Lindsey Graham says he has the 'realistic' presidential campaign

Mr. Realism.

Mr. Realism.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, best known as John McCain's bff, is running for president. Or, anyway, making all the motions of a person running for president. And he's being sort of cluelessly adorable about it.

As he prepares his own likely 2016 bid, Graham is positioning himself as the realist in the GOP field, a battle-tested pol who knows what it takes to cut a deal and isn't afraid to pour cold water on the lofty promises of his would-be rivals. In an interview with POLITICO, the South Carolina senator made clear that he plans to talk in sober detail about the need to overhaul the social safety net and reform the immigration system to allow foreign workers into the United States. He's intending to look Republican primary voters in the eye and tell them the GOP needs to—yes—cut deals with Democrats if it wants to survive as a party.

"I'm not going to tell people things that they emotionally want to hear that I don't think are going to happen," Graham said in the Capitol on Tuesday.

Oh, Lindsey. Speaking of things that aren't going to happen ... Graham was left off of a straw poll in his home state, where 65.3 percent of voters say he should not run for president. That straw poll he was left off of had 25 people on it, including Herman Cain and Sarah Palin.

Graham is polling at statistically 0 percent in early primary states Iowa and New Hampshire. He does get one percent in Nevada, so I guess there's always hope.

"You can’t govern the country based on being angry," Graham says. It's also hard to govern a country that doesn't know you exist.