The Hill News

President Obama is afraid to take his record to voters this fall, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested.

Graham, a Republican senator who is seen as arguably the closest of his party with the Obama administration, accused the president of using former President George W. Bush as a foil so as to not have to explain his own record over the past year and a half.

"He tries to look backward, toward Bush. All he wants to do is to compare himself to Bush, and not run on his own record," Graham said on WVOC radio in an interview conducted Wednesday evening and posted Thursday. "Doesn't it say a lot when you're not willing to run on your own record?"

Obama and a number of Democrats have made Bush a central theme of their election-year message. The president and top lawm! akers have repeatedly warned that if Republicans were to win big at the polls this fall, it would mark a return to some of the more unpopular policies sought during the Bush administration and GOP control of Congress.

Graham chided Obama for putting the focus on Bush, contrasting that with his decision to vote for both of Obama's Supreme Court nominees -- a decision that could mean repercussions for Graham within the GOP base in South Carolina.

"I'm willing to stand behind my vote for two Supreme Court justices I wouldn't have picked, because I believe that's the right way for us to pick judges, and I want to preserve for my president â€" a Republican president â€" the ability to do the same thing," the GOP senator explained.

"I'm not running away from my record; he is," Graham added. "He is trying to basically bring George W. Bush back on the ballot, instead of talking about why the stimulus failed."