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Subscribe to RSSIndiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock breaks down his defeat of six-term Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind.
An epic good-bye letter, passed along by NBC's Libby Leist, from Sen. Richard Lugar, dissecting everything he sees that's wrong with Washington and both parties:
Prepared Statement of Senator Richard G. Lugar on the Concluded Indiana Senate Primary
May 8, 2012
I would like to comment on the Senate race just concluded and the direction of American politics and the Republican Party. I would reiterate from my earlier statement that I have no regrets about choosing to run for office. My health is excellent, I believe that I have been a very effective Senator for Hoosiers and for the country, and I know that the next six years would have been a time of great achievement. Further, I believed that vital national priorities, including job creation, deficit reduction, energy security, agriculture reform, and the Nunn-Lugar program, would benefit from my continued service as a Senator. These goals were worth the risk of an electoral defeat and the costs of a hard campaign.
Analysts will speculate about whether our campaign strategies were wise. Much of this will be based on conjecture by pundits who don't fully appreciate the choices we had to make based on resource limits, polling data, and other factors. They also will speculate whether we were guilty of overconfidence.
The truth is that the headwinds in this race were abundantly apparent long before Richard Mourdock announced his candidacy. One does not highlight such headwinds publically when one is waging a campaign. But I knew that I would face an extremely strong anti-incumbent mood following a recession. I knew that my work with then-Senator Barack Obama would be used against me, even if our relationship were overhyped. I also knew from the races in 2010 that I was a likely target of Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and other Super Pacs dedicated to defeating at least one Republican as a purification exercise to enhance their influence over other Republican legislators.
We undertook this campaign soberly and we worked very hard in 2010, 2011, and 2012 to overcome these challenges. There never was a moment when my campaign took anything for granted. This is why we put so much effort into our get out the vote operations.
Ultimately, the re-election of an incumbent to Congress usually comes down to whether voters agree with the positions the incumbent has taken. I knew that I had cast recent votes that would be unpopular with some Republicans and that would be targeted by outside groups.
These included my votes for the TARP program, for government support of the auto industry, for the START Treaty, and for the confirmations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. I also advanced several propositions that were considered heretical by some, including the thought that Congressional earmarks saved no money and turned spending power over to unelected bureaucrats and that the country should explore options for immigration reform.
It was apparent that these positions would be attacked in a Republican primary. But I believe that they were the right votes for the country, and I stand by them without regrets, as I have throughout the campaign.
From time to time during the last two years I heard from well-meaning individuals who suggested that I ought to consider running as an independent. My response was always the same: I am a Republican now and always have been. I have no desire to run as anything else. All my life, I have believed in the Republican principles of small government, low taxes, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and trade expansion. According to Congressional Quarterly vote studies, I supported President Reagan more often than any other Senator. I want to see a Republican elected President, and I want to see a Republican majority in the Congress. I hope my opponent wins in November to help give my friend Mitch McConnell a majority.
If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington. He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate. In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party. His answer to the inevitable roadblocks he will encounter in Congress is merely to campaign for more Republicans who embrace the same partisan outlook. He has pledged his support to groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it.
This is not conducive to problem solving and governance. And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve. The most consequential of these is stabilizing and reversing the Federal debt in an era when millions of baby boomers are retiring. There is little likelihood that either party will be able to impose their favored budget solutions on the other without some degree of compromise.
Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country. And partisan groups, including outside groups that spent millions against me in this race, are determined to see that this continues. They have worked to make it as difficult as possible for a legislator of either party to hold independent views or engage in constructive compromise. If that attitude prevails in American politics, our government will remain mired in the dysfunction we have witnessed during the last several years. And I believe that if this attitude expands in the Republican Party, we will be relegated to minority status. Parties don't succeed for long if they stop appealing to voters who may disagree with them on some issues.
Legislators should have an ideological grounding and strong beliefs identifiable to their constituents. I believe I have offered that throughout my career. But ideology cannot be a substitute for a determination to think for yourself, for a willingness to study an issue objectively, and for the fortitude to sometimes disagree with your party or even your constituents. Like Edmund Burke, I believe leaders owe the people they represent their best judgment.
