁰ and he was a member of the so-called Gang of Eight that proposed and supported the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants currently in the United States illegally. The bill passed the U.S. Senate in 2013 but stalled after that.⁶¹

He defended his support in a 2013 Meet The Press interview, saying:

“We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is to pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run, [in 2016] in my view.”⁶²

Graham voted against a measure that would have required completion of 350 miles of fence described in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 “before registered provisional immigrant status” could be granted. It additionally required that 700 miles of fence be completed before the status of registered provisional immigrants could be changed to permanent resident status.⁶³

More recently, Graham has criticized the practice of giving citizenship status to anyone born in the United States, while also saying that mass deportation of illegal immigrants was “unworkable.”⁶⁴

Agriculture

Graham supported and voted for the 2014 farm bill that provides significant subsidies to certain agricultural industries.⁶⁵

Corporate Welfare

Graham is a supporter of the Export-Import Bank, often criticized as corporate welfare.⁶⁶ He also signed a letter to the EPA urging it to expand the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline,⁶⁷ although he did vote to end ethanol subsidies.⁶⁸

Banking & Finance

Graham opposed Dodd-Frank’s regulation of Wall Street,⁶⁹ and he voted for the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), commonly referred to as the Wall Street bailout.⁷⁰ He did oppose the use of TARP funds to bail out General Motors and Chrysler.⁷¹ He voted for repeal of the Glass-Steagall banking regulations⁷² and also in favor of  Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002.⁷³

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International Relations

Graham, a veteran of the Air Force JAG Corps and Air Force Reserve, is outspoken in military issues and widely regarded as a defense hawk. He serves on the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services.

Graham opposes Obama’s improvement of relations with Cuba and has pledged to stop funding for a U.S. embassy in the country.⁷⁴

He has called for immediately shipping arms to Ukraine’s government to allow them to fight against Russian-backed separatists,⁷⁵ and he linked Putin’s decision to annex Crimea to the Benghazi attack and Obama’s weakness, saying in a tweet: “It started with Benghazi. When you kill Americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggression. #Ukraine”⁷⁶

War on Terror

He was highly critical of the Obama administration’s lack of military preparedness and response to the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and threatened to hold up the nominations of John O. Brennan to head the CIA and former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense until he was given a full accounting of Obama’s actions during the crisis.⁷⁷

He has criticized the Obama administration’s policy of releasing detainees from Guantanamo Bay and sending them to other nations.⁷⁸ He has also expressed opposition to the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used by the Bush administration on terrorist detainees,⁷⁹ although he has not gone so far as to support criminal charges or sanctions against those involved,⁸⁰ and he has sharply criticized what he called the “politically motivated” release by Senate Democrats of a report on the CIA’s interrogation of detainees.⁸¹ Graham has supported Obama’s drone strikes on terrorists.⁸²

Graham called the Obama administration’s strategy to deal with ISIS “incoherent” and has accused him of utilizing the same failed strategy in Yemen.⁸³ He has said he would put 10,000 U.S. troops into Iraq to help train that nation’s military⁸⁴ and said it was a “fantasy” to believe the U.S. wouldn’t have to put troops in Syria to directly fight ISIS.⁸⁵ He announced that in December he will introduce in the Senate a declaration of war on ISIS.⁸⁶

In September Graham called for the U.S. to accept more Syrian refugees in response to the waves of people leaving the war-torn country,⁸⁷ but he reversed himself in late November following terrorist attacks in Paris that appear to have included at least one perpetrator who entered the country as a refugee. He now advocates a “timeout” from accepting refugees until greater security and screening measures are in place.⁸⁸

Graham co-sponsored, supported, and voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, which authorized the Iraq War.⁸⁹ He has called for the U.S. to accept more Syrian refugees in response to the waves of people leaving the war-torn country.⁹⁰

Graham has supported multiple measures to deny Iran from developing nuclear weapons, including the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000.⁹¹ He, along with nearly every other Republican senator, signed an open letter to the Iranian leadership explaining that an agreement reached with Obama but not ratified by the U.S. Senate could be undone by the next president.⁹² He has vociferously opposed the deal negotiated by the Obama administration⁹³ and has said he would withhold funding to the International Atomic Energy Agency if its agreements with Iran are not revealed to Congress.⁹⁴

He has been a reliable ally of Israel, calling the nation “our best friend” and vowing to push back against any effort of the United Nations to take over peace talks between them and Palestinians as well as against any nation seeking to prosecute Israeli soldiers through the International Criminal Court.⁹⁵ He sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, which opposed terrorism and supported “a peaceful two-state solution” to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.⁹⁶

Military Preparedness & Budget

He has supported multiple measures to benefit veterans, including the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014, which allows veterans to seek care at private providers if they would have to wait to receive treatment from the VA,⁹⁷ as well as the Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act of 2003, which increased funding for college through the GI Bill.⁹⁸

He co-sponsored the National Missile Defense Act of 1999, which declared “that it is U.S. policy to: (1) deploy as soon as technologically possible a National Missile Defense (NMD) system capable of defending U.S. territory against limited ballistic missile attack.”⁹⁹

Graham was critical of sequestration’s impact on military preparedness, saying:

“Taking four and a half million dollars out of the Defense Department, and if you don’t, if you exempt personnel, it’s got to come out of modernization and readiness. So that means you’d have to cancel contracts that would have the ripple effect. So a 10-year, $600 billion cut to Defense would be devastating.”¹⁰⁰

