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IN-Sen: GOP Grassroots Dumps Sen Richard Lugar as Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock Launches Primary Challenge?
Republican Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock Addresses Indianapolis Tea Party
It certainly appears so.Indiana State TreasurerRichard Mourdock will launch his primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Tuesday with the support of a majority of both the state’s 92 Republican county chairmen and its state party executive committee, he told the Fix in a recent interview.
“I feel bad that he’s going to be humiliated by this list,” Mourdock said.
Mourdock added that he believes Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and Rep. Mike Pence (R), the party’s two leading figures in the Hoosier State, are going to stay neutral in the primary — though Daniels, who was Lugar’s campaign manager three different times, has already committed to voting for the senator.
That such a large contingent of the party establishment should come out against or withhold support from an incumbent senator is highly unusual and reflects the difficult path ahead for Lugar in advance of the May 8, 2012, primary fight. It also suggests there is a clear path to victory for Mourdock.
Senator Richard Lugar’s time has passed and he is too moderate for the Indiana electorate.
Time for Lugar to retire – and save face, otherwise he WILL be beaten in a GOP Primary election.
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Video: IN-Sen: Lugar Tells the Tea Party to “Get Real”
Facing a certain primary challenge, you would think that Indiana Senator richard Lugar would be more conciliatory?
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) chided Tea Party activists in his state, telling them to “get real” about their opposition to the New START treaty.
Lugar, who voted for the treaty’s ratification late last year, dismissed the Tea Party’s criticism of his vote. He’s expected to face a primary challenge from the conservative, activist movement.
Lugar has been a big-spending moderate Republican for decades – not exactly a Tea Party favorite. Democrat Senator Evan Byah bailed out of re-election in 2010 because of the changing political climate (more red) in Indiana and my bet is that Lugar won’t be around for the general election in 2012.
Lugar has repeatedly irritated the tea party in recent months. He was one of just five Republicans to support Elena Kagan’s nomination for Supreme Court, he spearheaded a compromise on the new START nuclear arms treaty during the lame duck session, he opposed a ban on earmarks and he called for a renewal of the assault weapons ban after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) last month.
But it hasn’t been just his votes. Lugar’s words have done little to quell the brewing opposition. During a breakfast with reporters last month, Lugar appeared to dismiss tea partiers as people who are angry because they or someone they loved has lost their job, and he said the movement lacked clear goals, relying instead on “large cliches”.
Who will challenge Lugar?
Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock
Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock will announce a primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Feb. 22, according to an e-mail from a Mourdock supporter.
Ted Ogle, the 6th district chairman for the Indiana Republican Party and Bartholomew County Republican Party chairman, said in an e-mail to supporters that he spoke with Mourdock on Friday morning and learned of the state treasurer’s plans. He said he will be endorsing Mourdock.
“He will be announcing Feb. 22 his run for US Senate in a primary against Senator Lugar,” Ogle said. “With respect to Senator Lugar, Richard is my friend. For what it’s worth I will be announcing my support that same day.”
State Sen. Mike Delph has also been mentioned as a potential Lugar primary opponent.
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Video: Indiana GOP Senator Richard Lugar to Renew Assault Weapons Ban
Conservative academic and political commentator John Lott in this video discusses large gun clips and the 2004 expired Assault Weapons BanSenator Richard Lugar knows a Tea Party sponsored primary challenger is coming, yet he continues to push the RINO button.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) this weekend called on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.
Lugar is the first GOP senator to call for increased gun control following the Tucson tragedy that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. But Lugar, who supported the initial 10-year-long assault weapons ban when it passed in 1994, said he’s not optimistic about the chances for passing gun control legislation this Congress.
“I believe it should be, but I recognize the fact that the politics domestically in our country with regard to this are on a different track altogether,” Lugar told Bloomberg Television’s Al Hunt Jan. 14.
Lugar also noted the increase in ammunition sales since the shootings, which he suspected was out of fear that Congress might pass far-reaching gun control legislation in wake of the tragedy.
But, regardless, Lugar will push for the ban – even when he knows a bill has little or no chance of passing the GOP controlled House.
