South Bend Tribune political columnist Jack Colwell doesn't think much of the Tea Party types who are saying mean things about Richard Lugar:
The TV attacks are paid for by the Club for Growth, a national conservative organization seeking to defeat Republicans it deems not sufficiently right-wing and replace them with more doctrinaire conservatives.
[. . .]
As with most negative political TV, the attacks on Lugar have deception and seek to turn voters against him in the very area where he is strongest.
"Thirty-five years," the negative narrator says. "That's how long Richard Lugar's been in Washington. What's he done about our debt?"
Ignore a distinguished career without scandal and with many significant accomplishments, including making the nation safer through destruction of nuclear weapons once pointed at us? Look only at the number of years served and the national debt?
I've read Colwell for years, on a fairly regular basis back when I worked in Michigan City. He's not exactly a raving conservative, or even a consistent "moderate," so his take on Lugar needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. He raises an interesting point, though, about the narrowness of the complaints against Lugar. In many ways Lugar is still very much a conservative. But in other ways, he shows the effects of being in Washington too long. I think that is a little more serious than Colwell does. Politicians too long in Washington tend to lose touch with the real world.
This kind of tugging -- from the right for Republicans and from the left for Democrats -- is natural and healthy. Even if Lugar wins (likely) the challenge might make him a little more aware of the party's base, and that's not a bad thing.
