Mourdock Outraises Donnelly

Richard Mourdock was criticized by political pundits during most of his primary race against Sen. Richard Lugar for lackluster fundraising. Lugar easily outraised and outspent Mourdock by millions of dollars. Since defeating Lugar by a landslide margin in May, Mourdock's fundraising has picked up considerably and he's now on pace to outraise and outspend his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly.

According to the respective campaigns, both had successful second quarter fundraising results, but Mourdock outperformed Donnelly, raising $1.6 million compared to Donnelly's $900,000. Mourdock's total for the last quarter nearly matched the $1.96 million he had raised prior to the last quarter. Donnelly, who had no primary race, has more than $1.3 million cash on hand. According to the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Mourdock's campaign has not provided an available cash figure yet, but it is expected to be considerably less than Donnelly's total. Final reports are due by Sunday.

Meanwhile, Indiana Democrats continue the drumbeat of attacks on Mourdock's decision to challenge the government bailout of Chrysler on behalf of the state's pension funds. Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker claimed that Mourdock's lawsuit cost Indiana taxpayers $2.8 million, more than the $2 million claimed by Mourdock. Mourdock's campaign spokesman, Chris Conner, countered that the state's agreement with its lawyers capped the state's legal expenses at $2,050,000, even though the total bill came to $2.8 million. The Democrats maintain that Mourdock's lawsuit put thousands of Hoosier auto worker jobs at stake and wasted taxpayer dollars.

Tully Likes Donnelly For Senate, Big Surprise

Star political columnist Matt Tully all but endorses Joe Donnelly for the U.S. Senate in his Sunday column. This should come as no surprise to voters since Tully is still smarting over Richard Mourdock's landslide victory over Richard Lugar, the only politician in Indiana who can do no wrong in Tully's eyes. Tully didn't even mind that Lugar had committed vote fraud for decades by registering and casting votes from an Indiana residence at which he didn't reside, but he thought Charlie White was a "poor lost soul" and an "embarrassment" because he registered to vote at his ex-wife's home for a several month period while he was in between homes. So why is Tully so big on Donnelly? Tully says because "he delivers a message built around two core ideas: create more jobs and turn Washington, D.C. into less of a toxic dump."

Tully condemns Mourdock for being what he calls a "partisan warrior" for refusing to deal on the same terms as Congress and the President have engaged one another in dealing with the nation's massive budget deficits. Tully has labeled Mourdock's plan to reduce federal spending "laughable" because it calls for the elimination of several federal agencies. I guess Tully doesn't find "laughable" or even a cause for concern the more than $4 trillion Congress and the President have added to the national debt over the past four years with no concrete plan for controlling deficit-spending at any point in the foreseeable future. Tully praises Donnelly's support of Obamacare, which represents the largest expansion of the federal government in the role of providing health care to Americans, including a massive expansion of the Medicaid program for low-income persons without any mechanism for paying for it. That to Tully is a "simple message worth hearing if you're tired of all the political dysfunction."  That to Tully makes Donnelly "an appealing candidate." Oy veh!

Sore Loser Lugar Still Sore

I can't say that I'm surprised that Sen. Richard Lugar is still sore over his loss in the primary to Richard Mourdock. I predicted before his loss that he would do everything he could to ensure Mourdock's loss as part of a "See, I told you so" effort. Lugar, naturally, spent Memorial Day weekend in a place other than Indiana. He typically takes foreign junkets paid for by the Aspen Institute during the Memorial Day weekend. This year, he spent it in Washington taking shots at Mourdock during an appearance on CBS' "Face The Nation."

 Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar isn’t helping the Republican who beat him in this month’s primary get elected in the fall.

“For the time being, I don’t plan an active campaign,” Lugar said on CBS’s “Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer” today . . .

“I’ve offered advice to my former opponent and now candidate as to the kind of way he might be a constructive senator, how he can make any difference whatsoever,” Lugar said. “I hope that he will in fact begin to adopt some of those ideas.”

Mourdock has said he wants to help build the GOP majority in Washington so that bipartisanship will mean that Democrats will have to join with Republicans. During the primary, in which Mourdock won 61 percent of the vote, Mourdock and his supporters criticized Lugar for being too willing to work with President Barack Obama and other Democrats.

Lugar said today that a main reason for his defeat was that “a large portion of the Republican Party of Indiana believed, apparently, in the idea of individualism as opposed to community, a sense of compromise, or a sense of talking across the aisle.”

Asked whether other issues were a factor, Lugar, 80, said some mentioned his age, his 36 years in office, and the complaint by some GOP county chairman that he hadn’t attended their annual fundraising dinners in part because of the time he spent time traveling overseas on foreign policy issues.

“I understand that,” Lugar said. “I’m just saying in terms of service to the country as I saw it, I think our priorities were right. We’ve been very much involved in Indiana throughout this period of time with all sorts of programs. But this was just not a year in which that was necessarily appreciated.”

