« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Richard Lugar Insults Conservatives, Indiana GOP County Chairmen

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  May 10th, 2011 at 08:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Yesterday, I received an interesting piece of spam from Richard Lugar’s campaign. I call it “interesting” because it indicates that Lugar apparently intends to court voters who might be contemplating a vote for Richard Mourdock by calling them morons. And then speaking to them as if they were morons:

Unfortunately, a large number of Republican County Chairmen have been duped into participating in the same failed scheme that resulted in Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle and cost us two crucial Senate Seats in 2010. (If the Republican parties in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado had taken the Reagan “big tent” approach, we would have already repealed Obamacare.) Mr. Mourdock has hired the same consultants that brought us these unelectable candidates, and with Mr. Donnelly joining the race the pattern is complete.

A few things. First, while a candidate might think voters are morons for not wanting to vote for him, it is generally a bad idea to say it out loud, on the off chance that some of those voters might be persuaded to come home.

Second, while I agree that O’Donnell and Angle were bad candidates (and strongly disagree on Buck), it’s ridiculous to claim that the GOP would have done better if it had nominated the candidates who were routed by the aforementioned bad candidates in the primary. This is the same line of thinking that posits that we lost to Obama because McCain was such a crappy candidate, and we should have instead nominated… one of the people who lost to McCain. Does not compute.

Third, math is apparently not a strong suit of Dick Lugar. The GOP currently controls 47 seats in the Senate. Adding three more seats (CO, NV, DE) would put us at 50. Thus, even supposing Castle would vote to repeal Obamacare, the best we could accomplish on an Obamacare repeal vote would be a tie, which would be broken by Joe Biden. Which is completely academic anyway, since a) the Democrats would filibuster the vote and b) failing all of that, Obama would just veto it. But, yeah, if those TEA Party people weren’t such morons, we’d totally have repealed Obamacare by now.

We’re not halfway through 2011, and RIchard Lugar’s campaign already smells of desperation. The main obstacle to his defeat at this point is disunity among the many groups of people Richard Lugar is currently insulting.

Tags: , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • bk

    If he’d gotten his way, we’d have squishes Bennett and Crist instead of conservatives Lee and Rubio.

  • renny

    Why IN keeps him is beyond explanation.

    • breen

      1) Having too many viable candidates run against a single RINO – splitting the vote (see: Coates, Dan)

      2) Elevating names over records (see: Bayh, Evan)

      3) Falling for someone who is decent w/ Foreign Policy but is a total squish on fiscal & social policy (see: Lugar, Dick)

      • Kyle-MI

        Angle won a plurality of the votes at 40%. That means that 60% voted against her. There were two other strong conservative candidates (Lowden and Tarkanian) that could have done better in the general election and did not have the baggage that Angle did.

        Also while Castle lost the GOP primary, he would have done much better attracting crossover votes from independents and Dems. Of course, we would be in only very, very mildly better shape. As you point out he probably would not have voted to repeal Obamacare and he would have been a constant threat to switch parties.

      • blarman

        When the Republican Presidential race started, you had effectively four candidates: “moderate/liberal” McCain and Guiliani, and “conservative” Romney and Huckabee. When Guiliani bowed out due to a huge strategic mistake to bet everything on Florida, you were left with only one “moderate/liberal” candidate, while the other two split the votes of the slightly larger “conservative” portion of voters. McCain should have won easily if he were the better candidate. In actuality, Huckabee siphoned off just enough votes from Romney to keep him from getting the nomination outright, even though polls clearly showed that voters would have chosen Romney over McCain by a wide margin. All this despite the fact that Huckabee knew midway through the campaign that he had no chance of winning against either McCain or Romney.

        The point is that sometimes there IS a better candidate who doesn’t end up getting the nomination simply because of vote splitting. McCain lost to Obama because he was no different in actuality (and because of the favorable media coverage). Either Romney or Huckabee would have presented a much greater contrast to Obama and given voters a clear choice between freedom/capitalism or socialism/slavery.

        I can only hope that if we get any “moderate” (read RINO) Republicans that put their hats in (like Trump) that there is at least two, or we are going to end up in the same boat we were in last election when people threw their hands up in despair.

  • redstatesuccess

    We only have one challenger to Dick Lugar right now, and he is a well-respected and formidable conservative – our State Treasurer, Richard Mourdock.

    So, PLEASE donate to Richard Mourdock at http://www.richardmourdock.com

    Let’s beat Lugar – he’s basically a Dem on many issues anyway!

  • bs61

    that Mitch Daniels would turn to on foreign policy?!!!

    • cordpt

      Lugar provides tremendous expertise on foreign policy. Reagan sought his advise on such matters often.

      • Kyle-MI

        Mourdock has won state-wide office, indicating some state-wide appeal, name recognition, and campaign infrastructure.

      • streiff

        that was appropriate 30 years ago, Lugar’s your man. He’s still getting free drinks over his fanciful claim that he’s the guy who got Marcos to leave the Philippines.

