SPARTANBURG, South Carolina — Businessman and pro-life activist Richard Cash told Breitbart News here on Monday that a strong ground game is needed for a Tea Party candidate to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Cash said during an interview at the classic car contest and Tea Party candidate forum here at the Beacon Drive-In restaurant that he derives his ground game political campaign experience from his 2010 run for Congress. He won the primary for the House seat that Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) now holds, but lost to Duncan in the runoff. During that 2010 race, Cash surprised many in the political world with his success.
“I’m going to be a little under the radar due to my background,” Cash said. “I’m not an elected official. But I was very successful when I ran for Congress and it was much the same way: people counted me out before the race even started. I’ve been doing this a while, though it does feel like we’re almost at the starting line.”
Cash then walked Breitbart News through his plan. “I’m going to put up a lot of signs. I’m going to do a lot of meetings,” he said. “We’re going to have a lot of feet on the ground in May. That’s what I did when I ran for Congress. That’s what I know to do. This race is not going to be won from 30,000 feet. Anyone who thinks they can just show TV commercials and beat Lindsey Graham is kidding themselves.”
On the flip side, when asked if Graham can win the race by simply running commercials, Cash answered: “”Well, I hope not.”
That remains to be seen,” Cash said. “It’s going to depend on the ground game of the best candidate. I believe that I need $2 million to run competitively against Lindsey Graham. You’ve got to have enough money to, in the last few weeks and especially the last few days, to put your face on TV and put a postcard in the mail and let people know: here’s an alternative. You’re not going to match him commercial for commercial, or postcard for postcard. If you haven’t done something else to counteract that, then you can’t win. So, I’m going to spend a lot of my time doing those other things: building the network that’s got to be built to complement the mass media.”
Cash said he thinks Graham is vulnerable politically, but that weakness does not mean Tea Partiers can be complacent. “I think it’s an uphill fight,” Cash said. “I mean that’s an honest appraisal. But, look, we’re nine months from election day. A lot can happen in nine months; I mean, a lot can happen in nine days. But nine months is a long political time. So I can’t understand why people would be writing this race off nine months from the finish line. It’s like saying, ‘okay, you’re in the second mile of a marathon, and this guy’s going to win.’ I don’t get that.”
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