South Carolina Governor Appoints New Senator to Succeed Lindsey Graham

The takes

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  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  How to Judge a Long Political Career Without Joining the Faction

  When a statesman spends thirty years at the centre of power, the real question is not his loyalty to leaders or parties, but whether his self-interest, disciplined by justice, quietly served the many or noisily the few.

  A statesman who spends more than thirty years in the legislature of a great commercial republic, becoming a prominent voice on war and peace and later a trusted ally of a powerful executive, presents the public with an awkward puzzle. His defenders speak of experience, steadiness, and national service; his detractors of opportunism, inconsistency, and devotion to party. Both sides, however, begin from their own faction, and each sees in the same actions either firmness or servility. If we are to judge such a career in a manner that would satisfy a well-informed and impartial spectator, we must step back from the party shout, and examine the incentives under which he acted and the interests to which he habitually inclined.

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  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  Power Is Not a Family Heirloom

  A long legislative career and a sibling successor may both be lawful, yet they are legitimate only so long as they remain visibly grounded in consent and the public good, not habit and inheritance.

  The story presented is simple in form and weighty in implication. A senator has served more than thirty years in the legislature of the United States, becoming a prominent voice in questions of war and peace, and later aligning himself closely with a powerful executive. Upon his departure, the governor of his state announces that a new senator will be appointed, and this newly designated officer declares herself ready to continue the work of her brother. Here are the bare facts: a long tenure, deep influence, and a familial succession by appointment. Many will see in this only continuity and experience. I see, first and last, a question of trust.

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  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  Lindsey Graham and the Craft of Not Drowning

  A long-serving senator turned presidential ally shows how a modern politician survives shifting currents by arming his position, tending his reputation, and choosing, at last, not the middle course but a side.

  A man who spends more than 30 years in the same turbulent assembly is not lucky; he is competent. When I read that a Republican has served so long in Congress, risen to be a prominent voice on foreign policy, then become one of a president’s top allies, I do not ask first what he believed. I ask how he survived. In every republic I have known, the river of opinion rises, floods, and recedes. Some are swept away after one season. Others, like this senator, build dykes in fair weather and learn which banks to reinforce when the water changes course.

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