Nonetheless, Lugar is going out on a limb by expressing his support for bringing back the now-defunct assault weapons ban – especially because local Tea Party activists have promised to field a primary challenger for the six-term senator. Lugar has a reputation for working across party lines in the Senate, and his support for gun control legislation would likely put him at odds with a more conservative GOP challenger.
Lugar also said in the Bloomberg interview that a Tea Party challenge is “not one that I welcome, but nevertheless, this is a democracy.”
If a Tea Party challenger plays it RIGHT, Lugar will NOT be renominated by the GOP in 2012.
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IN-Sen: Tea Party Challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar in 2012?
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., left, and the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., take part in a news conference, on Capitol Hill in Washington Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010, after the Senate’s ratification of the New START Treaty
Count on it.Fettig and Boyer originally requested the meeting as representatives of Hoosiers for Conservative Senate, an organization of roughly 60 Tea Party groups formed to find a conservative primary challenger to Lugar, or force his retirement.
Lugar and a pair of staffers discussed a range of federal issues, including the role of earmarks and the Federal Reserve. Fettig and Boyer objected to Lugar’s sponsorship of the DREAM Act, his support for the ratification of the START nuclear arms treaty during the lame-duck session of Congress, and his votes to confirm Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Mark Hayes, a spokesman for Lugar, was in the room and acknowledged that “not everybody is going to agree with everything” the senator has done in his long career.
But, Hayes told CNN, “[Lugar’s] preference is to sit down and have a conversation, to understand where they’re coming from, and really to point out the high degree of similarities, for the most part, on a lot of different issues. It was a good conversation.”
Fettig called Lugar “likeable” and “a lovely human being,” but said Lugar should prepare for a Tea Party challenge.
“We weren’t swayed,” he told CNN. “We equated it to going out on a football field, shaking hands, flipping the coins, and game on. He wants to win, and we want to win.”
Hoosiers for Conservative Senate is convening a “Road To Retirement” event in Indianapolis on Jan. 22 in Indianapolis, where organizers hope that an array of Tea Party groups can unite around one Republican candidate to challenge Lugar in the May 2012 primary.
Fettig named state Sen. Mike Delph and Treasurer Richard Mourdock as challengers who could earn the Tea Party group’s blessing.
Richard Lugar has grown too “RINO” Left on too mnay issues for the conservative red state of Indiana. He will be replaced as the Republican nominee in 2012.
Wonder if South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint’s PAC and/or Club for Growth will involve themselves?
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Bob Corker, GOP, Johnny Isakson, Lamar Alexander, Mike Crapo, Mike Johanns, Richard Lugar, Thad Cochran, Tom Coburn
Lame Duck Senate: Which Republicans Sold Out? Melt the Phones After Christmas
US Senator John Kerry (D-MA) (R) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) (C) smile as they depart together after a news conference after the Senate ratified the START nuclear arms reduction treaty at the US Capitol in Washington, December 22, 2010
Too many and they will be held accountable by the Tea Party and conservative activists in their next GOP Primary elections.With the new Republican power in Washington, it is doubly important to keep a close eye on the doings of GOP Senators and Congressmen to spot those who are straying from orthodoxy, seduced by power and the insider clubiness that characterizes Washington.
In the Lame Duck session, we want to draw attention to six Republican U.S. Senators who voted with the Democrats on a key issue. We should all bear their apostasy in mind and, in particular, make them mindful of the possibility of primary challenges to their re-nomination.
Two Senators, in particular, deserve to have primary challengers take them on in 2012 — Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Mississippi’s Thad Cochran. Both men voted for the START treaty which conceded a permanent edge in nuclear weaponry to Russia. While the Treaty provided for equal and reduced stockpiles of strategic warheads, it did nothing to address the vast piles of tactical nuclear warheads held by the Russians. The Russians have 10,000 of these battlefield nuclear weapons piled up in the stockpile while we have only a few hundred.
In addition, START’s preamble blocks the U.S. from developing missile defenses, now especially important in light of North Korea’s and Iran’s expanding capacities.
