Recently, reports have been circulating in the Capitol Hill newspapers that conservatives are planning to challenge Dick Lugar and other RINOs in 2012.  Last week, former Missouri Senator John Danforth gave the following assessment of a potential primary challenge to Lugar:

“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.”

This is simply one of the most preposterous statements concerning electoral politics that I have ever heard from a once respected Republican official.  Richard Lugar is the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yet there is not a single policy issue in which he differs from the Democrat Chairman John Kerry.  John Kerry is one of the most radical Senators in American history, but Lugar has supported every one of his appeasement policies; from his dealings with Israel to his support for unilateral disarmament with Russia.  He fought Senator Jessee Helms at every turn in order to promote Kerry’s policies.  If the Republicans win back the Senate in 2012, Lugar would be slated to be the chairman of that committee.  I challenge Mr. Danforth to list one policy that Lugar will change from Kerry’s tenure as leader of that panel.  The only difference will be that we will own all of the moral relativist, appeasement, and anti-American exceptionalism driven policies that emerge from that committee.

Mr. Danforth wants to know how any Republican is safe if Lugar is challenged.  Maybe he can explain to us what is a Republican in the first place if he considers someone as radical as Lugar to be a stalwart Republican.  There is also another important point to be made here.  Dick Lugar doesn’t own his seat, and therefore, we are not targeting his birthright.  Every six years, each Senate seat is up for grabs and the incumbent has no stronger claim to it than anybody else.  Lugar and his ilk must explain to the voters why they best represents Republican values, especially in a conservative state like Indiana.  Who is Danforth to decide who should run unopposed and who should have to compete for the job?

The bottom line is that 2012 will be the year in which we expose these washed up Republicans for the Democrats that they really are.  Throughout the 2010 election cycle we were lectured about the need to preserve blue state RINOs because it was said that conservatives could not succeed in those states.  Well, this year we will be dealing with RINOs like Lugar, Hutchinson, Hatch, and Corker who are from red states and still undermine conservatives every step of the way.  Yet, based on Danforth’s comments, it appears that the entrenched establishment will dig their heels in and viciously attack any conservative who dares challenge these pro amnesty, appeasement, big government, liberal Republicans from red states.

Due to the political landscape in 2012, it is almost impossible for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate (unless there is criminal negligence on the part of the NRSC).  However, we must ask ourselves if we really want  to own a Senate that will have Lugar as Chair of the Foreign Relations committee, K.B. Hutchinson as Chair of Commerce, and Thad Cochran as Chair of Appropriations.  If we are going to opt for a socialist domestic policy and an anti-American, appeasement driven foreign policy, then we may as well let the professionals run the show.

Cross-posted to Red Meat Conservative