He still doesn't get it. His arrogance knows no bounds.

Donnelly Poll Shows Tied Senate Race

The first post-primary poll conducted for the Democratic Senate campaign of U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, to no surprise, claims the race is tied. According to a Global Strategies poll, the two candidates split 40% of the vote each with 20% undecided. The good news for Mourdock is that he's still running even with Donnelly despite the poll's claim that his unfavorable rating is three times higher than Donnelly's. The poll found 37% had an unfavorable opinion of Mourdock compared to a 12% unfavorable rating for Donnelly. More of the poll's respondents gave a higher favorable rating to Mourdock, 36 to 28%. Given that the poll likely used push poll questioning, you can extrapolate that Mourdock actually holds a lead over Donnelly. The poll claimed to have a margin of error rate of plus or minus four points.

UPDATE: HoosierPundit reminds us that early polling in the 2010 Senate race between Dan Coats and Brad Ellsworth showed the two virtually tied. Coats won less than 40% of the Republican primary vote compared to Mourdock's 61% landslide win over long-term incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar.

Chrysler Issue Not The Silver Bullet Against Mourdock

Joe Donnelly and the Democrats are tying their hopes of defeating Richard Mourdock in the November election based on his opposition to the Chrysler bailout deal cobbled together by the Obama administration. The issue didn't resonate in his re-election race two years ago against Pete Buttigieg, and it fell flat when Lugar hammered Mourdock over the issue in the Republican primary race. The Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette picks up on the large winning margins Mourdock racked up in the region of the state most impacted by Chrysler.

Donnelly has criticized Mourdock for trying as treasurer to halt the 2009 sale of bankrupt Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat.

Mourdock opposed terms of the deal unfavorable to Indiana pension and infrastructure funds that held Chrysler bonds.

“That was incredibly irresponsible to do. Sen. Lugar and I fought to save the auto industry,” Donnelly said Tuesday.

Yet in Howard County, where Chrysler employs about 5,000 people at its Kokomo transmission operations, Mourdock attracted 61 percent of the vote, a smidgen more than he received statewide.

Mourdock topped 70 percent throughout northeast Indiana.

“Never did we expect to see the numbers we saw statewide, but never ever did I imagine we would win by a 70-30 margin here in Allen County,” he said.

Democrats seem to forget that Evan Bayh's silver bullet in defeating John Mutz back in the 1988 gubernatorial election was the Orr-Mutz administration's support of tax breaks and incentives to entice Japanese auto maker Subaru-Isuzu to build a plant in Lafayette.

Holcolmb Schedules Unity Press Conference: Will Lugar Show?

Indiana Republican State Chairman Eric Holcomb has scheduled a unity press conference this morning at state GOP headquarters in Indianapolis with U.S. Senate nominee Richard Mourdock, Gov. Mitch Daniels, Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman and other statewide elected officials who backed Sen. Richard Lugar over Mourdock. The question is will Lugar show. Lugar sounded less than conciliatory in defeat last night after Mourdock trounced him 61-39%. Lugar never made the obligatory concession call to Mourdock before appearing before supporters to concede defeat. Lugar made no apologies and, instead, chose to lecture Mourdock:

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. 

And making the same policy mistakes of taxing, borrowing and spending the federal government into an every increasing, burdensome debt year after year and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, even if described as bipartisanship by Sen. Lugar. Watching Lugar concede his loss to Mourdock last night, I couldn't help but wonder who was more disappointed: Lugar or his family of Washington lobbyists standing behind him that was worried about the gravy train they've enjoyed in having a father as a senior senator in Washington helping them ply their trade.

By contrast, Mourdock had no unkind words for Lugar, who ran what can only be described as the most negative, dirty campaign in Indiana modern history against Mourdock:

"He is not now my enemy," Mourdock said in his victory speech. "He will never be my enemy. He was simply over the last 15 months my opponent ... this race is not about animosity. It's about ideas."

Who's the statesman now, Brian and Matt?

Mourdock's Path To Victory

Politico obtained an internal Mourdock memo that tells us what to look for as results begin streaming tonight to know whether he will defeat Sen. Richard Lugar:

For Mourdock to secure a victory, he’ll need heavy turnout in rural areas to offset Lugar’s perceived strength near Indianapolis and other cities, save Evansville, Mourdock’s hometown.

But an internal Mourdock campaign memo obtained by POLITICO shows that the campaign will be watching the margins closely in Hamilton and Marion counties, the two most populous counties in the Indianapolis metro area.

If Mourdock can keep those Lugar-friendly counties to within 10 percentage points, “the race should be over,” the Mourdock memo read. On the flip side, “If southern counties begin coming in with tight margins, Mourdock could be in trouble,” it added.

But Mourdock predicted the county-by-county map would look very favorable for him after the polls close Tuesday night.