        • http://www.hoosierpundit.com Scott_Fluhr

          As one of the county chairmen that endorsed Richard Mourdock over Dick Lugar, I can’t say that I’m surprised by this email (which I likewise received).
          ?
          This sort of “listen to your betters” communication is par for the course for Lugar lately. There’s a haughty arrogance and condescension that seems to be the prerequisite of that campaign ever since there were even whisperings that Mourdock might run (and there were grumblings against Lugar for many years?long before that).
          ?
          But what struck me about the email was not so much that he called Mourdock supporters and his own party’s county chairmen “dupes.” What struck me was the paragraph near the end (which Leon didn’t quote) where Lugar threatened to run as an independent, basically telling Mourdock supporters and party leaders that they should “rally” to him, and saying that he would run without them (presumably outside of the Republican Party as an independent) if they did not do so.

          I’ve never seen a campaign email like this before. “Support me, or I’ll run and win without you.” That’s a whole new level of arrogance. In fact, arrogant doesn’t begin to cover it.
          ?
          I also don’t buy for one second the Lugar argument that Mourdock is unelectable. He led the Republican ticket in Indiana in 2010. In fact, he got more votes in Joe Donnelly’s district (the likely Democratic Senate nominee) than Donnelly got.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            I didn’t really get that he was saying he was going to run as an independent, just that he was prepared to work without the county chairs. YMMV.

            Dear Leon,

            After giving his second of three commencement addresses this weekend, Dick Lugar continued to question President Obama on the cost of military operations in Afghanistan and its effect on national debt. At the same time, Richard Mourdock’s campaign invited Democrat Joe Donnelly into the race for the U.S. Senate.

            “Right now, Richard Mourdock is Obama’s favorite Republican because if he wins that primary and Joe Donnelly is the nominee that’s their (Democrats) shot at the Senate seat held by Dick Lugar,” said Indiana’s own Peter Rusthoven, former Reagan White House Counsel and conservative political commentator on Indiana Insiders Sunday, April 17, 2011.

            Common wisdom says that Dick Lugar would easily win a general election in 2012 with a recent poll showing that he is the most popular public official in the state of Indiana.

            Unfortunately, a large number of Republican County Chairmen have been duped into participating in the same failed scheme that resulted in Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle and cost us two crucial Senate Seats in 2010. (If the Republican parties in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado had taken the Reagan “big tent” approach, we would have already repealed Obamacare.) Mr. Mourdock has hired the same consultants that brought us these unelectable candidates, and with Mr. Donnelly joining the race the pattern is complete.

            Dick Lugar’s record as a fiscal conservative and leader on following Constitutional values (including the correct interpretation of the Constitution on war powers and judicial appointments) is impeccable. I encourage all Republican leaders to rally around the Dick Lugar flag now; you have been led down a wrong path and it’s time to come home.

            Republican candidates in DE, NV, and CO did not take this threat seriously. We do. And, we will be happy to rally Republican voters to this view a year from now. We would rather do it with your support than without you. But do it we shall.

            Dick Lugar looks forward to a vigorous re-election campaign, and has been mobilizing his supporters the past several months for both the primary and general elections. He will continue to focus on the best opportunities to create an economic climate that produces more jobs for Hoosiers and Americans, and growing new markets for our products at home and abroad.

            Sincerely,

            David W. Willkie
            Political Director
            Friends of Dick Lugar

          • capeconservative

            “…There?s a haughty arrogance and condescension that seems to be the prerequisite of that campaign…”

            discussing the ‘haughty’ and ‘arrogant’ John Kerry…our illustrious do-nothing senator who I could see sending a similar message to his constituents. In this state, however, the Dems don’t give a hoot if a candidate is qualified or not…if there is a D after their name, that is all that counts!

          • capeconservative

            state and national, be closed to those who are not registered members of that particular party.

            In our state, there are more so-called ‘unenrolled’ voters who like to create mischief by voting in the primaries for opponents they would like to face their preferred candidates.

            As long as I’m in my ‘would like to see’ mode, I’d like to see a national primary day replace the current process of just a few states being allowed to select our final candidates. That is OUTMODED and needs to disappear!

        • cordpt

          What conservative principles of 30 years ago are not fit for use any more, according to you?

          I still believe Burke’s thought is extremely relevant to contemporary foreign affairs – probably today more than ever – and the man died more than 300 years ago.

          I guess one could argue that Lugar lacks the knowledge of the current set of circumstances and state of affairs. I see no evidence whatsoever of that, but maybe you can provide it. In fact, the early returns suggest that he was right on questioning Obama’s Administration decisions on Libya, just to mention the most recent case.

  • libertyatstake

    Ur either with us or ‘agin us.

