Last week, former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said he\u2019d already cast a ballot<\/a> for Vice President Kamala Harris. A few days earlier, the Democrat also picked up some endorsements from prominent Wisconsin Republicans<\/a>, including former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz. A few days before that, Al C\u00e1rdenas, the former chair of the Florida Republican Party, announced his support for Harris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They have an enormous amount of company<\/a>. Indeed, as the Democratic ticket focuses heavily on reaching out to independents and disaffected GOP voters, Republicans for Harris has become a surprisingly effective force<\/a>, backed by former members of Congress, governors, state lawmakers, cabinet secretaries, White House staffers, and even a former Republican vice president<\/a> who probably never dreamed he\u2019d be backing a Democratic presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

The developments have not gone unnoticed. On the contrary, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina appeared on \u201cMeet the Press\u201d over the weekend and asked a rather pointed question<\/a>. NBC News reported:<\/p>\n

\n
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday slammed members of his own party who are supporting Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 presidential bid, asking them, \u201cWhat the hell are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n
It was probably a rhetorical question, though it\u2019s a relatively easy one to answer.<\/p>\n
In fact, former House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney has held some public events with Harris, including one in Wisconsin in which Charlie Sykes \u2014 an MSNBC Daily columnist<\/a> and conservative media host who\u2019s also broken with his party and backed Harris \u2014 reminded the former Wyoming congresswoman about Graham\u2019s on-air comments, and asked for her reaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, don\u2019t listen to Lindsey Graham,\u201d Cheney responded. \u201cIt\u2019s good life advice, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a funny line, and it generated some applause from the audience, but that\u2019s not all Cheney has had to say on the matter. In fact, at the same event, Cheney also said<\/a>, \u201cIf you wouldn\u2019t … hire somebody to babysit your kids, you shouldn\u2019t make that guy president of the United States.\u201d She went on to argue, \u201cIn this election, we need to elect the person who is the responsible adult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours earlier, at a separate Harris event in Pennsylvania, the former House GOP leader encouraged voters<\/a> to consider the significance of electing a president who\u2019s \u201ctotally erratic,\u201d \u201ccompletely unstable,\u201d and who \u201cidolizes tyrants.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Graham genuinely wants to know \u201cwhat the hell\u201d anti-Trump Republicans are doing, there\u2019s no great mystery here: They\u2019re putting patriotism above party. They\u2019re coming to terms with the fact that their party has nominated an erratic criminal, who\u2019s been credibly accused of mental instability, and who\u2019s running on an authoritarian platform. They believe it\u2019s in the nation\u2019s interest to defeat him and instead go with a qualified, mainstream vice president.<\/p>\n
For more along these lines, I\u2019d also refer the South Carolinian to Cheney\u2019s recent remarks delivered at the birthplace of the Republican Party.<\/p>\n
Nearly three weeks later, the speech holds up quite well, whether Lindsey Graham wants to listen or not.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n
Steve Benen<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week, former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said he\u2019d already cast a ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris. A few days earlier, the Democrat also picked up some endorsements from prominent Wisconsin Republicans, including former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz. A few days before that, Al C\u00e1rdenas, the former chair of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}