Six and out?

Because of Sen. Richard Lugar's votes on such issues as New START and the DREAM Act, his support for earmarks and his votes to confirm Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, he's certain to face a Tea Party challenge in the primary next year:

Hoping to head off a primary challenge from the right, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, sat down with Tea Party leaders last month but did little to persuade them of his conservative credentials.

The two-hour meeting, which took place over breakfast on Dec. 13th at a Marriott hotel in downtown Indianapolis, was described by participants on both sides as "cordial," but the Tea Party activists left vowing to oppose Lugar's bid for a seventh term.

"The Senator said he hoped he could earn the support of the Tea Party, and that he is conservative," said Greg Fettig, the co-founder of Hoosier Patriots. Fettig was joined in the meeting by Monica Boyer of Kosciusko "Silent No More," a Tea Party group in northeast Indiana.

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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.

One of the complaints about Lugar made frequently is that, whatever his virtues, he has "been in Washington too long." The senator's response is to actually boast about how long he's been there. His office put out the word this week that he was preparing to serve his 12,421st day in Congress and that he has cast 12,587 votes.