“We’re going to be shocking people how many of those counties we’re going to win tomorrow and both large counties, small counties, urban counties, rural counties,” he said.

In the closing days of the campaign, Sen. Lugar has refused to say whether he would support Mourdock if he wins and has even said he doesn't believe Mourdock is qualified for the job. Mourdock, by contrast, has been far more conciliatory in his comments in the closing days than the so-called "Statesman":

In a speech to supporters before election day, Mourdock choked up at the thought of the 3,000 volunteers who would trek out to 1,300 targeted precincts on behalf of him Tuesday.

“To see it come to fruition is so gratifying,” he said, as his voice quivered inside the small church.

Then Mourdock turned to a group of Cub Scouts in the front row to offer them a lesson — and an olive branch to his opponent.

“Remember that while Mr. Lugar and I have been campaigning very vigorously, I have never once — nor will I ever — think of Dick Lugar as my enemy. He’s not. He’s simply an opponent. Politics shouldn’t be that mean-spirited and about enemies. It’s about ideas,” the tea party-backed candidate said, prompting silent nods from the adults in the pews.

He then told the Scouts Lugar is an “honorable” role model “because he’s done remarkable things with his life.”

On the verge toppling a pillar of Indiana politics, Mourdock allowed himself for a moment to look ahead — and showed he’s grappling with how life, in all likelihood, is about to change.

“There’s a part of this that I don’t like and that is I’m a very private person. And that part of my life … is going to change forever. But I’m doing this because I believe it’s a mission,” Mourdock said, as his eyes welled up again.

Lugar Goes Rogue: Says Mourdock Is Unqualified And Urges Democrats To Raid Republican Primary To Save Him

Reacting like the desperate politician he is, to a new poll showing him ten points behind Richard Mourdock in next week's Republican Senate primary, Sen. Richard Lugar told reporters this afternoon at a hastily called press conference in Indianapolis that Mourdock was "unqualified" to serve in the Senate and pleaded with Democratic and independent voters to request Republican ballots in next Tuesday's primary to save him from defeat. Lugar also continued to rebuff attempts to agree to support Mourdock if he wins the Republican primary. The Star's Mary Beth Schneider has the story:

Voters will decide the fate of Lugar, a six-term incumbent, in Tuesday’s primary election. And today Lugar pleaded with all those he has helped in his career, no matter what their political party, to step up and salvage his.

“Every person in Indiana who wants me to continue, every person wherever they might be at this point, I encourage them to come out,” he said. “Come out immediately, as fast as you can.”

The poll’s 10 percentage point deficit for him, Lugar said, is not surprising given the millions of dollars spent by groups that oppose him. Those include the anti-tax Club for Growth and the tea party group FreedomWorks. There has been no similar response from the groups he has helped over the years, he said. He cited farmers, veterans, minorities, students, Jews and others as he appealed for help.

Lugar said he believes he can turn this election around, saying it would take just five additional votes per precinct for him to win.

“Turnout is the key right now, he said in a news conference at his Broad Ripple headquarters.

“I believe that right now if a majority of Hoosiers were to vote in an election, that is all Hoosiers regardless of party — Republicans, Democrats, independents, I would win,” Lugar said. “I want everybody in the state to vote for me on Tuesday. Everybody. I’m not asking anybody to cross over. I’m just saying positively ‘register your vote, because if you do not I may not be able to continue serving you. At this point, help.” . . .

Lugar, at his news conference, repeated his charge that Mourdock is not qualified to step in to the Senate and be an effective voice for Hoosiers, in part because of his inexperience and in part because of his refusal to work across the aisle.

He also has not said he will endorse Mourdock if Mourdock wins on Tuesday, insisting that he will win . . .

Lugar is obviously speaking with a forked tongue. He says he isn't urging anyone to "cross over" to vote for him, but he's asking Democrats and Independents to take a Republican ballot to cast a vote for him in the primary. Under Indiana law, only voters who support a majority of a particular party's candidates in the previous election, or who plans to support a majority of that party's candidates in the upcoming general election, is permitted to cast a vote in a party's primary election. A challenger appointed by the party can challenge a person of the other political party who attempts to cross over and cast a vote in the other party's primary election. Actual challenges are rare because of the practical difficulty in enforcing it. A number of prominent Democrats have stated that they received applications to cast absentee ballots for the Republican primary election from the Lugar campaign, further indicating an overt effort on the part of the Lugar campaign to violate the spirit of Indiana's primary election law.

Howey Politics Poll Shows Mourdock Leading Lugar By 10%

Political reporter Brian Howey is eating the words he made only days ago condemning the media for buying into polling data commissioned by a pro-Mourdock political action committee that showed Mourdock leading Lugar by 4%. Howey insisted the only reliable poll reporters should take seriously is one he jointly commissioned with DePauw University. Well, the numbers are in and they spell big trouble for Lugar. Here's what Howey is now saying about his new poll numbers showing a 10-point lead for Mourdock with just days to go before the primary election:

U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar's iconic career of elected public service appears to be in great jeopardy. A Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll conducted Monday and Tuesday shows that Lugar is trailing Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock 48-38% in Indiana's Republican Senate primary. That head-to-head figure includes so-called "leaners," who could conceivably change their minds in the final 72 hours of the campaign. Without the leans, Mourdock still leads 43-35%.

