Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana is rightly considered one of the "statesman" of the U.S. Senate, an expert on issues of foreign policy, nuclear proliferation and disarmament. His record is one of being a "solid conservative." However, Senator Lugar also understood that the best interests of America are not synonymous with the partisan political advantage of the GOP. Senator Lugar regularly worked across the aisle with his Democratic counterparts and crafted bipartisan agreements in the best interests of America.
Former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) recently said that:
"If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption."
Well, on Tuesday, Indiana Republicans demonstrated that the GOP is "beyond redemption."
Sen. Lugar was soundly defeated by a radicalized Tea-Publican Party that demands conservative orthodoxy and rejects all compromise -- it's our way or or no way.
State Treasurer Richard Mourdock was a favorite of these radicalized Tea-Publicans, but Lugar's fate was sealed by independent expenditures from far-right Super PACs like Club for Growth (funded by hedge fund managers and investors), the NRA, and Dick Armey's Koch brothers funded Tea Party front group, Freedomworks. Some reports put corporate PAC and Super PAC spending at $3 million to boost Richard Mourdock.
Lee Fang reports at the Republic Report that the primary factor in Sen. Lugar’s reelection defeat were lobbyists for the banksters of Wall Street:
The Indiana Republican can be viewed as a demonstration of Wall Street’s political muscle. In the words of Politico, “The banking industry is making an example of Sen. Dick Lugar.”
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Lugar was among the few Republican senators up for reelection in 2012 to vote against the banks. As Anna Palmer and Robin Bravender reported, bank lobbyists decided early on to use the Indiana primary today to make an example out of Lugar.
Sen. Lugar said in his statement last night:
"He [Mourdock] 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."
The recent Mann/Ornstein thesis that I previously posted about says the extremism that has come to define the modern-day GOP is responsible for the breakdown of American governance. It is asymetrical -- the breakdown in American governance comes from far-right extremism.
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