Both Corker and Cochran face re-election in 2012. They should both be challenged for the nomination by men who put our need for national security above appeasing the Russians. Having suppressed democracy, wiped out free speech, taken over all the media, nationalized their oil and energy industry, invaded Georgia, enabled the Iranian nuclear program, and tried to establish a natural gas monopoly in Europe, what else does Putin need to do before Corker and Cochran realize that appeasement won’t work?
Bob Corker’s vote for START probably stems from the insider-old boy network on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on which he sits. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who also voted for START, sits alongside him on the Republican minority on the committee. Led by Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the panel, all three voted for START. Unfortunately, Isakson is not up for re-election until 2016. When he does come up for re-election, we hope that the citizens of Georgia’s Republican Party hold him to account.
Lamar Alexander, also of Tennessee, backed START and faces re-election in 2014.
In a previous column, we called attention to the defections of Republican Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Mike Crapo of Idaho from the ranks of fiscal conservatives. Both Coburn and Crapo voted for the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Commission which recommended cutting the deductions for home mortgages and charitable contributions by two-thirds for most taxpayers and urged the enactment of almost $1 trillion in new taxes.
Coburn and Crapo only announced their intention to endorse the Commission report after they had been re-elected on November 2, 2010.
Here is the vote on New START.
So, who are they:
- Richard Lugar of Indiana – 2012
- Thad Cochran of Mississippi – 2012
- Bob Corker of Tennesses – 2012
- Johnny Isakson of Georgia – 2016
- Lamar Alexander of Tennessee – 2014
- Tom Coburn of Oklahoma – 2016
- Mike Crapo of Idaho – 2016
- Mike Johanns of Nebraska – 2014
Time for conservatives to re-evaluate support of these incumbent Senators and replace them.
Here is their contact information. Give them a call after Christmas and let them know what you think of their sell-out.
Thad Cocheran, MississippiWashington Office
United States Senate
113 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2402
202-224-5054 / 202-224-5054Jackson Office
190 East Capitol St.
Suite 550
Jackson, Mississippi 39201
601-965-4459 / 601-965-4459
Bob Corker, TennesseeWashington, D.C.
United States Senate
Dirksen Senate Office Building
SD-185
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-3344 / 202-224-3344
Fax: 202-228-0566Memphis
100 Peabody Place, Suite 1125
Memphis, TN 38103
Main: 901-683-1910 / 901-683-1910
Fax: 901-575-3528
Mike Crapo, IdahoWashington, DC
239 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-6142
Fax: (202) 228-1375Idaho State Office
251 East Front Street
Suite 205
Boise, ID 83702
Phone: (208) 334-1776
Fax: (208) 334-9044Tom Coburn, Oklahoma
Washington D.C.:
172 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008Tulsa:
1800 South Baltimore
Suite 800
Tulsa, OK 74119
Main: 918-581-7651
Fax: 918-581-7195Oklahoma City:
100 North Broadway
Suite 1820
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Main: 405-231-4941
Fax: 405-231-5051Lamar Alexander, Tennessee
Washington Office
455 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944 / (202) 224-4944
Fax: (202) 228-3398
TTY: (202) 224-1546Memphis Office
Clifford Davis-Odell Horton Federal Building
167 North Main Street, #1068
Memphis, TN 38103
Phone: (901) 544-4224 / (901) 544-4224
Fax: (901) 544-4227Johnny Isakson, Georgia
United States Senate
120 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-3643 / (202) 224-3643
Fax: (202) 228-0724One Overton Park, Suite 970
3625 Cumberland Blvd
Atlanta, GA 30339
Tel: (770) 661-0999 / (770) 661-0999
Fax: (770) 661-0768
Richard Lugar, Indiana306 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1401
(202) 224-4814 p
(202) 228-0360 fSouthern Indiana
101 NW Martin Luther King Boulevard
Room 122
Evansville, Indiana 47708
(812) 465-6313 p
(812) 421-1883 fNortheast Indiana
6384 A West Jefferson Boulevard
Covington Plaza
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46804
(260) 422-1505 p
(260) 424-1342 fCentral Indiana
1180 Market Tower
10 West Market Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
(317) 226-5555 p
(317) 226-5508 fNorthwest Indiana
175 West Lincolnway
Suite G-1
Valparaiso, Indiana 46383
(219) 548-8035 p
(219) 548-7506 f