Based on this survey data, Howey Politics Indiana is moving the Senate race into a "Likely Mourdock" category. It had been "Leans Lugar" until the March 26-28 Howey/DePauw survey had Lugar leading Mourdock 42-35%, at which time HPI moved the Senate race into "Tossup."

The survey, conducted by Republican pollster Christine Matthews of Bellwether Research and Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, is based on 700 likely voters with a +/- margin of error at 3.7%. The sample was made up of 76% Republicans, 14% independent, 8% independent/lean Republican, 1% lean Democrat and 1% independent/lean Democrat. Survey top lines will be posted under the "Howey/DePauw Poll" tab at http://www.howeypolitics.com/ . . .

Yang observed, "Back in January 2011, I conducted a statewide survey on behalf of Chairman Dan Parker for the Indiana Democratic Party, and I found a surprising result in one of our questions: Richard Lugar had a 28% reelect to another term score, and fully 56% wanted to make a change and elect someone else, and this result was among Republican voters. Thus, the findings of that poll made clear that Senator Lugar was vulnerable to a single challenger in a Republican primary. And that's exactly what has seemed to transpire." Among Republicans, Mourdock had a 51-36% lead, and among the 44% of the Republican sample who called themselves "very conservative," Mourdock lead 63-26%. Should this trend continue through Tuesday's Republican primary, Mourdock will have pulled off one of the greatest upsets in modern Indiana history. Yang suggested that the final results may not be close . . .

Clearly, the stately Lugar's campaign going negative had repercussions. Lugar's hard favorable/unfavorables were both at 43%, while Mourdock's stood at 47/25%. And cross tabulations show Lugar lost support in Indianapolis, his hometown.

"While the Tea Party and other national groups got into this race because of what they consider to be Lugar's liberal transgressions, it appears that a bigger issue for GOP primary voters is simply his longevity," said Matthews. "It is a very difficult environment to be running as a 35 year incumbent." Matthews added: A plurality (44%) of primary voters identifies themselves as "very conservative" and, not surprisingly, they overwhelmingly favor Mr. Mourdock (63%-26%). So the balance of the electorate is somewhat conservative (33%) or moderate (19%) and, to win, Mr. Lugar would have to dominate among these voters.

New Poll Has Lugar Up Two Points

A poll taken on behalf of a political action committee backing Sen. Richard Lugar's re-election shows Lugar leading Richard Mourdock by two points, 44-42%, with 14% still undecided. The poll was conducted by Magellan Strategies for Lunch Pail Republicans and surveyed 400 Republicans. A Wenzel Strategies survey taken for Citizens United, a pro-Mourdock PAC, showed Lugar trailing by 5 percentage points. A recent internal Mourdock poll showed Mourdock leading Lugar by one percentage point. The Lugar campaign has criticized both of those poll results, but it refuses to release its own internal poll numbers.

Brian Howey of Howey Politics, an unabashed Lugar backer, blasted the media for giving credence to the Wenzel Strategies poll, which he called "extremely questionable." Howey suggested that the poll was nothing more than a push poll designed to shift momentum late in the campaign towards Mourdock. Howey, who has been responsible during the campaign for manufacturing the most outrageous and inaccurate allegations against Mourdock under the guise of journalism and which have been conveniently used by the Lugar campaign in attack ads, complained that the media had been caught up in "a scheme" by pro-Mourdock forces that should be "a source of embarrassment."

Howey claims that partisan polls exaggerate their own candidate's strength by at least 6% and should be discounted accordingly. If that is the case, then Lugar is trailing Mourdock if a pro-Lugar poll shows Lugar leading by only 2%. Howey says that the only credible poll is one he commissioned in conjunction with DePauw that is conducted by Chris Matthews and Fred Yang, which will be released on Friday. Howey's comments, however, have the effect of discrediting his own poll by suggesting in advance of its release that any poll that would show Mourdock leading is not reliable.

Lugar Criticizes Mourdock For Supporting The First Amendment

Wow. Dick Lugar is still looking for the bottom in his scorched-earth campaign against Richard Mourdock. Lugar's campaign is criticizing a quote Mourdock made about 20 years ago saying he didn't think it was a good idea to enact an amendment to the U.S. Constitution making it illegal to burn the American flag. As Mourdock explained to the Bloomington Herald-Times in 1990:

 “I tend to think I would probably be opposed to it,” Mourdock says. “How can we enforce freedom of speech and say we have freedom of speech except in one area? I have a really hard time with that.”