Too often bipartisanship is equated with centrism or deal cutting. Bipartisanship is not the opposite of principle. One can be very conservative or very liberal and still have a bipartisan mindset. Such a mindset acknowledges that the other party is also patriotic and may have some good ideas. It acknowledges that national unity is important, and that aggressive partisanship deepens cynicism, sharpens political vendettas, and depletes the national reserve of good will that is critical to our survival in hard times. Certainly this was understood by President Reagan, who worked with Democrats frequently and showed flexibility that would be ridiculed today - from assenting to tax increases in the 1983 Social Security fix, to compromising on landmark tax reform legislation in 1986, to advancing arms control agreements in his second term.
I don't remember a time when so many topics have become politically unmentionable in one party or the other. Republicans cannot admit to any nuance in policy on climate change. Republican members are now expected to take pledges against any tax increases. For two consecutive Presidential nomination cycles, GOP candidates competed with one another to express the most strident anti-immigration view, even at the risk of alienating a huge voting bloc. Similarly, most Democrats are constrained when talking about such issues as entitlement cuts, tort reform, and trade agreements. Our political system is losing its ability to even explore alternatives. If fealty to these pledges continues to expand, legislators may pledge their way into irrelevance. Voters will be electing a slate of inflexible positions rather than a leader.
I hope that as a nation we aspire to more than that. I hope we will demand judgment from our leaders. I continue to believe that Hoosiers value constructive leadership. I would not have run for office if I did not believe that.
As someone who has seen much in the politics of our country and our state, I am able to take the long view. I have not lost my enthusiasm for the role played by the United States Senate. Nor has my belief in conservative principles been diminished. I expect great things from my party and my country. I hope all who participated in this election share in this optimism.
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I hope Senator Lugar has a chat with his friend, Senator McConnell, because it is McConnell who has held governance hostage to the goal of defeating this President. The Republicans are not interested in governing - they are interested in a dysfunctional country so they can blame this President. Do you really think they want the economy to improve when that is the only thing they have to run on and the only their candidate can point to as a strength (despite Romney's very poor track record in Massachusetts).
"so they can blame the President". Well, why not? He blames everything on them, or George Bush! Tit for tat.
When BOTH sides stop the blame game and get serious about DOING SOMETHING, then we'll see. Until then, BOTH sides are the face on the same coin, MtnWoman54. You go right ahead and lay all the blame on the Republicans if that makes you feel better - it won't make a difference in the long run.
Romney had a poor track record in Massachusetts because he was surrounded by the most corrupt group of Democrats in the nation!
*facepalm*
Senator Lugar is a good man that should have come to understand two things..... Politics makes odd bedfellows and when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas!
Yes they were, long before his candidacy. They were apparent with the birther rants but we heard nothing from the Republican leadership. They were apparent with the "Obama is a Muslim"gibberish but we heard nothing from Republican leadership. They were and have been apparent in the hate speech and hostile rhetoric that dominates the cable channels and sites like this but rarely do we hear any leader from any party stand up and say enough.
The Tea Party is destroying the Grand old Party and stripping what was a great voice of loyal opposition to a shrill droneof anti intellectualism and Republicans have none to blame but themselves. You sold your integrity for a vote that ultimately went the wrong way.
And the same holds true for many in the democratic party. Let's hope that those who think in more progressive ways can learn from what we have observed. It is time to put aside the ego driven trash talk and address issues in pursuit of solutions that are reasonable and fair to all our countrymen. There are some who will never change their minds or attitudes as that is the way of the world. But in a Presidential race where the candidates are a mere 4 or 5 percentage points apart, we must resist the temptation to trade partisan jibes and focus on reasonable discussion to resolve legitimate differences of opinion. The middle yearns for a sincere voice of reason. Let's follow the example of our President and give it to them.
So Mr. Obama didn't start this with his Health Care Law that was pushed through without any GOP input? He had to bribe his own party members to get it to pass. The GOP should just look the other way, correct? NO, Mr. Obama started this; he has divided the country like NO other president in history! The Health Care Law is going down just like his love of illegals! I thought he was a constitutional lawyer?? HAHAHA Sorry, can't blame Bush for this one, Mr. Obama is responsible. One and done for our racist president!
