Senator Graham steps out of Senator McCain’s shadow right into his shoes

By Alexander Bolton - 10/16/09 06:00 AM ET

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime friend and ally of Sen. John McCain, is now going a step further, Democrats say, and actually becoming the new McCain.

Senior members of the majority party say the South Carolina Republican has displaced his Arizona mentor as the dealmaker on two big agenda items of the Obama administration: climate change and immigration.

As McCain, on the heels of his presidential election defeat, has distanced himself from Democrats, Graham has moved in to fill the vacuum.

And Graham’s decision to pick up the mantle of the maverick has been noticed and not always appreciated by conservative Republicans. Hecklers at a town hall meeting in Greenville, S.C., on Monday night accused their senator of abandoning conservative principles, to which he replied that he loved the GOP too much to let it become “the party of angry white guys.â€