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...”
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.
I suppose the critics are going to say Indiana is out of step, just like they did back during the daylight-saving-time debate:
You remember that right-to-work law the General Assembly passed. It was going to create a paradise with full employment! It was going to create a hell of exploitation of the downtrodden!
Oh, not so much. Whatever effects there will be are likely to be small and difficult to measure. But don't let that get in the way of the heated rhetoric:
One more Lugar-Mourdock difference:
Senator Dick Lugar still won’t say whether he’ll support state treasurer Richard Mourdock if he wins the Republican primary on May 8. My repeated requests for comment on this topic have been rebuffed or evaded by the Lugar camp.
[. . .]
Not up for the driver-of-the-year award:
VALPARAISO | A Porter County sheriff's officer involved in five vehicle-related incidents was relieved of his duties Thursday afternoon.
