When it came to his plans to back a controversial abortion bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham showed no signs of skittishness before a crowd of conservative activists Thursday:

"I am dying to have this debate" the South Carolina Republican and potential presidential candidate said.

A House version of the proposal – a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks – became mired in controversy before an embarrassed leadership had to pull it from the floor. Some of the GOP's female lawmakers objected to language associated with a rape exemption. But Graham still believes the measure is a winner with American voters:

“The extremism, to me, is allowing wholesale abortions at that stage of development,” Graham said.

Graham couldn’t guarantee Congress would pass the bill right away, and President Barack Obama has shown no intention of signing it. But he said it would lay the groundwork for a Republican president to enact the law come 2017 and that a debate over the ban would help, not hinder, the GOP’s chances of taking the White House.

The Southern social conservative was the keynote speaker at the Susan B. Anthony List Campaign for Life Gala and Summit, an annual event thrown by the nation’s largest anti-abortion political advocacy group. In the 2014 midterms, the organization spent more than $1 million supporting federal anti-abortion candidates. Other speakers included Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus; Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a rising star in the party; and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard Co. head and failed California Senate candidate who is weighing a 2016 presidential bid. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was in attendance, along with a number of other Republican lawmakers.

The theme of the day’s events was that, after a 2012 presidential cycle in which Todd Aiken's remarks about “legitimate rape” cast an ugly light on the GOP, some Republicans were ready to go back on the anti-abortion offensive.