Who is the Democrat who will run against the Bagger?

By MIKE ZAPLER |
5/9/12 7:48 AM EDT

Sen. Richard Lugar, in a remarkable 1,425-word statement after his crushing loss in the Indiana Senate primary Tuesday night, unloaded on what he called "unrelenting" partisanship in Congress and explained how he knew much earlier than the pundits that he was in trouble.

If you had any question about how the six-term senator really feels about the state of politics and governance, you won't after reading this.

[...]

If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington. He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate. In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party. His answer to the inevitable roadblocks he will encounter in Congress is merely to campaign for more Republicans who embrace the same partisan outlook. He has pledged his support to groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it.
This is not conducive to problem solving and governance. And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve. The most consequential of these is stabilizing and reversing the Federal debt in an era when millions of baby boomers are retiring. There is little likelihood that either party will be able to impose their favored budget solutions on the other without some degree of compromise.

Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country. And partisan groups, including outside groups that spent millions against me in this race, are determined to see that this continues. They have worked to make it as difficult as possible for a legislator of either party to hold independent views or engage in constructive compromise. If that attitude prevails in American politics, our government will remain mired in the dysfunction we have witnessed during the last several years. And I believe that if this attitude expands in the Republican Party, we will be relegated to minority status. Parties don't succeed for long if they stop appealing to voters who may disagree with them on some issues.

Wanna know how Lugar feels?

[...]

This year the pillar of the GOP establishment, Orin Hatch of Utah, was forced into the primary after he failed to gain sufficient voters during the UT GOP convention. Yesterday Lugar lost. There is a tough battle in TX, where a grassroots candidate is gaining momentum against the establishment candidate in TX. I hope that my candidacy will be the next win against the establishment machine and the architect Karl Rove. Corrupt CA GOP board endorsed one of my opponents on the first day of the campaign in spite of the fact that they had in front of them results of the pols showing me ahead and her dead last with only 2% of the vote and 1% overall vote. They artificially suppressed my candidacy and elevated hers by entering their endorsement. Recent Google searches show me with 33,000 Worldwide, Senator Diane Feinstein 27,000 and the official GOP puppet with only 560. Of Course Google searches are not votes., butthey show interest to the candidacy. When you look at the Google searches, half of mine are “Orly Taitz senate”, meaning they are related to the Senate race. In 3 and a half weeks we will see. Please, donate to my campaign at RunOrlyRun.com or OrlyTaitzForUSSenate.com

They artificially suppressed my candidacy and elevated hers by entering their endorsement.

The Teabaggers, along with Club For Growth and FreedomWorks, are bound to claim partial responsibility for Richard Mourdock's win (as will Sarah Palin). What you won't hear from them is how Sen Lugar ran a disastrous campaign. Compare how quickly Sen Hatch got his act together after then-Sen Bob Bennett (R-UT) was primaried in 2010 to Lugar. Lugar's long absence from state and local party functions didn't help his cause and Lugar's residency/voting eligibility problems were negative press he didn't need.
http://nationaljournal.com/politics/roo ... e-20120508

The Indianapolis Star offered their 5 reasons why Lugar Lost:
1) He lost touch with the Indiana Republican Party
2) His voting record. Lugar voted for the Wall Street and auto bailouts
3) Money. About $3 million in reportable spending has been spent by outside groups to help Mourdock, and about $1.5 million has been spent to help Lugar.
4) There was no cohesive theme. Lugar didn't remind voters until the very end of what he had done for them.
5) He's 80.
http://www.indystar.com/article/2012050 ... t|Election 2012

Number 5 resonates with me. He's 80. He's had his turn.

Somehow, "he's had his turn" doesn't convince me we should install an absolutely crazy lunatic to inflict horrible social policies on the state I live in.

Number 5 resonates with me. He's 80. He's had his turn.

I really do believe that the acorn that grew the oak was the residency issue, that he was no longer seen as living in Indiana. That's a little bit more a bit pill to swallow for a voter and is more that to say he lost touch. It comes across as elitist and arrogant. And played right, it's always a powerful tool against an incumbent, but ordinarily takes more than one election to be convincing. In reality, districts have lost meaning, members of congress analyze opportunity and brazenly move, often with no real connection to their new districts.

I don't mean it in the sense that they are senile. Lugar has been Senator for 36 years. I'm not in favor if term limits oer se, but the citizens of Indiana deserve new ideas.

I hope it's the Democrat and not Earl Grey, but I don't have much say in the outcome.

I don't have a friggin' clue why it's not listed as "Toss Up".

"We have a frustration that all conservatives have," said McIntyre, "which is the bias in the media against conservatives, religious conservatives, Christian conservatives."

According to a copy of the spot obtained by Roll Call, the 30-second advertisement paints GOP nominee Richard Mourdock as an extremist and highlights Donnelly’s bipartisanship in Congress.

“To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on somebody else,”Mourdock, a state Treasurer, says in the on-camera MSNBC interview that is used in the spot.
http://www3.atr.rollcall.com/indiana-de ... irst-spot/

Didn't Rush Limbaugh regularly say something similar to this when Republicans were in the majority (and oppose it when they were in the minority)?