    That’s why O’Donnell and Angle were perfectly good candidates. It’s not about reading a teleprompter anymore.

    d(^_^)b
    http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
    “Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”

    • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

      O’Donnell won not because she was a “good” candidate but because Castle was probably the second worst candidate who’s ever run for the US Senate. He ran on an entitlement platform – “I’m entitled to be your Senator!” – and the moderates didn’t show up. O’Donnell bounced in with a bunch of TP & Palin money and made a late run, she didn’t have time to jam both feet in her mouth in the primary, but she sure took care of that in the general.

      You need to wake up and smell reality. Both O’Donnell and Angle were horrible candidates. The electorate at large in both states hated them from the start and neither did anything to even attempt to turn that around. More like that and we’ll be the minority party for a thousand years.

      • juumanistra

        My scars from the DE primary still haven’t healed. Horrible nastiness, all around. I knew it was going to be rough when a week before the primary fliers started turning up in my mailbox from the O’Donnell camp, loudly proclaiming Sarah Palin’s support. But yes, let me second that she did not “win” the primary so much as Castle lost it: He severely underestimated how anger the base was with things like cap-and-trade and how much the DE base had changed since he last had to really face it. O’Donnell was merely the vehicle for conservative discontent: Her problems were visible even then though, in-particular her penchant for conspiracy-mongering and her inability to form, let alone enunciate, a positive legislative agenda.

        Angle, though, at least had been elected to public office at one point. To the state house, no less! Simply having faced the voters and won ought to qualify a candidate to be placed in a higher competency tier than Christine O’Donnell. That higher tier might be “patently bad” to O’Donnell’s “horrible”, but it’s still a step up.

        • aesthete

          Angle didn’t really start plummeting until she made comments about email forwards and the like, whereas COD was just a hot mess, and had been for years. Angle was bad, but not the equivalent of COD.

  • cordpt

    Are you really claiming that the primary winner is always the candidate best positioned to have the best result possible in the general election? That’s patently absurd. Of course Mike Castle would do a lot better than Christine O?Donnell in the general election – the electorate is much different (it’s larger and moderate/centrist/independent/low-info voters come into play) and the scrutiny is higher, which highlights the candidates flaws. For instances, I still believe Reagan would have beaten Carter in ’76.

    So yeah, your thesis doesn’t make any sense and it’s a poor refutation of Lugar’s claim – you’re duped into his trick of making every “tea party” candidate one and the same (not a novel mistake around here, see the endorsment of O’Donnell because she decided to babble some Tea Party sounding lines). The right point of attack here is to simply state that Mourdock, unlike Angle or O’Donnell, is a good candidate who has a good chance of winning the general election.

    • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

      He wasn’t a bad candidate. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the candidate with the better chance to beat Bennet, so a relatively unknown Senator (we called him “Senator Who?”) that never saw a spending bill that he didn’t like was reelected in an election cycle that favored Republicans.

      • capeconservative

        belief that he would have won had the voter registration rolls been checked and cleaned up!

        Colorado is just one of many states that NEED TO CLEAN UP their registration books before the next election!!!! Granted we will never see that happen in Chicago, but let’s face it, the Franken win was VERY questionable as was the WA governor’s race where there were more votes cast than there were registered voters…yet NOTHING gets done…NO investigations…NO charges…NOTHING!!!!

        Americans MUST be able to trust the results of our elections – otherwise we are no different than Iran! Give me a purple finger!!! It’s better than all the questionable voters being allowed to vote multiple times! Urge your state to work on cleaning up the rolls – they have 1-1/2 years to get it done!

        • capeconservative

          Murkowski “we can change the rules after the fact” win! We had a write-in election in our state that was determined by misspelled names NOT being counted!

          Joe Miller was the winner, fair and square!

        • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

          The numbers simply don’t support your claims. All of the other statewide races (save for the Gov. race) went to the Republicans. We also gained two U.S. House seats back. The Republican voters were there, they just didn’t vote for Buck.

          There’s simply no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would’ve been sufficient to turn that election the other way. Buck just wasn’t electable in 2010, plain and simple.

    • aesthete
      • schteve

        “it?s ridiculous to claim that the GOP would have done better if it had nominated the candidates who were routed by the aforementioned bad candidates in the primary.”

        You seriously have no realistic grasp on how primaries work if that’s the case. Of course the voters in the Republican primary are going to be more conservative and thus prefer a more conservative candidate. That doesn’t at all mean that one of the losers of the primary wouldn’t be able to court the middle of the masses in a general election.

  • earlgrey

    He comes off as a real elitist. he needs to get the boot.

  • bassethound

    of being told that WE have to compromise and change…that WE have to “reach out” and be more inclusive. NEVER are the Dems lectured to do ANY of this.

    I’m sick and tired of the Washington Post and the MSM selecting OUR candidates.

    And BTW, I always thought that Luger looks exactly like Quark the Feringi on Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

  • gumbeaux

    Lugar is upset because the Tea Party did not support him. The Tea Party found that he was not their cup of tea.