This is on the party. They misjudged the level of dislike for the establishment that was happening at that time. Mourdock was the only one to buck the party. Had the party taken more of a reasonable approach, a better candidate might have been found. Becky Skillman could have been a good, solid, likeable candidate. But no.
The party did the same thing all those years against Julia Carson, when it went of its way not to support whoever was running against her.
I’m not sticking up for Lugar; he was a first-class RINO.
I think the problem was that Lugar had been around so long, that most of the people in the Indiana GOP heirarchy looked at him as a father figure. They all worked on one of his campaigns when they were in college and thinking about careers in politics. Nobody of stature had the balls to go to him quietly and tell him his time was up and he needed to retire gracefully.
Mourdock ran as an outsider, and even after the primary I don’t think he was embraced by the Party. He certainly wasn’t getting top-flight coaching. Good conservative, terrible candidate. Even before the abortion gaffe at the debate, his election was by no means certain. Donnelly on the other hand, was a good candidate. He was very good at portraying Mourdock as a “right wing extremist” and Mourdock was always on the defensive. We all knew Donnelly was an in-the-tank party apparatchik who would toe the Party Line. It wasn’t sold to the public.
So yes, this one is on the Party. Old guys like Lugar who are done need to be politely retired. New guys need to be waiting in the wings. We did pretty well with replacing Daniels with Pence in the governor’s office. Becky Skillman would have been a good candidate to replace Lugar.
As for Julia Carson, she was unbeatable. She had the most corrupt political machine in place to run a gerrymandered district designed to elect her forever. Andy Jacobs saw the writing on the wall and left office rather than get whacked by her in a primary. It doesn’t matter who the GOP runs for that seat, it is as solidly democrat as any other urban district. It will always be held by someone whose job is to “redistribute the wealth,” or as the early 80’s campaign slogan of Richard Hatcher in Gary stated: “Let’s get it ALL together!”