On a day the Democrats desperately needed a lifeline, Lindsey Graham throws them one, and tows them to shore

was i wrong? should i not have done that?

So says Politico regarding Graham’s introduction of a federal anti-abortion bill yesterday, and when I heard what he’d done, I had the same thought: why now, and who is he working for?

A Tuesday piece from Politico suggested that Sen. Lindsey Graham's, R-S.C., 15 week abortion ban bill offered Democrats a "political lifeline" on a day when President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act celebration was marred by a plunging Dow caused by bad inflation numbers.

According to Politico, many observed that Republicans, by changing the subject of the day with the abortion bill, helped save Democrats from having to defend a sinking economy. 

"A higher-than-expected inflation report was threatening to black out President Joe Biden’s big celebration Tuesday of party-line legislation designed to bring down prices. The subsequent plunge of markets seemed to ensure a painful head-meets-wall day inside the White House," the Politico report began. "And then, Sen. Lindsey Graham offered an unexpected soft landing. The South Carolina Republican’s 15-week national abortion ban immediately diverted and divided Republicans and left Biden’s aides shocked at the political lifeline they’d just been handed."

The piece suggested that many Biden supporters took the opportunity to change the conversation from skyrocketing inflation to condemning anti-abortion Republicans.

"Administration officials and presidential allies — including some anxious about appearing jubilant on a day when markets were crashing — leaned hard into the split screen," the piece recounted. "Denouncing Graham’s bill in increasingly harsh terms while Graham’s Republican colleagues pronounced themselves downright vexed over his decision to offer up a plan more conservative than his previous proposals."

Politico claimed that many Biden allies have been joking that Graham was working for the Democratic Party.

"So obvious was the apparent ill-timing of the bill’s introduction that one White House aide said a Republican lobbyist friend joked that Graham appeared to be working for the Biden administration," Politico claimed. "Other aides suggested that the comments continued a Democratic winning streak that started mid-summer and began to imagine holding onto both houses of Congress."

Start with the premise that this bill has zero — absolutely no — chance of passage with the current congress, and then ask, who is Graham trying to reach by introducing his bill now, when the only effect, if any, will be to incentivize Democrats to go to the polls to vote against Republicans and keep alive their privilege of killing their unborn?

Abortion is a huge issue for some voters, and the people for whom it is a single-issue matter will cast their ballots entirely depending on a candidate’s position on that one point. But there are at least as many passionate pro-abortionists in that single-issue group as there are antis — probably more. So, appealing to the latter is at best a waste of time; anti-abortionist Democrat voters don’t exist, so there’s nothing to mine there, and at worse a move that will backfire by stirring up voters who are indifferent to Biden’s charms and might otherwise have sat out the election.

But the real damage done by Graham’s announcement yesterday is what Politico points out: it diverted attention away from yesterday’s simply awful economic news and Biden’s abysmal performance, and allowed the Democrats and their media monkeys to resume hollering about the one topic that they’re pinning their election hopes on: abortion, abortion, abortion.

Worried that your right to scrape your uterus will be taken away from you by Republicans? Lindsay Graham just promised that your worst fears will come true if you vote for him and his party.

And again, because this bill will go nowhere, why did Graham introduce it now? Those Democrats who are suggesting that the Senator from South Carolina is working for them may not be joking.

UPDATE: After writing the above, I came across this article. Meet “Xavier” a low-information voter typical of the genus:

"I prefer Democrats," an Allentown local, Xavier, told Fox News. "My biggest thing is just specifically about the rights."

"I'm not going to pretend that I'm that hard into politics," Xavier said. "If it weren't for the fact that it's about the rights of people, like the right for people to get abortions and the right for doctors to give those abortions and not go to jail, if it weren't for the fact that those are in danger, for example, I would care a lot less."

Given his indifference to politics, I doubt Xavier will put down his oat milk latte long enough to make it to the polls the November, but if he does, he won’t be voting Republican.