I am from Indiana, and Mourdock was a poor candidate. He was a very unappealing candidate in many ways. He lost because he beat Lugar, but I suspect he beat Lugar because Dems voted for him in the primary. They then trapped him on the abortion-rape issue because they knew it would work. Same thing as Akin.
Tea Party shot itself in the foot by getting off the original message.
JMO, but the Tea Party needs to stay off the abortion issue. NOT because we don’t care about abortion, but because it will destroy an otherwise winning candidate.
My approach is to leave abortion out of political races. We need to win abortion in the marketplace of ideas and not at the ballot box. This does not mean we should run pro-abortion candidates. It just means that they should leave the issue alone.
The Dems win by accepting part of what they want each time, instead of demanding everything all at once. We need to learn that lesson. As much as I hate politics, it is what we need to do.