Graham's Lament: 'How Am I Losing to These People?'

Ben Carson has admitted he used to "go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers" and that he almost stabbed someone when he was a teen. Donald Trump is … well, Donald Trump. And Lindsey Graham is completely baffled how he's not making inroads in the 2016 presidential race against these two. "On our side, you've got the No. 2 guy tried to kill someone at 14, and the No. 1 is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these people?" he asked Monday in what Salon calls a "frankly bonkers interview" on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Graham's bluntness—the type "you're only allowed when you’re polling at 1% and on Monday morning basic cable"—is an allusion, Salon notes, to a 1988 Saturday Night Live parody that featured a bewildered Michael Dukakis (played by Jon Lovitz) proclaiming, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy" ("this guy" being George Bush, played by Dana Carvey). Graham also had something to say about the Democratic contenders, per Real Clear Politics: "You've got the two front-runners on the Democratic side, right? The No. 2 guy went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon, and I don't think he ever came back. The leader thought that she was flat-broke after her husband was president for eight years. And that's maybe why they stole the china." (Graham's really got the hang of zingers.)