Lugar Backs Obama on Iran; Says ‘Hell to Pay’ With Attack - Businessweek
businessweek.comSenator Richard Lugar, the leading Republican foreign-policy expert in Congress, said President Barack Obama is following the right policy in Iran and warned of the dangers of war.
“The idea of moving with our allies, as many as we can find, on effective sanctions on the country has been the right move” on Iran, Lugar said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend.
[…]
“I understand even some wanting to go to war immediately to stop it where it is and so forth,” said Lugar, an Indiana Republican. “But even within Israel, the reports are that the debate with Netanyahu is very intense.”
“We’re really going to have hell to pay. They will come back on us, and the implications for the Israeli people here are very severe.”
[…]
Lugar, whose 36-year Senate career is coming to an end after he lost re-nomination in a May primary, rejected Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s stance that Obama hasn’t been tough enough on Iran and that he hasn’t offered enough support to Israel. Romney has sought to use signs of differences between Obama and Netanyahu over Iran to raise doubts with U.S. Jewish voters about the president’s commitment to Israel and his ability to manage turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa.
Lugar widened his distance from Romney’s foreign-policy platform, saying the nominee’s plan to call China a currency manipulator is a “campaign mode.”
#INSen race may hinge on disenchanted Lugar backers - Yahoo! News
news.yahoo.comJEFFERSONVILLE, Indiana (Reuters) - Indiana Republicans last spring spurned long-time Senator Richard Lugar for a more conservative candidate, but now supporters of the soft-spoken moderate may tip the balance in the race that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Republican Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer, and his Democratic opponent, Congressman Joe Donnelly, are wooing not just independent voters but disaffected and angry “Lugar Republicans.”
“Dick Lugar is a statesman,” said Karl Stein, 63, a Republican, as he was walking the dog near Indianapolis. “I don’t like the way he was thrown under the bus after all he’s done for Indiana.”
Republicans need a net gain of four seats to win a Senate majority, or three if Republican Mitt Romney wins the White House because his vice president would cast tie-breaking Senate votes. Republicans began 2012 in a strong position, with Democrats defending 23 of 33 seats up for election, but have suffered some self-inflicted wounds.
In Missouri, Republican candidate Todd Akin prompted an uproar by saying women’s bodies have defenses against pregnancy after “legitimate rape,” and now trails in the race.
Republican candidates also are facing tougher-than-expected contests in Arizona and North Dakota as well as Indiana.
Mourdock has been hit by Democrats attacking his “extreme” Tea Party movement views - lower taxes, fewer regulations and massive spending cuts - plus his televised remarks after the primary that “bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”
“It wasn’t easy for a lot of Hoosiers to see Lugar defeated after a slashing campaign,” said Marjorie Hershey, a politics professor at the University of Indiana, using the term Indiana natives call themselves. “Mourdock didn’t help himself after the primary by taking a very hard line.”
h/t: Yahoo! News
#INSen Poll: Donnelly Up 2 Points In Indiana Senate Race | TPM LiveWire
livewire.talkingpointsmemo.comThe Indiana Senate race continues to be a tight battle, with a slim edge for Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly over Republican state Treasurer Richard Mourdock.
Donnelly leads 40 percent to 38 percent, plus 7 percent for Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning, in a Howey/DePauw poll released Thursday. The survey of 800 likely voters was conducted Sept. 19-23, and has a 3.5 percent margin of error.
The same poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama, 52 percent to 40 percent. However, Mourdock appears to be having a hard time sealing the votes of people who had supported longtime GOP Sen. Dick Lugar, whom Mourdock defeated in the primary.
h/t: TPM LiveWire
“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...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.”
—from Sen. Richard Lugar’s concession letter, 5/8/12Tea Party Targets Lugar, Hatch 70 Years of Senate Tenure
bloomberg.comFreedomWorks, which favors smaller government, has spent more than $735,000 on TV ads, grassroots outreach and glossy brochures seeking to defeat the two senators. It says both men vote too often with Democrats to expand the scope of government. The group pledges to spend more, with Hatch facing delegates at a Republican nominating convention April 21 and Lugar running in a May 8 primary.
“I would like to win the fight against at least one of them, but I think there’s a pathway to victory in both states,” Russ Walker, FreedomWorks vice president of political campaigns, said at the group’s Washington headquarters last week.
The voting will be a test of the Tea Party’s ability to influence Senate primaries as it did two years ago in such states as Delaware, Alaska and Nevada, said Jennifer Duffy, an editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
“Something like the ridiculous McCaskill-Corker CAP Act is great precisely because it’s a totally terrible idea. Barack Obama can be counted on to resist it, so criticizing him for opposition to this bipartisan measure makes sense. By contrast, if Obama wants to turn himself into a zealous advocate of a bipartisan bill like the DREAM Act, then that renders it toxic. And since the direct beneficiaries of the DREAM Act are ineligible to vote and don’t have much campaign cash to offer, that becomes all you need to know.”
—Matt Yglesias
The New Yorker on what losing Dick Lugar might mean.
7:12PM: Here’s Weigel’s take.
10:27PM: TPM has more here, here, and here.
“Sarah Palin has begun shaking things up this election cycle. She chose to endorse Richard Mourdock over the incumbent, Richard Lugar. Here's a warning from the Tea Party to the Republican Establishment: GAME ON!”
—Daniel Bruski (Palin Backs Mourdock Over Lugar)
Richard Mourdock: Pregnancy from rape can be ‘something that God intended to happen’
washingtonpost.comThis is unacceptable. I cannot believe Indiana voters got rid of Richard Lugar for this guy.
Did support for "Latino" issues cost Republican senator his seat?
Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who spent decades in the Senate, lost the primary to a Tea Party Republican who had vowed to fight against “illegal immigration” and the Dream Act. (Photo/AP).
Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar was a Republican who had reached out across the aisle on two issues which had garnered wide Latino support. Lugar voted to confirm President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, and supported the Dream Act a few years ago.
Lugar’s challenger, Tea Party Republican Richard Mourdock, used both of these issues against Lugar during a hard-fought campaign, and won the primary last night. Did this cost Lugar his almost four-decade Senate seat?