The Lugar campaign points out that he has voted 9 times to support a flag burning amendment. Last week, Lugar's campaign attacked Mourdock because he never served in the military. As Mourdock's spokesman responded, “This is yet another desperate last minute attempt to smear Richard Mourdock. It is sad that Dick Lugar — once a self-proclaimed statesman — has flushed his reputation down the toilet with these last-minute attacks on Richard Mourdock’s patriotism.”

Lugar Will Not Support Mourdock If He Wins

You heard it here first that Sen. Richard Lugar had no intention of backing Richard Mourdock to replace him in the U.S. Senate if he loses the May 8th primary race to him. Lugar has used his vast financial resources to wage a scorched-earth campaign against Mourdock to help ensure his defeat in the November general election against U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly (D) if he loses to him in the primary. The National Review's Brian Bolduc asked Lugar's spokesman, Andy Fisher, to confirm that Sen. Lugar would support Mourdock if he won the nomination, and he refused to answer the question. In contrast, Mourdock's spokesman unequivocally stated Mourdock's commitment to supporting the entire Republican ticket. Instead, Fisher would only say that Lugar would welcome Mourdock's after Lugar wins the primary.

In an interview with the Christian Broadasting Network's David Brody, Lugar blamed his tough race on the fact that he is one of the few Republican incumbents up for re-election, and out-of-state conservative groups seeking to unseat him because he is not sufficiently conservative. Lugar noticeably overlooks his self-inflicted residency problems that have plagued his campaign and the short shrift he has increasingly given to the state's residents after 35 years in the Senate in favor of spending his time on foreign junkets rather than visiting and listening to people in his home state. Lugar suggested that Mourdock would have little chance of winning the November election if he is the nominee, while he thinks his chances against Joe Donnelly are much better despite indications that his favorable ratings have fallen well below 50%, which typically portend the death knell of an incumbent. What Lugar is conveying is that he will do everything within his power to propagate a negative outlook on Mourdock to ensure the fulfillment of his prophecy.

Two Newspaper Endorsements In Senate Race Offer Contrasting Views

The Star editorial board has endorsed the 80-year-old Sen. Richard Lugar for an unprecedented seventh term to no one's surprise. Richard Mourdock's hometown newspaper, the Evansville Courier & Press, favors the local guy. The explanation offered by the two editorial boards shows quite a contrast in how the two editorial boards approached the two candidates and offers a good indication of how this primary race is ending.

The Star's editorial board assumed its readers would be repulsed by its decision so it lists four major objections to sending Lugar back to Washington where he's lived the past 35 years for another 6-year term and explains why you should discount those objections, not exactly a ringing endorsement. Lugar may appear to be out of touch, but Mourdock is an ideologue who "is more likely to hurt than help" according to the editors. Lugar may differ with his Republican colleagues on a number of important issues, but he's with them on most of the issues they tell us. Yeah, he will be 86 years old when his next term would end, but he still has "an impressive depth of knowledge on issues such as energy and agriculture." And Lugar's residency problem isn't a "trivial" matter (never mind all that bluster we exhibited over Charlie White's one-time problem), but he didn't have time to spend in Indiana the past 35 years because he was too busy working on "nuclear disarmament, foreign relations and other national policies." Yeah, not exactly the kind of talking points the Lugar campaign can use in a 30-second spot, eh? Nonetheless, you can bet Lugar's campaign will find at least one phrase worth using.

The Evansville's Courier & Press offers an endorsement of Mourdock based on their in-depth knowledge of his career and background. "Indeed, our view is that Mourdock is eminently qualified for the position," the editors write. His background as a geologist and coal industry executive provides him "a hands-on understanding of energy issues." As a former county commissioner and State Treasurer, the editors know him as a person "that knows finance and economics." "And we know him as a highly intelligent man with a passion for knowledge who remains a student of history" who "shows no fear of the issues." In the view of the newspaper's editor's the "era of deficit spending" requires "a conservative thinker in step with Hoosier voters." "Mourdock makes a convincing argument to succeed Lugar," they conclude.

Palin Endorses Mourdock

Sarah Palin posted her endorsement of Richard Mourock over Sen. Richard Lugar on Mourdock's Facebook page. The Star's Mary Beth Schneider quotes from Palin's statement:

Palin said she joined “commonsense conservatives in endorsing Richard Mourdock,” saying it wasn’t just Indiana but the nation “that benefits from sending the right senator to serve for the right reasons.”

“Senator Lugar’s 36 years of service as a senator are appreciated,” Palin wrote, “but it’s time for the torch to pass to conservative leadership in Washington that promises to rein in government spending now.”

Lugar’s campaign had no immediate response. Voters will choose the GOP nominee in the May 8 primary election. The winner will face Democrat U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly.

Palin's 2008 running mate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, endorsed Lugar's re-election, which was a bit perplexing given the fact that Lugar skipped every McCain-Palin campaign appearance in Indiana during the 2008 presidential campaign and allowed Barack Obama to use him in his campaign commercials that blanketed the Indiana airwaves throughout the presidential campaign.

