More and more political observers are saying Richard Lugar may be in trouble in his primary fight with Richard Mourdock. Here's The Weekly Standard:
After a lifetime of political good fortune in Indiana, Senator Richard Lugar can’t catch a break. He is facing what Politico calls his “toughest reelection campaign in decades,” and with the May 8 GOP primary looming, he desperately needs to repair relations with party conservatives.
In few states is the party base as certifiably conservative as in Indiana. One poll shows 70 percent of the state’s Republicans respect the Tea Party—and few issues raise the ire of these party activists like congressional earmarks in spending bills.
So what does Lugar do? Three months before the primary, when the Senate had a chance to ban this symbol of big-government malfeasance, Lugar joined with Harry Reid in a key Senate vote to save earmarking.
And the residency issue is gaining traction. Andrea Neal, formerly of The Indianapolis Star and now an adjunct scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, defends Lugar:
To borrow a phrase from the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, I may not be able to define the word Hoosier, but I know one when I see him. And Sen. Richard G. Lugar is the quintessential Hoosier.
Lugar has spent most of his life in public service on behalf of the residents of this state.
[. . .]
His residency is a nonissue under state and federal constitutions, and to claim otherwise is gamesmanship bordering on untruth.
Her defense draws the ire of Gary Welsh at Advance Indiana, who says in the post headline, "Neal Part Of The Media Mafia Protecting Lugar":
Sen. Richard Lugar has thumbed his nose at the U.S. Constitution and its requirement that he be an inhabitant of the state of Indiana in order to serve it in the U.S. Senate for 35 years now by refusing to maintain a home within the state. The facts are undisputed, but the Indiana media continues to lie to Hoosier voters about the constitutional requirement that Lugar is breaking by not having a home in Indiana. Andrea Neal, a very shallow former editor for the Indianapolis Star, perpretrates the big lie in a column she inks today in the Star, entitled, "Now as then, he's a Hoosier."
Ouch. Getting rough out there.
Comments
I really wish he would have simply acknowledged the handwriting on the wall and gracefully stepped aside in favor of ANY new republican candidate. Of course it would be hard to read the handwriting or hear the growing disenchantment if you're never in Indiana anyway.