Oreo.....Back in 2008 an election was held and a guy won and he pushed through the agenda he ran on..... He was elected to push through that agenda and not by one Republican vote. That's the way it works. Keep talking about Obama dividing the country while you seek to discriminate against those with darker skin, de-legitimize the relationships between committed individuals, reductions in programs that provide support while you hold fast for additional tax benefits for the most wealthy, denying access to women in desperate need of health care and by all means, keep telling us that only the Christian point of view is valid in America and then tell any who are still listening that your words are meant to bring the country together.
Well Senator Lugar, if you had represented Indiana instead of Mexico you might have been in good shape. The campaign money is in favor of unlimited access, by business, to illegal alien workers. In Indiana you can't go five miles without finding a business that is hiring illegal aliens. The people are tired of business where only the illegal need apply and the protection Lugar has given them.
That is why you got beat by twenty one percent, Sir.
well, this liberal independent has stood up from her chair and is applauding this man. bravo, senator lugar!
Again - more evidence as to why he's gone. He's a hero to the democrat party/progressive liberals. He's not a republican.
I'll say it again. Lugar is out and that's good. He's just one of many Cadavers in Washington that have to go. Add Pelosi, Reid, McCain and Leahy to that list, as a "start"
Republican Primary voters have exposed that their brains seriously lack determinative capabilities. Senator Lugar's defeat only indicates to me that voters have lost their minds to hallucinating drugs and chemicals. No surprise to me.
Alpha Omega
Would you be more specific? When a candidate gets beat by twenty-one percent we assume that the electorite was pretty committed. Republicans are generally well educated. Do you have anything to add that is more than banal invective.
Education has nothing to do with it.
Hateful old man!
that was a good letter. Too bad it was right on the money, the political partisanship is taking us in a downward spiral I dont see how we'll get out of. The wealthy are able to control congress, political extremes are the order of the day, Its not about the American people anymore, its about those few individuals with the wealth and the connections to make things go their own way at the expense of all other things. Obama may not be perfect, but he at least understands that extremism, on either side doesnt help the people. The GOP obstructs him for no other reason then that they want his job. They wont make deals with him cause they consider that a "win" for him. Lugar is right, the GOP will become the minority party if they continue in this manner, good riddance to bad rubbish I say.
Lugar is right about one thing. In a dynamic world that is moving forward, when you are standing still, you are actually falling behind. Nothing will get done unless parties on both sides are willing to compromise. I can assure you that there is no one who has been successful in life that has not been able to compromise and to try to get to win/win solutions. I had the financial ability to retire early and have had time to reflect on a 35-year career. I an tell you that my biggest successes came when I pursued win/win strategies and my biggest failures occurred dug in. (I felt good when I dug in but did not accomplish anything.) It took me 35-years to see this. I am afraid this country will go through a very dark and long period before it sees the light.
Indiana and our country lost a great Senator yesterday, who recognized our Founding Fathers established a government based on getting things done through the art of compromise and consensus-building. Sen. Lugar was willing to do things right for all Americans and America even if it cost him re-election. Hopefully, Indiana will elect a Senator who supports those same principles instead of a person who will only move forward legislation if it meets his/her narrow interests or his/her way, and nothing else, without considering the needs of all Americans.
Having such an obstructionist with such a narrow-minded approach will only add to the toxicity in Congress and America, plus support the continued decline of civility both in Congress and America. And that would be a shame.
how'd that 1986 "fix" to Social Security work out? Only a complete narcissist lier could claim success on long term failure.
how many terms did this military industrial complex lobbyist work for us?
really, we need term limits and real Civil Servants and not self serving Nihilist who cannot just follow the damn Constitution they swore to uphold.
lost an election? should be arrested and jailed!
Senator Lugar is a gentleman and a well meaning individual.
Unfortunately he has lost touch with his voters. He is a man who couldnt even vote for himself, because he no longer kept a residence in Indiana.