Lugar Plays Military Service Card Against Mourdock

I previously reported on a misfire Lugar's 1974 Senate campaign manager Mitch Daniels made when he allowed letters to be sent out to military veterans touting Lugar's former service in the Navy and implying that his opponent, Sen. Birch Bayh, an Army veteran, had not served his country. Daniels quickly fessed up to the "mistake": "It was a mistake…an honest mistake and we admit it . . . Daniels said about 600 letters went out to Indiana military veterans by a campaign volunteer." There's no mistaking the latest attack Lugar has launched against Richard Mourdock questioning why he never served in the military. The Indiana Legislative Insight's Ed Feigenbaum reports on a recent letter Lugar's campaign mailed to Hoosier veterans:

"Why vote for a guy who didn't have the time for his country and doesn't have time for us?" The letter reminds vets that Lugar is a veteran who volunteered because he believed it was his duty, and he is a great advocate for our troops. Most importantly, he's one of just a few Senators who truly knows what it takes to keep the military strong" and "On veteran's issues, he's got the most dedicated staff in Congress working for us."

I guess former Gov. Joe Kernan, a Vietnam POW veteran, could have asked why Hoosier veterans would consider voting for his then-Republican opponent for governor, Mitch Daniels, who also sat out the Vietnam War and joined in the anti-war movement as a student at Princeton University where he was busted for dealing drugs out of his dorm room, but he was too decent of a man to do so. If Lugar is so offended by Mourdock's lack of military service, why is he using Gov. Daniels in TV ads urging his re-election? It looks like we've yet to see the bottom when it comes to running negative campaigns. Dick Lugar sets all records in that regard.

New Poll Shows Lugar Trailing Mourdock

Politico is reporting on the results of a new poll that shows Richard Mourdock leading Sen. Richard Lugar in the May 8th primary by five points, 44-39%. The poll was conducted by Wenzel Strategies on behalf of Citizens United, a SuperPAC supporting Mourdock's campaign. A poll taken by the same firm in mid-March showed Lugar with a 6-point, 44-38% lead.

Among voters describing themselves as tea party conservatives, Mourdock has a commanding 63-24% lead. The bad news for both candidates is that their unfavorable rating has increased as the candidates and SuperPACs have bombarded the airwaves with negative attacks against the two candidates. Lugar's favorable rating has fallen to 44%, which is higher than Mourdock's favorable rating of 38%.

The poll surveyed 601 likely primary voters and has a margin of error of 4%.

National Review: Lugar Fighting Dirty, Attacks On Mourdock Are Juvenile

The National Review's Brian Bolduc has a spot on column discussing the dirty campaign that Sen. Richard Lugar is waging against Richard Mourdock:

In person, Senator Dick Lugar (R., Ind.) is a model of probity. “His personal style is very moderate and very pleasant,” says Jeff Bergner, a former staffer. “He tries whenever he can to get someone to come around to his side by persuasion rather than by yelling.”

In a primary, however, he’s no-holds-barred — even juvenile.

State treasurer Richard Mourdock has trained his fire on Lugar’s voting record: his support for President Obama’s Supreme Court appointees, his sponsorship of the DREAM Act, and his backing of the ethanol mandate, to name a few examples.

Lugar’s campaign is meeting fire with fire. But Mourdock lacks a voting record, so Lugar has focused on character, maligning Mourdock’s by insinuating he’s untrustworthy.

On the state party database kerfuffle, Bolduc writes:

The Lugar campaign, however, has blown this story out of proportion. In a press release, it claimed the Mourdock campaign was “under investigation” and the subject of an “Indiana Republican-party probe.” Former state-party chairman Jim Kittle, a Lugar supporter, called the controversy a “security breach.”

But Jamey Noel, a member of the Indiana Republican state committee, says there was no probe that he knows of: “I was kind of surprised when I heard that, unless it was something that came up privately in a subcommittee meeting. It was never mentioned in the open meeting.” Crucially, the matter was referred to the party’s technology committee, not the disciplinary rules committee. The party wasn’t punishing Mourdock for a security breach; it was simply trying to ensure the voter database didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

On the Club For Growth's support of Mourdock's campaign:

After the free-market advocate the Club for Growth began airing aids on behalf of Mourdock, Lugar sent a letter to the Mourdock campaign asking that it push the Club for Growth to disclose its donors’ names. “I am sure you would agree with me that Hoosiers deserve to and should know from whom The Club for Growth’s money is being contributed so that we all can be assured and confident the anti-circumvention provisions, which bar attempts to launder such banned direct contributions through another entity indirectly, are followed,” Lugar wrote.

