Indiana GOP appears ready to shove Dick Lugar overboard
“If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”
– John Danforth, former three-term Republican senator from Missouri and UN ambassador under President George W. Bush, in a November 2010 interview
“Today, with their permission, I present you with the names of the 77 percent of the Republican chairman of Indiana who are willing today to support me in this campaign. What’s important to note also, is that the remaining twenty-three percent are not telling me they’re committed to Mr. Lugar; they simply have a policy of not endorsing in a primary…. Honorable Chairmen, Republican leaders, Tea Party activists and friends, we must begin, because it IS OUR time, and so I’m proud to announce to you my candidacy for the United States Senate on behalf of the Great People of the Great State of Indiana!”
– Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, announcing his 2012 primary challenge to Lugar
In 2006, Lugar won re-election with 87 percent of the vote; the Democrats didn’t even bother to put a name on the ballot against him. In his previous three Senate elections, Lugar won with at least a 2-to-1 margin of victory.
But if Mourdock really does have the public commitment of three-quarters of Indiana’s GOP chairman — and there’s no evidence on which to question his claim — Lugar is in big trouble in next year’s primary.
– Jay Bookman
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433 comments Add your comment
Jack
February 23rd, 2011
5:53 am
It’s time for Lugar to go.
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
5:56 am
oh yeah, and this.
Dear President Obama,
I get it.
I do.
There’s no real upside to you flying out to Madison, or Columbus, or anywhere worker’s rights are threatened. After all, unions already support you, and union members already vote for you in the majority if not the overwhelming majority, so what do you personally have to gain?
Moreover, if you did insert your grand self into a state battle here, or there, or anywhere, you run the risk of looking bad. You run the risk of shaking some protester’s hand and that protester later going on to do something mean, and then you just got your picture taken with him and what does that mean? You run the risk of all kinds of things like that happening, of being associated with a movement that may not be perfect, and we all know how much our conservative-friendly media loves to find just one jerk and use him or her to tar everyone in the general vicinity. There’s an enormous potential downside to you jumping into this fray. So I get it.
Nevertheless, get your ass on a plane or a train or a bus right the hell now.
Gandalf, the Wise!
February 23rd, 2011
5:57 am
Barry,
HE’S SCARY!:-)
Dave R.
February 23rd, 2011
6:27 am
All you can say about this is, “Holy CRAP!”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110222/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_billboard_flap_jonestown_3
What were they thinking . . .?
Dave R.
February 23rd, 2011
6:28 am
“An angle that, frankly, I hadn’t really considered much, before, but how much of this latest assault on public unions is driven by sexism?”
Maybe you didn’t consider it much because the concept is a joke?
Chris Sanchez
February 23rd, 2011
6:40 am
Politicians of all political persuasions are like diapers and should be changed often for the same reason!
Doggone/GA
February 23rd, 2011
6:43 am
“Politicians of all political persuasions are like diapers and should be changed often for the same reason!”
And it’s easy…don’t vote for them the next time
Treasurer to take on Lugar – Fort Wayne Journal Gazette | Conservatives for America
February 23rd, 2011
7:06 am
[...] primary election, …Mourdock fires first official salvo at LugarEvansville Courier & PressIndiana GOP appears ready to shove Dick Lugar overboardAtlanta Journal Constitution (blog)Mourdock Challenges LugarAmerican Conservative MagazineThe Hill [...]
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:12 am
Maybe you didn’t consider it much because the concept is a joke?
Feel free to explain why you feel that way.
TaxPayer
February 23rd, 2011
7:14 am
When are the Republicans going to get busy and do something. They’re the Party of No Results. That Walker fella has now had to back track on his earlier lie about laying off 6000 people. Now he only needs to lay off 1500. What a loser.
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:15 am
What were they thinking . . .?
They were thinking that the shorthand expression “drinking the Kool-Aid” has, regrettably, become so ensconced in our everyday discourse that everyone had forgotten about the tragic, horrifically violent event that precipitated it. Apparently they thought wrong.
Doggone/GA
February 23rd, 2011
7:16 am
TaxPayer – if you want to see something interesting, search around for information on Scott Walker and the firing of courthouse guards in Milwaukee County. This isn’t the first time he’s tried this trick.
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:20 am
Pretty good take on why this treasurer feels he needs to take on Lugar here.
Basically, it seems Lugar “has to go” because he hasn’t voted like a complete [bleep]nut.
While Mr. Mourdock praised Mr. Lugar’s service, he argued that the senator had strayed from conservative principles, by sponsoring the Dream Act, which would grant a path to citizenship for limited groups of illegal immigrants, for his support of the new Start treaty on arms control, his support for auto bailouts, his vote against the elimination of earmarks, and his votes for President Obama’s picks for the Supreme Court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Del
February 23rd, 2011
7:31 am
What’s knocking off Lugar was his support for the Dream Act, as well it should.
USinUK
February 23rd, 2011
7:31 am
I just love these people who think that going farther and farther to the right (not to mention, having a purity test) will make the general public embrace them.
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:31 am
Yes, Del, you’re right. as the piece put it, “the senator had strayed from conservative principles, by sponsoring the Dream Act ”
Enabling productive, law-abiding, decent people who want to serve in our military and/or go to college to become American citizens, apparently, is “straying from conservative principles.”
Of course, whatever someone does could be said to “stray from conservative principles,” because as far as I can tell, conservatives HAVE no principles. None. Nothing above and beyond winning the next round, by any means necessary.
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:33 am
will make the general public embrace them.
they never cared a rat’s ass about the “general public.” they only care about managing one vote more than the competition in a given race. That’s what 30+ years of wedge issue politics is all about.
