Calling all Hoosiers! Calling all Hoosiers! It is time to send Dick Lugar packing. Don’t vote for a Lugar that hates your Luger! Vote for Richard Murdoch for Primary.
UPDATE: From Ken, in the comments:
Most of the commentary on Lugar neglects to mention the most important fact about him: he refused to sign onto the Heller amicus brief. He’s more left-wing on guns than Russ Feingold or Pat Leahy, IOW. It would have cost him nothing to do so, yet making an egregious insult toward gun owners, for him, outweighed the obvious political benefit of being on the same side as 75% of the American people. Lugar needs to go.
I had assumed that everyone knew Lugar had a horrible record on the Second Amendment, but I thought this comment drove the point home.
Let’s not forget that Lugar hasn’t lived in IN for more than three decades. He’s been a professional politico who has called D.C home since the early 80’s.
Excellent point. Between the time those stories were published and now, Lugar’s negative numbers shot up dramatically.
It’s a tough time to be seeking reelection as a 30+ year veteran of Washington DC’s “Insider Game”.
Mourdock (not Murdock) is up ten in polls of likely voters. He’ll win the primary handily.
The Dems are moving to make a run in the general, but have a lesser-known candidate. If Mourdock can maintain solidarity within the conservative and republican base, he will win. If they fracture over issues, then the dems have a shot.
Issues that could fracture the Mourdock base: DREAM Act and “working across the aisle”. In both cases, the majority of people who say they are voting for Mourdock also overwhelmingly support the “liberal side” of those issues – meaning they are generally in favor of some sort of citizenship path for children of illegals who graduate or serve in military; and also want their Senator to work across the aisle even if that means “compromising some of their principles”. Source: Howey/DePauw state poll
Dems will try to paint Mourdock an extremist, and in Indiana that won’t go over well. The Tea Party will scream murder if their candidate wavers on anything. The dems will use that to their advantage.
Of note is that the 2A issue is not a serious discussion point among independents or those in the “leaning republican” categories. That means it’s off radar and hence less likely to influence middle voters.
So guns are not going to be serious deciding factors – they can only be used to get out the vote among those who already drink our Kool-Aid. They won’t appear to cause much in the way of new support, but the level of current support is high enough to be non-trivial. Expect the (D) side to play soft on the issue and avoid angering the horde: they will do enough to avoid the protest vote but not enough to turn off their liberal backers. It’ll be interesting.
In short, Mourdock will win the primary on the strength of the Tea Party vote, but that strength might make him a weaker candidate in the general. He will need to thread the needle in November by going somewhat more moderate on issues at the same time he keeps the TP folks from going bonkers as he does the same.
These are not my views of how it should be, simply a view of how they appear to be.
Hoooooookay. So Indiana, a state with, what? two Hispanic voters? will reject a candidate for opposing the DREAM act. Gotcha.
Candidates win on issues, not on MSM-defined “moderation.”
In just about every state, you don’t have a majority of voters in any party. You have to win enough independents to carry an election. I think it’s true that you win or lose on issues ultimately, but if your position on issues alienates enough moderates, you’ll lose the election.
I spoke not of “MSM-defined moderation”, but of the polls conducted in Indiana.
Republican and leaning-Republican (these two groups totaled 84% of those polled) voters were asked, “Do you support or oppose allowing the children of illegal immigrants who graduate from high school and have no criminal record and serve in the U.S. military or attend college a path of full U.S. citizenship?”
22% said they “strongly supported” that; 32% said “somewhat support” while just 13% said they “somewhat oppose” and 19% “strongly opposed.” The aggregate on that question was 54% supporting and 32% opposing.
These are hard numbers from the people who voted in this primary. The polls only included 2% Dem/leaning-Dem voters and 14% who claimed no party leaning. Everyone else (84%) trended Republican. You can interpret them any way you wish, but I will note that non-Hispnic voters on both sides of the aisle favor limited amnesty (see: Chamber of Commerce). Again…those are the raw numbers.
As for opinion & my view of those numbers: people wanted Lugar gone, be it guns or whatever. Several Tea Party folks were interviewed this evening on CNN and other networks and essentially said the same thing: they’d love to take full credit but the fact is that Lugar was not even allowed to vote in Indiana because he no longer had an address there and hadn’t been in the state in a long time. The Tea Party had an effect and “grew” Mourdock, but once the base got hold of a single challenger to Lugar the fix was in.
The out-of-touch thing hurt Lugar badly. I think his general trend of being more liberal than the people who elected him stung him. Too much time in DC tends to warp people’s minds.
Again, the last bit is only my read on the numbers, and they are hardly gospel. But the numbers are what they are, and Mourdock is going to have to watch them as he pivots to fight in the general election. He can either try to change the minds of 54% of his base, or he can moderate his words and try not to annoy them. Or something in between.
If I had to predict, I’d say he’ll treat amnesty the way the Dems treat guns: carefully and at arms-length. It’ll be interesting to see how he does that with the Tea Party looking over his shoulder.
It bugs me that Lugar isn’t on our side. At least we have Gary Mauser.
Way ahead of ya. Voted for Mourdock bright and early this morning.
Most of the commentary on Lugar neglects to mention the most important fact about him: he refused to sign onto the Heller amicus brief. He’s more left-wing on guns than Russ Feingold or Pat Leahy, IOW. It would have cost him nothing to do so, yet making an egregious insult toward gun owners, for him, outweighed the obvious political benefit of being on the same side as 75% of the American people. Lugar needs to go.
Looks like he’s out, based on what NBC’s saying here.