Richard Lugar,  Richard Mourdock

IN-Sen Video: Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock Announces Race Against Sen Richard Lugar

Republican Senator Richard Lugar is in trouble against Richard Mourdock. 

Barring an unexpected decision to retire before November 2012, Lugar will face Indiana voters for the sixth time as the incumbent. He recently raised an estimated $400,000 from one event and has amassed a campaign warchest in excess of $2.3 million. Expect that total to swell in coming months.

He’s also raised something else – the hackles of Indiana Tea Party members and a primary challenger, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock.

According to the conventional wisdom, Lugar’s seniority, establishment connections, well-funded campaign treasury, and easy access to sympathetic national media coverage should make him a shoo-in for a seventh term.

Don’t count on it. Lugar made  a big mistake by claiming last year that the Tea Party needed to “get real.” He might as well have put on a dunce cap because such remarks often hint at the very attitudes of overweening pride of incumbency and blindness to genuine voter dissatisfaction that have driven many a respected incumbent into retirement – think Tom Daschle, Jim Wright, Tom Foley and Robert Bennett.

Saying things like that is how you become the latest installment of that old, familiar Washington story – former senator.

My bet is that Lugar retires within the next six months.

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