POLITICALLY SPEAKING 2026 with Randal Wallace - LINDSEY GRAHAM: A Life Well Lived

Our first column of our new publication on Substack. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:42

The Randall Wallace Journal, Lindsey Graham, A Life Well Lived. Leadership Lessons by Randall Wallace. July 15th, 2026. This was not the first column I wanted to be writing for our new publication. I have rarely been more shocked than I was to learn of the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham had been a constant during my entire adult life in politics since 1994. As a college student, I volunteered for his congressional campaign. At the time, I was active in the College of Republicans at Lander University. The retirement of Congressman Butler Derrick had put the 3rd District of South Carolina in play for the first time during a wave election that was about to usher in the Republican Revolution of 1994. It was clear from the start that great things were in store for this new member of Congress. Lindsay Graham was obviously bright. He also had the common touch and made every person he dealt with feel like the most important person in the room. He was funny and responsive to his constituents, both traits he learned from his predecessor, Strom Thurman, in the Senate. As a mass communications major, I had it to create a video project, and mine was the Lander College Republican recruitment video. By the 1995 Greenwood County Republican Convention, Lindsey Graham had ascended to near rock star status in his third district. I asked him for a few remarks to put on the video while we were in the hall before he spoke. He turned right around and chatted me up on camera, talking about all the phone calls our students had made, how instrumental we all were to him getting elected, and how grateful he was to the college Republicans all across his district. He said, quote, I couldn't have won it without you, unquote. God almighty, you couldn't have paid for a better segment. He had made the video. In the 32 years he served in office representing South Carolina in the House of Representatives, and then the United States Senate, he was a true friend to local government. In Orie County alone, he managed to find funds for beach renourishment, stormwater ocean outfalls, he got permitting for I-73, protected community development block grant funding, brought back money from Coastal Carolina University, Orie Georgetown Technical College, and despite intergovernmental fighting between the Orie County Council and the Myrtle Beach City Council, millions of dollars for the International Airport and Terminal in Myrtle Beach. The same could be said for dredging the Charleston Harbor and the Dillon Inland Port and countless other local projects from the upstate to the low country. Lindsey Graham took care of the people in both big and small ways. That was his real strength, and from everything I could tell, the thing he was the proudest of having done. I knew Graham through it all. But not well, but well enough to know he was a profoundly good man, an honest, hardworking public servant. I observed that, that he never seemed interested in how the job would benefit him financially. He just loved it. After he passed away, it was widely reported that he had the lowest personal wealth of just about anyone in Congress. His sudden death, however, has brought out all that I have feared in where our nation is going in these modern times. It seems we have devolved in our politics to a point where any position that we disagree with is seen as amoral, and the people who oppose our position are themselves without any moral character at all. I've actually seen that description in articles written about Lindsey Graham this week in magazines and ramps online. That is obviously the opposite of the person that I knew. The Lindsey Graham I knew genuinely cared about the people he represented and the country he served. When he first started testing the waters for the opportunity to run to replace Rom Thurman, he came to Orie County to introduce himself to a part of the state where he knew just a few people. Because I had known him in Greenwood, I was assigned, along with the late Paul Graham, a local GOP activist, to drive him around over a weekend of events around Orie County. Graham sat in the back of the SUV we were driving almost like your kid brother would, his head stuck between myself and Paul. He was laughing and asking questions and making observations about all the people he was meeting. He brought a joy to running for office that few candidates bring with them to the campaign trail. He had a genuine interest. He marveled, for example, at some of the characters he met, like the huge ovation for our Ory County Auditor, Lois Herbal, who strolled in with her big straw hat, southern draw, and amazing ability to steal the scene even from the best-known congressman in America at the time. I just remember him getting in the car and saying, That's the county auditor? Lindsey Graham had a way of reading a room, and even the most subtle situation then helping make a point without offending people. When he came back as a senator a couple of years later, I arrived early to an event hosted by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. There was no main table, but his round table was at the center in the front of the room. I was told, perhaps not in the politest of terms, I wasn't sitting at that table, nor had I thought I was supposed to be, but I was waiting to greet Graham when he arrived. I had been elected by a very small margin, was struggling with a lot of bad press coverage of my own at the time, and was still in my first term. Graham came into the room that day, came straight over to me before speaking to anyone else, called me by name, and slid over the chair for me to sit beside him for the entire duration of the event. All of that occurring in front of the entire room, including a couple of the folks who had just told me to move along elsewhere. A gesture I never forgot in the 20 years since. During the next two decades, I called his office for help with various constituents through the years. People who had issues with everything from Social Security matters to veterans' affairs and benefits to passports, and his office was the one that took care of the problems immediately. They were simply the best at it because Senator Graham expected constituent service to be a priority. He constantly said, quote, if you'll take care of the people, they'll take care of you, unquote. All of it a reflection of the man who was our senator. So I sit in wonder at how anyone on social media can call into question this man's character or actually celebrate his passing. He was a man who raised his orphaned sister by himself, a man who worked as hard as he did to try and bring peace to multiple hotspots around the world, all while also taking care of the average guy he represented to. What is sad is that we are in this place in our politics at all, where when tragedy strikes, we don't circle the wagons and treat even those with whom we disagree like fellow human beings. To their credit, I have seen great examples of our Senate leadership coming together this week in their grief. Genuine statements of friendship from Senators Corey Booker, Chris Coons, Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar, and Dick Durbin. There was even a laugh, remembered, from the exchange during the Supreme Court hearing of Elaine Kagan when they joked about her spending Christmas, like many Jewish people, in a Chinese restaurant. It does make you realize there is still good there somewhere when we all get away from our cell phones, computer screens, and our extreme partisanship and start acting like human beings again. I hope that can be the good that comes from what has been an extremely sad week in American and South Carolina politics. When the debates of this era have faded into history, I doubt most South Carolinians will remember Lindsey Graham primarily for the arguments that surrounded him. I believe they will remember a senator who answered the phone, remembered people's names, showed up for his state, and on more than one occasion made you laugh out loud, and who always conveyed the belief that public service was still an honorable calling. If that is his legacy, then it is indeed a life well led. Some leadership lessons you can learn from Lindsey Graham, know people's names, never lose sight of constituent service. Public office is about service and not status. Humor is a leadership skill, and civility outlasts political victories. I'm Randall Wallace, and until next time, so long for now.