Mourdock

Speaking of Indiana being maligned by big-shot journalists, another media idiot -- Matt Taylor of Slate this time -- is going down the Extremist Hoosier Boobs Straying From Moderate Enlightenment path:

Richard Lugar, victim of Incumbent Entitlement Syndrome:

Lugar did not lose because the Tea Party targeted him. He lost because he was no longer representing the people of Indiana. In theory and practice he has truly become a United States senator.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as nationalhogfarmer.com, but here they weigh in with what seems like a commonsense obersvation missed by everyone else about the Lugar-Mourdock race:

I've written before that Sen. Richard Lugar's votes in favor of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan are among the most important evidence that the senator has not really been a good soldier in the war of ideas. He continued to play by the old-school gentlemen's rules dictating that the president's picks are given deference. But the rules of the game have become tougher and much nastier. There is no indication the other side is going to go back to the old rules, so Lugar's insistence on honoring them amounts to unilateral disarmament.

Some candidates "are at their most likable in defeat," but Dick Lugar's "long, defensieve, election night statement" forcers the question, "Dick Lugar, poor loser?"

I am a better Republican than my party deserved, he tells us: “According to Congressional Quarterly vote studies, I supported President Reagan more often than any other Senator...”

Operation Counterweight:

The Lugar-Mourdock race is about core principles. Some people get that:

What all of this means is the NRA and other conservative groups don’t agree with former Senator Rick Santorum that “sometimes you take one for the team” by allowing even your principles to be negotiable.

Lugar is kind of confessing to the crime conservatives have been accusing him of, isn't he?

Republican Sen. Richard Lugar lobbied Democrats and independents Friday to cross party lines and save him next week in the political fight of his life.

There is the term RINO for "Republican in name only." We need a new term for people like columnist Peggy Noonan, the Conservatives Desperately Seeking Approval from The Other Side. Today, she offers her advice on the Lugar-Mourdock race.

Let's wade into an argument, and on what may well be the losing side.

It puts a strain on the whole family when Grampy gets grumpy, but, hey, it's a natural thing. A Journal & Courier columnist spots "Richard Lugar on an unfamiliar low road":

Lugar's guys ask whether the state treasurer, who keeps gaining in the polls ahead of the May 8 primary, is: "Incompetent? Careless? Tax Cheat?"