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Judiciary

Graham serves on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Graham voted to confirm both John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, as well as to elevate Roberts to the position of Chief Justice. He also voted to confirm both of President Obama’s nominees to the Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.¹⁰¹ Graham described his vote to confirm Kagan as appropriate because she was “qualified,” saying that he was “protecting the Judiciary” and seeking to “ensure that hard-fought elections have meaning in our system.”¹⁰²

Graham has said that he’s “not worried about judicial activism,” and believes that the qualifications of judicial nominees should matter more than their politics.¹⁰³ Graham served on the House Judiciary Committee from 1997 until 2002, and currently serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.¹⁰⁴

In 2005, Graham was a part of the so-called “Gang of 14” bipartisan group of Senators who forged a compromise to end the Democrat filibuster of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. The agreement allowed the Democrats to retain the possible use of the filibuster of a judicial nominee in “extraordinary circumstance” while allowing an up or down vote in the U.S. Senate on three of Bush’s most conservative judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor.¹⁰⁵

Free Speech & Religious Liberty

Graham said he would “respect the Court’s decision” in Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage), and said he would focus his effort on “protecting the religious liberties and freedom of conscience for those Americans that profoundly disagree with today’s decision.”¹⁰⁶

He has said that a Kentucky county clerk who stopped issuing marriage licenses in response to the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision should “comply with the law, or resign.”¹⁰⁷

He supports the right of employers not to include contraceptive coverage in health plans if doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs.¹⁰⁸

Graham has stated that the court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC has “gotta be fixed,” and has suggested a constitutional amendment to address the decision and campaign finance reform.¹⁰⁹

He voted for McCain-Feingold’s restrictions on giving to political parties,¹¹⁰ and recently said he would support a constitutional amendment to restrict so-called super PACs,¹¹¹ which enable individuals, businesses, unions, and others to speak without limits about political candidates. He did oppose the DISCLOSE Act in 2010, which would have restricted most  independent political speech,¹¹² and voted against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have given Congress unfettered ability to regulate and control money contributed or spent on political speech.¹¹³

He is co-sponsor of an amendment that would prohibit the physical desecration of the U.S. flag, such as by burning it in protest,¹¹⁴ and in response to an incident in 2011 where a Florida pastor proposed burning copies of the Koran Graham issued a statement saying, “Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war. During World War II, we had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy. (We should do) anything we can to push back here in America against acts like this that put our troops at risk.”¹¹⁵

Education

He was a co-sponsor of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.¹¹⁶ He also co-sponsored the Education Flexibility Partnership Act of 1999, which, among other things, “transferred authority for granting waivers of certain federal statutes and regulations from the U.S. Department of Education to state agencies that met certain requirements.”¹¹⁷

Graham opposed the Common Core education standards on 10th Amendment grounds and introduced a Senate resolution that would have allowed each state to establish and define its own academic standards and assessments.¹¹⁸

Social Issues

Graham has opposed gun control measures, including speaking out against a United Nations treaty that opponents are concerned would infringe on American sovereignty and the right to own firearms.¹¹⁹ He has been endorsed in his U.S. Senate campaigns by the National Rifle Association (NRA), who cited his support for a bill giving concealed carry permit holders reciprocity with other states that allow concealed carry as well as his opposition to extending background checks to private parties.¹²⁰

He was the lead sponsor in 2013 of an NRA-backed bill that would expand the number of mentally ill individuals prohibited from purchasing firearms.¹²¹

Graham is pro-life, and is the lead sponsor of a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks.¹²² He was the first to sponsor legislation making it a crime to injure or kill an unborn child in the commission of a federal crime, which he introduced in 1999 and finally saw passed in 2004.¹²³ Endorsing him in 2014 for his re-election to the Senate, the head of South Carolina Citizens for life referred to him as a “go-to lawmaker on right-to-life issues.”¹²⁴ He supports exceptions to abortion bans in the cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is endangered, saying such exceptions are politically necessary.¹²⁵

Although he said he believes marriage is between one man and one woman, and that states should have the authority to set their own policy on marriage, he also said that it would be a “waste of time” to try to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue.¹²⁶ He instead favors focusing on religious liberty and protecting the rights of people and groups that oppose same-sex marriage.¹²⁷

Graham voted to end racial preferences in college admissions.¹²⁸

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Graham has consistently riled conservatives within the Republican Party with his support for comprehensive immigration reform and government action on global warming. He was also a member of the bipartisan Gang of 14 that brought an end to the Democrats’ obstruction of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees,¹²⁹ which some conservatives considered to be a retreat from principle because it could have limited Bush’s ability to nominate a conservative to the Supreme Court.¹³⁰

It is likely that these positions will draw challenges from Graham’s political right if he were to seek the presidency.

Graham’s lack of a family will likely be raised by some as an issue in an effort to suggest he can’t relate to the needs of parents. His history of raising his sister after their parents died may be sufficient to put this issue to rest, however.

A relatively spotless record in terms of ethical lapses or personal issues will likely force opponents to focus almost exclusively on his record of being out of step with conservatives on many issues, as well as the lack of a significant legislative accomplishment at which to point. Some have suggested he received preferential treatment in terms of Air Force promotions after being elected to Congress, but as one of only a few candidates who have served in the military it’s unlikely he can be successfully criticized on this issue by someone who has never served.

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