Richard Lugar loses Senate primary -- one less sane Republican in congress

[Boyo_Jim]

NY Times story here. The Tea Party has kicked another moderate to the street. I don’t know if the new guy is so kooky that he will give Dems a reasonable shot at taking the seat in the general.

[samclem]

I was gonna post something too.

The current Republican Party is NOTHING like the Republicans of even ten years ago. Certainly not the party of 30 years ago. If they expect to get something accomplished politically, it won’t happen.

Obstructionism is no way to go through life, son.

[Wesley_Clark]

I’m pretty sure Mourdock will win in Indiana, it is a fairly red state.

I’m just hoping Snowe and Collins are replaced by uber radical conservatives in their primaries. I don’t think they will win state wide elections in a place like Maine.

[jayjay]

@Wesley_Clark

I’m pretty sure Mourdock will win in Indiana, it is a fairly red state.

I’m just hoping Snowe and Collins are replaced by uber radical conservatives in their primaries. I don’t think they will win state wide elections in a place like Maine.

Snowe, possibly. Who knows if the Tea Partiers will still be running the Republican primaries in 2014 when Collins is up next?

[Ludovic]

@Wesley_Clark

I’m pretty sure Mourdock will win in Indiana, it is a fairly red state.

But it went for Obama in '08. If he can’t at least pretend to contain the crazy, there’s a chance. Is there as much growing anti-union busting resentment in Indiana as in Wisconsin and Michigan, or were unions never as strong there? That could be an impact too if they were.

[BrainGlutton]

@jayjay

Snowe, possibly. Who knows if the Tea Partiers will still be running the Republican primaries in 2014 when Collins is up next?

Or, for that matter, alive.

[GIGObuster]

Any chance of sanity in Mourdock?

http://archives.ontheissues.org/Social/Richard_Mourdock_Corporations.htm

Richard is known nation-wide for leading the legal fight to challenge the Obama Administration’s illegal bailout and takeover of Chrysler. Richard took this case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Indiana pensioners.

http://netrightdaily.com/2012/05/indiana-tea-party-candidate-mourdock-challenges-sen-lugar-on-global-warming-and-united-nations/

Earlier the month in Washington D.C., Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during a reception held for the Environmental Defense Fund that he viewed climate change as a potential national security threat. In reality, Panetta should be concerned about his own policies, Mourdock said.

“The irony here is that our energy policy is in fact a threat to our national security,” he said. “We are basing our energy policy on the greatest hoax of all time, which is that mankind is changing the climate.”

And he is supposed to know better. He has a Master’s degree in geology but he worked in the energy sector for more than 30 years.

So no, when I see people like this falling for stupid conspiracy theories, I have to suspect their decision making abilities.

[flickster]

Another RINO bites the dust!

[BrainGlutton]

The Dem nominee is Rep. Joe Donnelly, and he does have a history of standing up to the bastards.

Elections

2004

Donnelly ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the second district, where he faced off against incumbent Chris Chocola.[5] Chocola was helped by several fundraising visits from President George W. Bush, and was able to outspend Donnelly by a two to one margin, $1.4 million to $700,000. Donnelly lost the election, 54%–45%.[6] Due to his relatively late entrance into the contest, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) did not offer much support to Donnelly’s 2004 campaign. This would change in 2006, when the race was identified by the DCCC as a “Red-to-Blue” contest and extra funds were sent from out of the district in an effort to win back control of the House of Representatives.

2006

On May 2, 2006, Donnelly defeated Steve Francis for the Democratic nomination, setting up a rematch against Chris Chocola.[7]

Because Chocola was a strong supporter of George W. Bush, the race was expected to be more competitive than in 2004 in light of Bush’s waning popularity. The website Moveon.org identified Donnelly as a top contender to defeat a Republican incumbent in the house, and began running its “Red-Handed” ads against Chocola early in the campaign. Chocola still maintained a significant money advantage over Donnelly, but in 2006, Donnelly had enough to maintain a competitive advertising presence throughout the campaign.

The campaign was heated, with the DCCC sponsoring ads attacking Chocola as being beholden to moneyed interests in the insurance, pharmaceutical, and energy industries. Chocola returned fire by attacking Donnelly over a late tax filing and by attempting to link him to liberal House leader Nancy Pelosi.[8]

On November 7, 2006, Donnelly defeated Chocola by 15,145 votes, or 8% of a substantially larger total of votes relative to 2004.[9] The key difference between the 2006 and 2004 elections for Donnelly lay in the results within St. Joseph County, the location of South Bend and by far the largest county in the district. Traditionally reliably Democratic, voters in the county chose Donnelly over Chocola by only a few hundred votes in the 2004 election. In 2006, however, Donnelly amassed 58% of the county’s votes, generating a 14,000-vote margin.

