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The Spectacle Blog
While you never know until the votes are counted, it certainly looks as though Republican primary voters will deny Sen. Richard Lugar a seventh term. (Assuming Indiana laws don’t permit a Joe Lieberman/Lisa Murkowski-style comeback, a possibility I’ve yet to research.) The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza looks at whether Lugar’s defeat was inevitable.
Cillizza reveals that Republican strategists huddled with Lugar at the beginning of last year to warn him to avoid mistakes made by Robert Bennett in Utah and Murkowski in Alaska. He apparently didn’t listen.
Instead, the senator seemed to believe — wrongly — that his situation was unique, that his connection to voters in the Hoosier State went deeper and was, therefore, tougher to break than those of his losing colleagues.
It’s somewhat understandable why he might feel that way. Lugar hadn’t won reelection with less than 67 percent of the vote since 1982. And, prior to winning his Senate seat in 1976, he served as mayor of Indianapolis for seven years.
And his opponent, Mourdock, had lost five previous races — including three bids for Congress, and struggled to raise any considerable amount of money for his campaign. (At the beginning of 2012, Lugar had over $4 million in the bank, while Mourdock had just $362,000.)
It’s also worth noting that by the time this meeting with GOP strategists happened, Lugar had already voted for TARP, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. He’d already been a leader on the New Start Treaty. So the record for a conservative challenger to go after was already there. Judging from the ideologically based counterattacks launched against Mourdock — criticizing him for supporting the same budget Lugar voted for, the flag-burning amendment, and stuff from 1990 — the cupboard must have been pretty bare. Lugar had to run on his superior Washington experience, which is precisely what many primary voters don’t like about him at this point in his long career.
UPDATE: I should note that the Cillizza piece is co-bylined with Aaron Blake.
UPDATE II: A commenter notes that Indiana has a sore loser law. So if Lugar loses the primary, he cannot win a seventh term.
View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/08/if-lugar-loses
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Anommynous| 5.8.12 @ 12:36PM
What's Obama going to do without his favorite Republican in the Senate???
TarponGman| 5.8.12 @ 12:43PM
Pride goeth before the fall....
Maybe Obama will make him ambassador to Russia to help out with that flexbility he promised Vlad.
bagittagit| 5.8.12 @ 2:48PM
Great point. A distinct possibility though you'd think there would be a passel of red-loving dems vying for that position. Of course, why not have a Republican on board to shield against criticism?
LarryK| 5.8.12 @ 2:51PM
and also a crack in the sidewalk ;)
Bob Grant| 5.8.12 @ 12:54PM
What irreplaceable and special skills does Richard Lugar possess that others don't, or can't pick up after being in Washington for a few months?
Answer? >>>>> zip, natta, none!!!!!!!!
2009 and 2010 shockingly proved how mediocre many are their jobs. They don't read legislation, they have no understanding of the constitution, they have no integrity, and many are just plain corrupt!
The curtain's been pulled back and there's little there.
The jig is up.
I'd run this guy out of town on principle alone if I were a Hoosier. 36 years is long enough.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Eric Dondero | 5.8.12 @ 1:11PM
What?! An entire article by James Antle and no mention of Ron Paul?
That's a first. Antle always finds some way to sneak the lefty-on-foreign policy non-Americanist Paul into every piece at AS.
W. James Antle III | 5.8.12 @ 1:19PM
And yet you still manage to work your obsessions into an off-topic comment. Good job!
Occam's Tool| 5.8.12 @ 3:27PM
Eric: Mr. Antle is upset about the Paul.
However, might I point out that sometimes it is the message being sent. Indiana voters like efficient, intelligent government. Sotomayor and Kagan are scum, and not too bright. The Republicans should have been giving Obama a taste of his own medicine.
Ron Paul is a worthless scumbag. I'm glad he will be gone soon, as he is not running for re-election in the most disgusting Congressional district in America. By the way, I lived there for 4 years. I know it well---by the SMELL.
