Posted on 05/08/2012 5:29:23 PM PDT by Steelfish
Tea Party Upstart Mourdock Defeats Longtime Indiana Sen. Lugar
By Kim Geiger May 8, 2012 Richard Mourdock has defeated longtime Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana in the Republican primary, according to an Associated Press projection, ending the career of one of the Senate’s most pragmatic politicians and casting a cloud over GOP efforts to win control of the chamber.
Mourdock, state treasurer in Indiana, campaigned as a conservative alternative to Lugar. He became a darling of the tea party movement after he began a legal challenge to the terms of the Obama administration’s bailout of Chrysler.
Mourdock was endorsed by Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Lugar had the backing of the party establishment, including Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Mourdock will face Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, a three-term congressman from the South Bend area, this fall. The matchup is the preferred outcome for Democrats, who view Lugar’s ouster as an opportunity to pick up a longtime Republican seat.
"Richard Mourdock is this year's Ken Buck," said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Executive Director Guy Cecil. Buck was a tea-party-backed Republican who upset the establishment favorite in the GOP primary in Colorado in 2010, only to lose in November. "Tonight's results make the Indiana Senate race a toss-up."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
You might say a Lugie was just ex-Specterated....
The Establishment did that in at least three or four races in 2010. They’re the reason the GOP doesn’t control the Senate. They lost on purpose.
That's who Etch a Sketch really is.
Yes, as I said, they lost a number of races on purpose.
I'm sure the GOPe can find a way around it.
***Mourdock was endorsed by Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Lugar had the backing of the party establishment, including Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).***
How d’ya like them apples, GOPe?
I think TX will nominate Dewhurst because it has heard of him; the people there don’t know Cruz, who can’t match Dewhurst in name ID, which means everything to the uninformed.
That may be asking more than the people of UT are capable of doing.
I think our Republic would be better served if instead of demanding that the tea party movement be lock-step unified over abortion and gays, and beating people about the head with the phrase “baby killing”, conservatives instead talked about the Constitution, the original intent of the founders, federalism, and the proper role of judges. We need to overturn Roe v. Wade but we also need to ditch Social Security and a lot of other New Deal and Great Society garbage. If we focus on the tactics of the leftists (i.e. judicial activism) rather than any specific results (e.g. mandatory legal abortion) we are striking at the real root of the problem and doing so in a way that allows us to pitch a big tent and get the numbers necessary to accomplish our goals.
On the other hand we can just stand outside on street corners waving placards with graphic photos of aborted fetuses and scream at people that we are first and foremost opposed to “baby killing”.
Again, Obama, the leftists, and Satan are hoping that we define ourselves with that second approach rather than the first.
Well, maybe it's time for you to stop sobbing like a heartbroken schoolgirl, strap on a set, and join the fight for liberty.
If Americans were nothing but contemptible little defeatist worms there would be no America.
Everything that this nation is was secured by people who fought instead of sniveling.
Exactly. Conservatism had a great day yesterday and yet some FReepers want to sit around crying about how all is lost.
great news!
The TEA Party has several factions. Some but not all of them are anti-social Conservatism.
Just like to say, we were here first while you guys were screwing around with the Democrats, or the equally dredful "moderate republicans".
It's long overdue for you to get with the picture and lay off the anti-social conservative stuff. We are not your enemy although you seem to think you should be ours.
Not to mention Colorado and Alaska, among others.
He and his pals will certainly try to do it in Indiana. I'd be surprised if they don't have back channel contact with Donnelly, as we all know they did with Coons.
"I found out what party loyalty means. It means the conservatives have to support the liberals, but never the other way around." -- Seantor Richard Schweiker (R-Pa), returning from the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City.
Sadly, it's still true.
"I found out what party loyalty means. It means the conservatives have to support the liberals, but never the other way around." -- Senator Richard Schweiker (R-Pa), returning from the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City.
Sadly, it's still true.
Briar patch politics.
132 posted on Wed May 09 2012 01:03:39 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by rogue yam: “You fail to understand the tea party. The tea party movement is centered on the understanding that massive deficits, excessive taxation and regulation, and cronyism will cause America's economy to collapse. Social conservatives who are wise will be glad for the tea party movement and will help pitch a big tent in the near term while seeking converts to the social conservative cause over the medium term. Foolish social conservatives with no wisdom and no game will demand that the tea party movement be anti-abortion and anti-gay from the start and in this way weaken and divide it. Obama, the leftists in general, and Satan are counting on the short-sighted social conservatives to save them from the tea party movement.”
135 posted on Wed May 09 2012 01:26:35 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by Waryone: “Both the democrats and the RINOs would love to kill off both the social conservatives and the TEA party. For all their talk about social conservatives being a problem, given what has happened all around tonight, I’d say those marxists and socialists are not having very much success.”
All of you raise **REALLY** important points.
I understand coalition politics. None of the three legs of the conservative stool — social, economic or national defense conservatives — have enough voters in many districts and most states to win elections on their own. If we don't get to 50 percent, we lose to a Democrat who in most cases will be worse than even the worst Republican candidate.
That means I have no problem supporting someone who is a political conservative whose primary interest is economics or the military but doesn't profess to be born again, provided, as muawiyah points out, that they're not pro-abortion. After all, punishing evildoers is one of the key tasks of civil government under Romans 13, and abortion is murder, plain and simple.
However, is it too much to ask that people who are not social issues conservatives refrain from attacking the Judeo-Christian principles on which this country was founded, or ridiculing the faith commitments of religious believers?
I cut my teeth in conservative politics long before I was converted to evangelical Christianity. I understand both sides of the fence on this, and things are much better today in the Republican Party for evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics than they were in the 1980s.
The problem is it needs to be a two-way street.
I'm willing to support someone like Newt Gingrich if he's the best candidate (or in his case, was the best candidate left after others pulled out). After all, there's no doubt Gingrich is a historian and understands the roots of Western civilization. He wasn't my first choice, but he was **WAY** better than what we've got now.
Are people who don't share social conservative positions willing to support avowed evangelical Protestants or conservative Roman Catholics who are generally conservative on economic or national defense issues but maybe not perfect? Or do they expect us to stay at the back of the bus, waiting for some future date at which it will be the “right time” for our concerns about moral collapse to be addressed?
Coalitions can and do work, but they work only when the coalition partners understand that compromises can't be one-sided.
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