INDIANAPOLIS— Indiana's departing U.S.Sen. Richard is leaving the Senate with one last act of compromise in support of Congress' "fiscal cliff" deal.
The Muncie Star-Press editorial page is mighty pleased that that nasty extremist, Tea Party partisan Richard Mourdock lost by 6 percent to that paragon of moderate virtue Joe Donnelly:
Well, Mr. Lugar, we know there's at least one person who's gonna miss you:
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren went at each other like prizefighters in this Golden Gloves town, jabs and roundhouses over her Native American heritage claims, his ties to the GOP and who really cares about the middle class.
[. . .]
From a thoroughly depressing analysis by The Associated Press:
Richard Mourdock became one of the tea party's biggest winners of the 2012 primary season when he knocked off veteran Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar in a brutal campaign built on his contention that Lugar was too old, too out of touch and too friendly with Democrats – a RINO, Republican in name only.
The question in Texas isn't whether a Republican will succeed Kay Bailey Hutchinson in the U.S. Senate but what kind of Republican. It's beginning to look like "extreme" tea party conservative Ted Cruz might knock off long-term membr of the Texas GOP establishment David Dewhurst in the primary. If that sounds awfully familiar, it should:
Hallelujah -- farm subsudies may be up for grabs:
The Senate is expected to begin debate this week on a five-year farm and food aid bill that would save $9.3 billion by ending direct payments to farmers and replacing them with subsidized insurance programs for when the weather turns bad or prices go south.
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:
If it was fair to make Richard Lugar's residence in Virginia an issue, it's fair to ask the same questions about gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence, and that's just what Democratic opponent John Gregg is doing:
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.