Clint| 5.8.12 @ 5:28PM
Tool Job Is The Screwball Maniac Captain Of The Israel Firster Goebbels Big Lie Smear Bund BibiBots.
Tool Job's Scared Of Dr.Ron Paul And Us Tea Party Patriots And That Dr.Ron Paul And Us Tea Party Patriots Are Gonna Take Away The Middle East Parasite Leeches' American Taxpayers Force Confiscated Money Paid For Rice Bowls, Including Israel's .
Boo !
Bru| 5.8.12 @ 1:29PM
Indiana has a "sore loser" law. Ind. Code § 3-8-1-5.5(a)(1) states, in part, that a person who "is defeated in a primary election ... is not eligible to become a candidate for the same office in the next general or municipal election." http://www.in.gov/legislative/.....8/ch1.html
So Lugar cannot lose his primary election and then run as an independent.
W. James Antle III | 5.8.12 @ 2:54PM
Thanks, Bru. I've updated the post.
Steve| 5.9.12 @ 5:04AM
Oh I completely expect him to call in a few favors from the left leaning federal judiciary he helped to confirm to enjoin Indiana from enforcing this law. He is addicted to power, just like Lisa "Daddy's Girl" Murkowski.
WL| 5.8.12 @ 1:30PM
Ol' Idiot Dick Lugar is a pathetic leader...
You would think that the moderate leaning primary voters would see that their beloved moderates like Castle, Lugar, and Murkowski don't give a WHIT about them....
Moderate Republicans are just Democrat double agents.
Kinda like Ron Paul...but coming from a different angle. Paul pulls some of the base...while the moderates get the squish vote...and there you have it....
DEMOCRATs get the benefit.
Clint| 5.8.12 @ 6:21PM
Interesting How Israel Firster Smear Bund BibiBots,Like WL Badmouth Veteran Military Officer, Dr. Ron Paul.
Ronald Reagan,
"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country."
Where Was Your Chickenhawk Candidate, WL ?
goldwater girl| 5.8.12 @ 1:34PM
I put some champagne on ice in anticipation of "little Dick's" loss in the primary. Couldn't happen to a more compromising guy! Go home, little Dick........... oh wait, you sold your home in Indiana! If Obama wins a second term, you can always work for him.
Richard Baker| 5.8.12 @ 2:37PM
Lugar is history. Good show, as the Brits would say.
Pete| 5.8.12 @ 3:38PM
80 years old seriously. Time for the death panel.
JP| 5.8.12 @ 3:46PM
If he loses, Lugar will immediately gain "strange new respect" from the MSM. As a matter of fact, he will be the Toast of the Beltway. I predict he will be the token Republican on NBC, CBS, CNN, or ABC. And he will get even with every GOP Senator who crossed him over the decades.
Henry Gondorff| 5.8.12 @ 4:12PM
Lugar's troubles with conservatives didn't start with TARP. He backed amnesty for illegals under Bush and the DREAM act. He has always been anti-gun. His campaign has been inept because he hasn't been seriously challenged since 1982. Mourdock has spent years cultivating relationships with the Republican county chairmen while Lugar couldn't have cared less about them. He will be 86 at the end of the next term. It's time for him to go.
INTJ| 5.8.12 @ 4:18PM
Sometimes a politician stays in office past his shelf life....
PCP Smoker| 5.8.12 @ 8:23PM
Fellow Hoosiers, fellow Americans: Thank you. Let's finish the job by (1) electing Murdock to the Senate, (2) voting for the Liberal Mormon (he's better than the scumbag Obama), and (3) returning the Colts to their former glory.
Steve| 5.9.12 @ 4:58AM
"UPDATE II: A commenter notes that Indiana has a sore loser law. So if Lugar loses the primary, he cannot win a seventh term."
Leave it to this narcissist to lawyer up and challenge the law
Santiago | 5.9.12 @ 12:17PM
You can always tell a RINO. They are the designated Republican spokesmen on the Mainstream Marxist Media (MMM). Lugar, Collins, McCain, etc.