Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a lifelong bachelor and long-shot presidential candidate, disclosed in an interview published Tuesday how he might handle the issue of first lady if elected.
“Well, I’ve got a sister. She could play that role if necessary,” Graham, 59, told the Daily Mail during an interview at a recent campaign event.
“I’ve got a lot of friends. We’ll have a rotating first lady,” Graham added, chuckling.
{mosads}Just two U.S. presidents, James Buchanan and Grover Cleveland, were unmarried when they assumed the Oval Office, though Cleveland married later.
Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, lives in their native South Carolina and is married with two daughters, according to the Daily Mail.
But Nordone has said she would take on a public role in her brother’s 2016 campaign.
She praised Graham in a recent interview with The New York Times, which reported the pair’s mother died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma when Graham was 20 and his sister 11. Their father died 15 months later of a heart attack.
“Lindsey was always my parent,” Nordone told the Times. “There was no doubt in my mind or anyone else’s mind that Lindsey was my guardian.”
Graham joined the crowded GOP field early this month, running almost exclusively on a muscular foreign policy focused on defeating Islamic militants in the Middle East.