No doubt you've noticed the endorsements: the Club for Growth for Richard Mourdock; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for Richard Lugar. There is an epic battle going on, and Indiana is right in the middle of it:
Big business and the Tea Party are at swords' points once again, with GOP Senate primaries for the second straight election becoming proxy battles in the war over the soul of the Republican Party.
Conservative insurgents pose serious threats this year to establishment Republicans in at least three open-seat Senate races. In every case, political action committees and lobbyists have hugely favored the establishment pick with contributions. One reason: The GOP establishment rallies industry donors behind the Republican seen as stronger in November. A deeper reason: The revolving-door clique of K Street and Capitol Hill operatives needs Republicans elected to upper chamber who are likely to play ball.
"We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples," former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said last election cycle. "As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them." Lott is now a millionaire corporate lobbyist whose clients include bailout beneficiaries like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, subsidy sucklers like General Electric and for-profit colleges and government contractors like Raytheon. He likes Republicans who don't take their limited-government talk so darn seriously -- team players who won't rock the boat, in part because they are eying K Street jobs after retirement.
[. . .]
Much of the Left and the media may see no difference between libertarians and Tea Partiers on one hand, and K Street and the business lobby on the other. But the revolving-door players know the difference, and they're willing to spend big to put their people in power.
"Co-opting" has worked out nicely for Mr. Lott and his buddies so far -- it's why the freshman class of Tea Pariters hasn't gotten much accomplished in the House in the last two years. But if we could sneak a few more of them into the Senate, too . . .