Donnelly was named to the House Financial Services Committee for the 110th Congress.[10]

I think he can handle Mourdock.

[BrainGlutton]

@flickster

Another RINO bites the dust!

No, you’re looking for this thread.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Ludovic

But it went for Obama in '08. If he can’t at least pretend to contain the crazy, there’s a chance. Is there as much growing anti-union busting resentment in Indiana as in Wisconsin and Michigan, or were unions never as strong there? That could be an impact too if they were.

I don’t really understand Indiana politics sometimes. In 2004 Bush won Indiana 1.5 million votes to 1 million for Kerry. In 2008 it was about a 1.3 million split for each candidate.

I have no idea how it happened, or how 10% of the electorate turned away from the GOP and went dem in 2008. But I think the pendulum has swung back. A tea party candidate Dan Coats was elected to replace Evan Bayh after he retired, it was 55/40 with another 5% going to the libertarian.

[Giles]

Back in 2008 I said a couple of times – here and here – that Obama could carry Indiana in the presidential election. He did, and I equally think that the Democrats could win the Senate seat in Indiana this year, with a Tea Party candidate running against a strong campaign from the Dems. Indiana tends to the red side of politics, but there’s a solid middle-of-road segment there, plus some solid blue areas, such as in Lake County (in the suburbs of Chicago).

[scabpicker]

@samclem

Obstructionism is no way to go through life, son.

Hell, it’s a step down from fat, drunk and stupid.

[BrainGlutton]

@Wesley_Clark

I don’t really understand Indiana politics sometimes.

It might help if you smoke about a pound of cornsilk.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@samclem

The current Republican Party is NOTHING like the Republicans of even ten years ago. Certainly not the party of 30 years ago. If they expect to get something accomplished politically, it won’t happen.

Obstructionism is no way to go through life, son.

In some ways, the current Republican Party is nothing like the Republicans even 4 years ago. But I’m not sure that fact has sunk in:

@FriarTed

Grassley and Lugar aren’t known as conservatives? I’m Hoosier, been voting for Lugar in every election, and have never heard, even in my Birch years, that he should be replaced by a “real conservative”.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11675603&postcount=18

[Darth_Panda]

Lugar was my commencement speaker a few years back - seemed like a nice guy, and was the type of Republican you could respect. This is a pretty big bummer.

[davidw]

Whether you think Lugar was a moderate or conservative or RINO, he’s one of the few senators who have demonstrably made this country safer, and I think the country is gonna miss Lugar because he brought a level of expertise that’s hard to replace. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Lugar led the effort to secure nuclear material floating around in the former Soviet states. Imagine the shape we’d be in if he hadn’t. When he ran for president in 96, his top issue was terrorism, before it was on anyone else’s radar as the top foreign policy issue.

[Jas09]

One of the few GOP Senators I could vote for. And davidw is exactly right about his profound efforts to make the world a safer place.

[bahia_hombre]

Maybe he runs as independent…and wins.

[CJJ]

A lot of people want to lay Lugar’s loss at the feet of the Tea Partiers demanding a “real conservative”, and there is probably some truth to that. But let’s not forget: Lugar made powerful enemies in the banking industry last year when he voted against an amendment that would have blocked caps on credit card swipe fees, an amandment the banks favored. Politico had a rundown this past January:

That amendment, which failed in the Senate, was a battle royal that pitted two of the nation’s most influential business groups — banks and retailers — against each other.

Financial Services Roundtable’s Scott Talbott, Lisa Nelson of Visa, Peter Blocklin of the American Bankers Association and Vincent Randazzo of PNC hosted an inside-the-Beltway fundraiser for Lugar’s opponent, Richard Mourdock, this week. The Electronic Payments Coalition, which represents the industry, also sent out an email fundraising blast that included the event.
<…>
The decision made waves throughout the industry, where it was widely viewed as payback.

“There are just a lot of sour grapes out there,” said a GOP financial services industry lobbyist.

The article notes that Lugar was an obvious primary target because his seat is safely Republican. Scott Brown–the senator from Massachusetts in a campaign this year–also voted against the delay, but given the up-for-grabs nature of the seat and their horror at possibly seeing Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, the bankers backed off.

Another example of how our political process really works. The banking industry is flexing their muscle, trying to scare Republicans into being more banker friendly. The notion that this is all about a grass-roots voter insurgency is quaint, but in the real world, money talks.