Don't cry for me, South Carolina.
At the last minute, Donald Trump has
pulled out of a Heritage Action presidential forum in South Carolina, citing a "significant business transaction" that he must close immediately. His withdrawal, of course, has nothing to do with the national media attention this event is likely to garner and that
Muslim problem he's created for himself.
Maybe that will take a bit of the sting out of it for Lindsey Graham, who will have to sit out the big event in his home state of South Carolina because he polls too low to qualify.
The stop is a big landing point for Southern conservatives two days after the 2016 Republican presidential pack met in a bruising debate airing from Simi Valley, Calif., on CNN. […]
It is […] attracting other outsider political candidates, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), meanwhile, are scheduled as well following appearances at the Heritage Foundation, Heritage Action's parent organization, in years past.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.), former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Govs. Scott Walker (R-Wis.), Chris Christie (R-N.J.) and Bobby Jindal (R-La.) round out the forum's booked participants.
If it helps make it hurt a little less for Lindsey, Jim Gilmore and George Pataki didn't qualify either. And Mike Huckabee and John Kasich decided they had other places to be that are more important, which is a strange decision for Huckabee given that these are pretty much his peeps. So it's time to start making your bets as to who is out next: Graham, Gilmore, or Pataki? My money's on Gilmore. Because being humiliated in his home state has never been enough to deter Lindsey Graham.