ANDERSON - While saying he won't make a final decision until next month, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham sounds like a candidate who already is campaigning for the White House.
"I think now is a good time for me to step up and not just complain but try to lead," Graham told members of the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce's public policy committee on Monday.
Graham also fielded questions from the media during his first visit to Anderson since forming a political committee in January to test the waters for a possible bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
Graham said he will decide whether to run for president in May. But Clemson University political science professor David Woodard thinks that the Republican from Seneca will almost certainly enter the race.
"He'll go," said Woodard, who managed Graham's successful campaign for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in 1994.
At this point, Woodard said, Graham has to be considered a long shot in the crowded Republican presidential field.
He said one of the biggest challenges facing Graham is raising at least $50 million in campaign cash by this summer. That sum is more than six times the total amount that Graham collected in 2013 and 2014 before winning a third Senate term in November, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Graham has made several recent trips to both Iowa and New Hampshire, where the race for president will begin early next year before South Carolina holds its "first in the South" primary. An aide said Graham is scheduled to return to New Hampshire Tuesday.
"I am not running just to win South Carolina," Graham said Monday in Anderson. "I am going to challenge myself to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire and if I don't then I will get out and support somebody else."
Graham is among more than a dozen Republicans who are considering a run for the White House. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas announced his candidacy last month and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to formally enter the race this week.
The latest polls shows that Graham is running third in South Carolina, behind former Texas Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He has yet to make a dent in the polls in either Iowa or New Hampshire, where Walker is currently seen as the front-runner.
Graham said he is counting on his personal story of growing up in an Upstate working-class family, his military experience and his foreign policy expertise to win over voters.
Americans are concerned about "the threats we face from the growing radical Islamic movement," Graham said. "As long as national security and terrorism continue to be the issue that they are today, I will be listened to because that is what I am most known for."
In his remarks to the media and chamber committee on Monday, Graham urged Congress to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank. He said the bank is vitally important in financing the foreign sales of Boeing, General Electric and other manufacturing companies in South Carolina.
"I am not going to allow the bank to shut down without one hell of a fight because that would be the end of Boeing in South Carolina," he said. "It would destroy the heart and soul of South Carolina's economy."
Graham also took a swipe at President Barack Obama and Paul while discussing efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program.
Under the framework of an agreement announced last week with the U.S. and five other world powers, Iran would scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
"You will never convince me that Barack Obama got us the best deal because in the eyes of the region and the world he has been weak, indecisive and incompetent," said Graham, adding that Paul is the only presidential candidate who may have negotiated a worse agreement with Iran because his libertarian foreign policy views are to the left of Obama's.
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