Last Updated on 12/1/2008

Published on 10/12/2008

By Jjim Davenport

Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA -- Democrat Bob Conley cut a path far to the right of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Saturday in their only planned debate, calling for "America first" policies as the candidates took sharply different views of U.S. involvement in Iraq, intervention on Wall Street and the global banking crisis.

Graham offered assurances that the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package he voted for would work.

"I think things are going to stabilize here soon," Graham said.

But Conley predicted the Dow Jones Industrial Average is heading to 3,000, about a third of its current mark, as the federal intervention adds to inflation and the national debt.

"It's devaluing the currency of Americans," Conley said. He called for greater regulation of the banking and securities industries and said companies should be allowed to fail.

Graham said the rescue was needed. "What we've done here is we've tried to jump start credit" while protecting taxpayers, he said.

Conley repeatedly called for cutting U.S. spending abroad, curtailing hiring of workers from other nations for U.S. jobs, renegotiating trade deals and bringing troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I'm standing for America first and South Carolina first," he said. He said American workers can't compete with what amounts to "slave labor in communist China."

Graham said it's time to retrain American workers for new jobs and realize that "we live in a global economy and that's not going to go away."

But he said it's not time to "play this game that there's nobody else in the world ... So let's don't play this game that we're an island unto ourselves."

The two clashed as well on U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Graham said his support of a troop surge for Iraq was one of his proudest moments in the U.S. Senate.

"The surge has worked. Our troops are coming home. And we're going to leave in victory and we're going to have an ally in Iraq and not a dictator called Saddam Hussein," Graham said, noting he's been to Iraq repeatedly.

Conley said it's been five years since President Bush declared the Iraq mission accomplished.

"What we're doing is we're using our military in some kind of police state, nation building over in the Middle East. ... They don't need an American occupying force there," Conley said.

"I know you've been there, Lindsey. We saw the rugs that you bought," Conley added in one of the debate's most biting lines.

The former Soviet Union's collapse was tied to an occupation of Afghanistan, Conley said. He said the current conflict there is "bleeding America dry" and "will accelerate the demise of the United States."

Graham bristled at the description of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as occupiers.

"I think that's so offensive to our military," Graham said. He said it was better for the U.S. to fight terrorists abroad than in the U.S.

Conley, 43, is a Marion, Ind., native who ran as a Republican for an Indiana state House seat, then bolted for the Reform Party. After moving to North Myrtle Beach, he joined his local GOP committee and backed Ron Paul in this year's South Carolina presidential primary before signing on as a Democrat in the primary.

Graham, 53, is a Seneca native who served in the South Carolina House and U.S. House before winning his U.S. Senate seat in 2002. He's a lawyer and a U.S. Air Force Reserve colonel, the only member of the Senate serving in the Guard or Reserve.