On the homestead exemption fraud claim:

Consider the Lugar attack ad “Trust.” “For years,” the ad says, “Richard Mourdock received $45,000 in illegal second-homestead tax deductions.” That’s true: Mourdock received a homestead tax deduction for both his home in Evansville and his condo in Indianapolis, although state law grants each resident only one deduction on his primary residence. According to the county auditor’s office, however, the previous owner of the condo applied for the deduction, not Mourdock. Furthermore, Mourdock notified the office that he was wrongly receiving the deduction in 2007. Because of a filing error by the auditor’s office, he received the credit for the next three years. But when he again discovered the error in June 2011, Mourdock notified the auditor’s office once more, and the office admitted its error.

Bolduc's conclusion:

Thus far, Lugar’s charges against Mourdock are making up in volume what they lack in strength. The desperate nature of the attacks — and their profusion — indicates that this primary race will be close.

Hack Reporter At WISH-TV Reports Bogus FEC Complaint Against Mourdock As Legitimate News

It's not enough that the campaign of Sen. Richard Lugar had one of their supporters on the Indiana Republican Party's state central committee file a complaint with the party alleging that the Mourdock campaign violated the terms of use for a party e-mail database known as Salesforce, Lugar's campaign has also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission knowing full well that the FEC has absolutely no jurisdiction to hear a complaint based on the misuse of a party-owned computer database. Despite the fact that the FEC can do nothing with the complaint because it lacks jurisdiction, a hack political reporter who is supporting Lugar's re-election, WISH-TV's Jim Shella, reported on the filing of the complaint as if it was legitimate news.

Richard Mourdock's Senate campaign is now the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.

It has to do with the accusation that the Mourdock campaign improperly downloaded information from a GOP database. The state Republican Party last week cut off the campaign's access to the database known as Salesforce.

The complaint was filed by John McCane, a former mayor of Rushville, who alleges that Mourdock used a state campaign committee to pay the $125 fee to access Salesforce and then illegally transferred information including email addresses to his federal campaign.

McCane included an email sent to him by the Senate campaign. By phone, McCane said he has never filed an FEC complaint before.

"I would like them to investigate whether or not there's been a violation of the rules," said McCane, "and at that point what they do is up to them."

There is a flat denial from the Mourdock campaign spokesman, Chris Conner.

"We've not had access to Salesforce since the end of 2010," he said. "We never got into Salesforce. There's no way we could have done anything with the data."

Conner said this is merely an attempt by the Lugar campaign to smear Mourdock.

John McCane is a Lugar supporter. His name sounds like - but is spelled differently than - that of the Arizona senator who is scheduled to appear in Lugar campaign ads.

To illustrate just how biased Shella's coverage of the race between Lugar and Mourdock is, Shella refused to report on an earlier complaint filed with the Senate Ethics Committee by Greg Wright based on Lugar's admission that he illegally billed federal taxpayers for return trips back to Indiana. Lugar repaid nearly $15,000 to the U.S. Treasury after he learned that his political opponents had obtained his travel reimbursement records pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request to prove that he had violated Senate rules. Former Sen. David Durenburger (R-MN) faced censure and criminal prosecution for doing the same thing back in the 1990s. Shella did not consider that worthy of reporting, but he rushed to air a story based on a complaint that any election lawyer would have told the reporter is not actionable. It's just another example of how you simply cannot trust anything you are being told by the mainstream political reporters in this campaign. The establishment media has decided Lugar must be re-elected, and it will do anything it can to bolster him while tearing down Richard Mourdock no matter how baseless the allegations are. There's a reason Shella is derisively referred to as Jim Shallow.

Boston Newspaper Editor Wants Hoosier Democrats To Save Lugar

Sen. Richard Lugar is facing his most difficult political race since his election to the U.S. Senate 36 years ago. His Republican primary opponent thinks he's lost his conservative values and has been living in Washington too long. So who is advising Indiana Democrats to switch parties in the May 8th primary and take a Republican ballot in order to save Lugar's political career? The answer is the editor of the Boston Globe, a dyed in the wool liberal Democrat. Here's a little of the advice Peter Canellos has for Hoosier Democrats:

 . . . Caught in the middle are Indiana’s Democrats and independents. They can take Republican ballots, and that presents a dilemma. While Lugar is clearly the preferable candidate, many Democrats are salivating at the thought of a Mourdock victory, because the seat would become a target for a Democratic takeover. With an uncontested senatorial primary of their own — US Representative Joe Donnelly will be their nominee — most of Indiana’s Democrats are content to stay home and let the Republicans slug it out.

But they shouldn’t. If Democrats care about bipartisanship, and are disgusted by the congressional Republicans’ wall of resistance to any policy associated with Obama, they should jump in and save Dick Lugar.

The notion that congressional minorities can, by halting progress even on middle-ground legislation, engineer their comebacks is the most obnoxious political strategy to emerge in decades. By blocking such bills, the minority legislators make the president and his allies seem impotent, depressing their supporters. As Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has pointed out: If bipartisan legislation is successful, it helps the president and other incumbents; if nothing gets through, however, voters become outraged and demand a change. The only change available is the minority party that’s done all the blocking.