While it isnt a requirement that he keeps a residence in Indiana, it is a symptom of what people dont like about DC. Too many career politicians, who think they should be senator for life.
Senator Lugar has had 35 years to make Washington a better place. Its now someone elses turn to try.
Why on earth would these Republicans have gone with a Tea Party candidate? These crackpots can't participate in the democratic process. They can't work with others.
Uh, maybe it had something to do with him helping balance the state's budget and, believe it or not, returning tax dollars when we actually ran a surplus?
I guess that makes him a tea party extremist? Get back to "work" at your civil servant union job hassling and regulating the private sector.
acyl72, I have a civil servant union job. I work in corrections keeping murderers, bank robbers, and pedophiles under lock and key. And all for 17.35 per hour, un armed. There are days when it is me and four others in a rec yard with 500 inmates. I only hassle those who have broken the laws and been convicted. We're short handed and hiring. Come join us if you have the balls. If not keep your quibbling to yourself!
" Bipartisanship acknowledges that the other party is patriotic and may have some good ideas." Let me go wash my hands after typing that. The only idea Democrats have is seeing the hammer and sickle flying over the Capital.
You're a simplistic idiot.
Great letter. Unfortunately, consensus building and bi-partisanship have gone the way of the do-do bird. We, as a country, are too busy being republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives to even attempt to work together toward a common goal.
A good summation of the Tea Party philosophy of governance. They don't want to accomplish much as legislators. Achieving little is their ideal of "small government" legislature.
They have no use for problem solving since they've already determined that governance is the problem and that they are the solution.
Wow... if everyone in congress had his attitude maybe they would accomplish something!
Good riddance to the fossil.
Excellent assessment of the partisan stalemate that will hinder this nation from succeeding as it could. Neither party is blameless.
Legalized bigotry!! gonna boycott that state!
Glad to see Luger gone. He's the instrument GHWB used to gut our military. For those of you who do NOT understand,.....you will.
I totally agree with the letter that Lugar wrote. It is a great loss to the state of Indiana to lose Senator Lugar and one of the few Republican Senators left that was smart enough to realize that there needs to be bi-partisanship to get things done that need to be done like properly address the debt, taxes, health care and immigration reform. The Republican party has become so inflexible that they are creating a future for themselves where they will likely become a permanent minority party. Their tactics may work in the short term. But when they gain power and their policies royally fail they will be cornered with nowhere to turn and they will look to the next generation, women and minorities that they shunned and essentially beg them to vote for them but they won't because they pushed them away for good.
It's sort of like shopping at a store. You shop there as a faithful customer for years. Then one time they give you horrible service and you decide that you will never shop there again and you never do shop there again. The Republicans are giving voters horrible service and many will never come back to vote for them ever again.
The Republican party has gotten ridiculous. Romney and them pushed to let the US auto companies go bankrupt and go permanently out of business. And now Romney is trying to claim that he's responsible for their great turn around? Is the American public really that dumb to believe that?
He forgot something along the way - "We The People". They sent him to DC, and they've sent him his return ticket. The PACs didn't vote, the people did. Civility isn't the greatest attribute of a people's representative, it's courage. Courage to do the right thing for the folks that sent you. Welcome to retirement to K Street.
Lugar is not Republican enough anymore for Republican idealists who see any kind of statesmanship, diplomacy, tact, and compromise as weakness and lacking purity of Republican thought. That is also going to be the reason Republicans will lose in November because most sane, reasonable people see those as strengths not weaknesses.
ah, so according to your statement, all Republicans are insane and not reasonable. Nice generalization. And you wonder why there's no compromise.
"These included my votes for the TARP program, for government support of the auto industry, for the START Treaty, and for the confirmations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. I also advanced several propositions that were considered heretical by some, including the thought that Congressional earmarks saved no money and turned spending power over to unelected bureaucrats and that the country should explore options for immigration reform. "
"All my life, I have believed in the Republican principles of small government, low taxes, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and trade expansion."
These two paragraphs expose the lie.
He should have run as a democrat
Another RHINO gone - I have no regrets eitehr Mr. Lugar
THANK GOD!!!