In the wake of the Wednesday killings at a historic Charleston, South Carolina, black church that the governor called a "hate crime," former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney urged the state to stop flying a Confederate flag at its capitol.
The former Massachusetts governor's statement that the flag "is a symbol of racial hatred" contrasted with those of several of state's Republican politicians, who defended a compromise that has flag to fly at a Confederate war memorial near the capitol in Columbia but not on the statehouse itself.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said it might be time to "revisit" the compromise, but said the state should "move forward in a balanced way."
Calls for the flag to be removed arose after Charleston shootings, for which a white man has been charged.
In a 2007 presidential debate Romney, who was then seeking the party's nomination he would win for 2012, said, "that flag, frankly, is divisive, and it shouldn't be shown."
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