The Democrats tried a version of this strategy after 2006, but only after six fitful years of alternately cooperating and sparring with the Bush administration. Afterward, when Bush needed their support on the politically treacherous bank bailout, they gave it. Republicans have taken a more scorched-earth approach, blocking even those programs that they themselves once introduced — from the individual mandate for health insurance, to “cap-and-trade” plans to limit carbon pollution, to loans for renewable energy — mainly because Obama embraced them.

Senior senators like Lugar — who, after 36 years, has the right to his own judgment — can be checks on destructive partisanship. So conservative activists try to rein them in with right-wing challenges in Republican primaries, knowing that in a conservatives-only contest, the loudest and most unyielding conservative is likely to win. Fear of such challenges cause many GOP incumbents to kowtow to extremists; some, like Maine’s Olympia Snowe, are so put off they leave of their own accord.

The best way for Democrats to combat this tactic is not to lick their chops in hopes of a Tea Party victory. True, those candidates can be easier targets for Democrats. But some extremists win, pulling the Republicans further to the right. And conservative activists don’t mind losing to prove a point. Former GOP senators like Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania can attest to the cost of deviating from the activist-enforced line. Successful right-wing primary challenges can gain the conservative movement more through the terrified obsequiousness of GOP officeholders than it would lose in a few Democratic victories.

For Democrats and independents to rally around Lugar might appear to confirm that he is, as the Mourdock forces ludicrously claim, “Obama’s favorite senator.” But it would also show that dignity and commitment to public service have a broader appeal than crass adherence to partisan destructiveness. Indiana Democrats should make sure the best candidate wins the Republican primary, even if they plan to vote against him in November.

Richard Mourdock continues to be blessed by Richard Lugar's friends. I'm always fascinated how the fans of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have the audacity to suggest Republicans in Congress practice scorched earth politics when that is precisely how the Democrats in Washington operate as a matter of course. Bipartisanship to them is shorthand for giving more power to Washington to tax, regulate and control our lives. Anyone who opposes their agenda is by definition a partisan extremist.

Chrysler Auto Bailout Fight Defining Moment For Mourdock

The Star's Mary Beth Schneider has a story in Sunday's edition discussing how State Treasurer Richard Mourdock's fight against the Chrysler bailout plan was a defining moment in his political career.

State Treasurer Richard Mourdock made a decision three years ago that was fraught with risk for thousands of Hoosier jobs and his own political future.

He tried to stop the Chrysler bankruptcy deal.

Within minutes of his decision, he became a target -- especially for many in the auto industry.

"I thought that my political career was over," Mourdock recalled.

Instead, he now could become the spoiler in the re-election bid of Indiana's iconic veteran lawmaker, Sen. Richard G. Lugar, in the May 8 Senate primary . . .
The plan required secured bondholders to accept 29 cents on the dollar for their investments. That came as a shock to Indiana. The Indiana State Police Pension Fund and the Major Moves road construction fund, managed by the treasurer, and the Teachers' Retirement Fund, managed by a board, all had Chrysler bonds.

Mourdock said he bought them in the summer of 2008 at 43 cents on the dollar -- cheap because the auto industry already was in trouble.

It's a decision that his political opponents question.

Mourdock, though, argued then and now that the risk was acceptable because these were secured bonds, and a secured creditor gets priority in recouping money in the event of bankruptcy.

Accepting the deal meant the police fund would lose about $147,000, the highway fund $896,000 and the teachers' fund $4.6 million, the treasurer's office said at the time.
Nationally, banks acquiesced, though they stood to lose the most from the deal. So did the only other states that had funds invested: California and Michigan.

"I remember meeting with the governor," Mourdock said. "We were just in shock that this could be happening, that these people could be rolled this way."
Still, Mourdock hesitated.

"I went back and forth. You wonder, is it the right thing? Is it the wrong thing?"

The story doesn't explain that Gov. Mitch Daniels sided with Mourdock's decision to fight the bankruptcy deal for Chrysler. As Daniels wrote in his recent book:

Mourdock and I, as trustees of the pension plans, decided that submission was just not an acceptable course. We authorized the lawsuit and, with the help of cut rates from attorneys incensed about the principles being violated, pursued it even after the courts allowed the cramdown to go through.

Indiana's retirees never got their $6 million back, but our resistance was not totally fruitless. A fascinating bit of legal history was made months later, when, almost surreptitiously, the U.S. Supreme Court in December 14, 2009, announced that the Chrysler case would be accorded no precedential value. The rights of secured creditors were secure once more.

In the lower court that first declared it would not be bound by the Chrysler case, the judge likened Indiana's efforts to "the little man in Tiananmen Square when the tanks rolled in." The tyranny here was more benign, but the government's disdain for law was pronounced nonetheless . . .