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Romney Shows Support For A Surprising Candidate

by April Siese

Former South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is having quite the debate night. The GOP presidential hopeful delivered yet another impressive performance at the JV debate held earlier Wednesday night prior to the primetime debate. It was enough to get the attention of another politician who's run the very same race as Graham, vying for the White House and coming incredibly close in 2012. Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney tweeted support to Lindsey Graham, whom he says deserves to make it to the main debate at this point.

Romney's statement came following Graham's answer to the question of a potential cyber war and whether Barack Obama has been tough enough on such matters as well as that of foreign policy:

We're being walked all over because our Commander in Chief is weak in the eyes of our enemies. ... At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, the foreign policy of Barack Obama needs to be replaced and the last person you want to find to replace his foreign policy is his Secretary of State. So, to the Chinese, when it comes to dealing with me, you've got a clenched fist and an open hand. You pick. The party is over to all the dictators. Make me commander in chief and this crap stops.

Romney was thoroughly impressed with what Graham had to say about foreign policy. The GOP presidential hopeful, who was perilously close to not even making the JV debate save for a CNN poll that gave Graham the 1 percent needed to appear on the earlier event, had a series of one-liners that helped keep all eyes on him. Whether he was joking about Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders staying in the Soviet Union following his honeymoon or pandering to New Hampshire voters by saying "Go Patriots," Graham was surprisingly witty.

For that reason, many are saying that Graham won the JV debate. Graham finished strong during the previous pre-debate forum as well. The debate was held in September at the Ronald Reagan Library and hosted by CNN on Sept. 16. Despite the strong performance, a Sept. 22 Public Policy Polling poll had Graham at just 1 percent. His numbers have only continued to decline. Perhaps getting a Twitter endorsement from Romney is enough to raise those numbers enough so that Graham can take the stage with nine other candidates during the next GOP primary debate, to be held Nov. 10 at the Milwaukee Theater.