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:36 am
DGA @ 7.16, I trust you’re speaking about this…
http://westorlandonews.com/2011/02/22/gov-scott-walker-past-privatization-disasters-unmasked/
After firing the guards, Walker hired private security contractor Wackenhut G4S to provide security services at the Courthouse, as well as two other venues in the county, under a $1.1 million contract.
If the name Wackenhut sounds familiar, it’s because it is the parent company of the ArmorGroup, the firm hired by the Bush Administration to guard the American Embassy compound in Kabul, Afghanistan with horrible and embarrassing results.
In September 2009, the Project on Government Oversight released about a dozen photographs showing Wackenhut/ArmorGroup nearly naked security contractors guards engaging in sexually charged antics while drunk. In one practically X-rated photo, a guard is seen pouring liquor onto another’s employee’s buttocks while a third employee laps the vodka off the first guy’s buttocks. The photos were obtained by other ArmorGroup employees who complained that they were regularly subjected to deviant hazing and humiliation. The explosive “Embassy-Guards-Gone-Wild scandal,” also dubbed “Animal House in Afghanistan,” put the embassy compound in jeopardy and deeply embarrassed the U.S. State Department. On February 20, 2010, in a now-standard corporate PR ploy to escape the ill effects of a disabling scandal, the Wackenhut Security company officially changed its name to G4S.
Walker’s strategy of firing the union security guards to cope with a contrived “budget emergency” went awry. Just last month, on January 10, 2011, an arbitrator ruled that the county did not have a true budget crisis at the time Walker fired the guards, and county officials failed to give the union representing the guards a chance to propose alternative cost-saving measures before laying them off. The arbitrator also said the annual savings Walker claimed the county would realize from privatizing courthouse security was overstated.
TaxPayer
February 23rd, 2011
7:37 am
So, in the past, the people running HOPE were paid millions in salary and bonuses for their hard work in bringing in all those revenues. What happened. Were the past high revenues really just a reflection of the times, when the people playing had money in their pockets. Now that they do not have the jobs and the money to blow, lottery sales are down. Do those people that claim to have made all those past revenues possible offer any explanation for their failures. Do they take a pay cut for their failures. Do they get fired for their failures. They failed our children. They should give back those huge salaries and bonues because they were based on lies.
USinUK
February 23rd, 2011
7:38 am
dB – 7:33 – damn. well said!
sherondoo
February 23rd, 2011
7:42 am
“That Walker fella has now had to back track on his earlier lie about laying off 6000 people. Now he only needs to lay off 1500. What a loser.”
———————————————————————-
1500 by July, an additional 4500 over the course of 2 or 3 years. Total: 6000. Get your facts straight, loser.
Mick
February 23rd, 2011
7:42 am
Well, scratch off new zealand as a list of alternate countries to live in. I can deal with hurricanes but when the ground beneath you starts rummbling, where do you go?
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:43 am
UnU, do you think that my suspicion that sexism is a distinct part of the assault on public sector unions, or do you think it’s just along for the ride, so to speak?
stands for decibels
February 23rd, 2011
7:44 am
That sentence @ 7.43 needed an “is correct,” but you know what I mean…
USinUK
February 23rd, 2011
7:44 am
woohoo! fresh Gingrichy sheets!
TaxPayer
February 23rd, 2011
7:45 am
Maybe Walker is looking to get those layed off ArmorGroup personnel new jobs. Non-union teaching positions perhaps. They could always teach the children about Toga parties and other valuable life skills.
AmVet
February 23rd, 2011
7:46 am
Look a this face; it is but another example of the right wing’s hate-filled and bigoted vigilante mentality
(CNN) — Arizona jurors decided an anti-illegal immigration activist — portrayed as the ringleader of a hit squad — should receive the death penalty for the killings of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter, a court spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The Pima County jury’s decision, which was unanimous, is binding.
If the jury had not voted for the death penalty, the judge would have decided whether Shawna Forde should have received life with a chance of parole after 35 years or life with no possibility of parole.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/22/arizona.double.killing/index.html?hpt=T2
metoo
February 23rd, 2011
8:19 am
I wish the republicans would go after the lobbyist they same way the attack the unions.
patriot
February 23rd, 2011
8:37 am
Be sure there’s a heavy weight around his neck when you do Indiana. We don’t want him coming back like so many other horror movie characters.
Lil' Barry Bailout
February 23rd, 2011
9:01 am
I take libbtards very seriously when they start expressing concern that Republicans might do something to threaten their control of some elected office.
Dave R.
February 23rd, 2011
9:41 am
stands, I think it is the easy way out for many of you libs in trying to turn what is to many a principled argument into something simple (sexism) so that you are capable of understanding it.
I know you have a hard time when being challenged by people who actuallty believe in things, but you’re not going to get much sympathy for this little diversion.
joe
February 23rd, 2011
9:52 am
I don’t care how long these GOP senators have been in office, if they are not going to vote for spending cuts, and lots of em, they need to be replaced by Tea Party reps who will. This debt isn’t going to cure itself…and NO Dem will do anything about it either cause their political lives depend on getting contributions from unions, who are sucking the marrow out of the USA bone with their benefits and pensions.
Adam
February 23rd, 2011
11:34 am
Lil’ Barry Bailout
February 22nd, 2011
10:52 pm
President Carter–second worst in history, after your Idiot Messiah.
Ayn Rand was never president
Lil’ Barry Bailout
February 22nd, 2011
10:44 pm
Why isn’t the Idiot Messiah doing anything about the skyrocketing price of gasoline?
Because she is dead.