Mike Pence in 2016? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

By Richard K. Barry

Here's a thought, courtesy of Adam Wren at Politico:

Since Pence resigned as chairman of the House Republican Conference in November 2010 to run for governor, conventional wisdom held that he would bide his time in Indianapolis, padding his résumé with executive experience before mounting a presidential bid. After all, no one gets elected president from the House—American voters prefer governors, chief executives who have actually governed.

The working theory of a Pence bid, according to his allies, such as Kellyanne Conway, his longtime pollster, was somewhat Rube Goldbergian but plausible: If establishment and movement conservatives deadlocked in a primary, Pence could emerge as the consensus candidate.

But when Pence signed the religious freedom bill into law last Thursday, that theory began to crumble.

Things sure can change quickly.

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

Indiana formally joins up with the forces of ignorance and bigotry

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, Wingnut Gov. Mike Pence and the other defenders of this odious law can say whatever they want. Religious "freedom" is really just Christianist bigotry in disguise, and not a very good one:

The nation's latest legislative battle over religious freedom and gay rights came to a close Thursday when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a controversial "religious freedom" bill into law.

His action followed two days of intense pressure from opponents — including technology company executives and convention organizers — who fear the measure could allow discrimination, particularly against gays and lesbians.

Pence and leaders of the Republican-controlled General Assembly called those concerns a "misunderstanding."

"This bill is not about discrimination," Pence said, "and if I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it."

Bull. Shit. That's exactly what it does.

It allows bigots to hide behind "freedom," to justify their bigotry with appeals to "freedom," which of course is really just a vicious assault on freedom, on the very principles and ideals of any genuinely free society.

Feel free to boycott the hell out of Indiana. And feel free to discriminate at the polls against these bigots and enablers thereof, most of whom, of course, are Republican.

What else is new?

The biggest threat all along was Jon Huntsman. Thankfully, Republicans were too stupid to nominate him.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

After decades of trying, the Manchus finally crossed the Great Wall in 1644, taking Beijing and establishing the Qing Dynasty. They had an easier time of it than Huntsman in the Republican Party.

The WSJ's Washington Wire is reporting that early on the Obama campaign was worried about one really appealing Republican in particular: 

Jon Huntsman is the former Utah governor who took a moderate stance in a GOP field that leaned to the right. He didn't get very far in the Republican nomination fight, but team Obama viewed him as a serious candidate who could pose real problems in a general election. 

"We were honest about our concerns about Huntsman," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said at a Politico breakfast event Tuesday. "I think Huntsman would have been a very tough candidate."

As for the president, he liked Mr. Huntsman enough to appoint him ambassador to China in 2009. Mr. Messina, who was working in the White House at the time, said he helped Mr. Huntsman win Senate confirmation.

"As someone who helped manage his confirmation for Chinese ambassador, he's a good guy," Mr. Messina said. "We looked at his profile in a general election and thought he would have been" a formidable candidate.

Absolutely. In fact, I wrote a post way back in June 2011 called "Huntsman the Formidable."

Don't get me wrong, I never thought it was going to be him. The Republican Party is just too extreme right now, too ideologically absolutist, to go with someone like Huntsman.

This is the party, after all, that tossed aside conservative-but-not-conservative-enough Dick Lugar in Indiana, who would have been a shoe-in for re-election, and ended up with Dick "pregnancies from rape are a gift from God" Mourdock, who lost badly in what this year was a solidly red state, a race that was his to lose. A party that was so uncomfortable with Mitt Romney that it flirted seriously with the embarrassing likes of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum before finally settling, reluctantly, on the guy who would end up losing. It was not going to get behind a guy, however conservative, who refused to kowtow to the far right, who exposed Republican ignorance, who was just too sane and civil for the current Republican zeitgeist.

Not in 2012. Absolutely not. He just had way too many strikes against him, as I noted here:

Not that Republicans will ever nominate him, mind you. They're too stupid to know what's good for them, and Huntsman just isn't the right sort of Republican for 2012, what with the party getting ever more extreme, particularly with the rise of the Tea Party, and old-school establishment figures, not to mention moderates, or those who just aren't conservative enough for the extremists, even those with a single questionable mark on their record, being purged from its ranks by the right-wing Bolsheviks who run the show.

I wrote a post way back in January 2011 called "If I were Obama, I'd be worried about Huntsman." In retrospect, I was wrong. Obama had nothing to be worried about. Huntsman was never really a threat.

I was actually talking up the Huntsman thing even earlier, with a post in May 2009 called "Huntsman 2012?" What did I say then? "Huntsman may make us all a little queasy, but, thankfully, Republicans are just too stupid to know what's good for them."

He was undeniably formidable, as I wrote in June 2011:

[T]here's no denying he's an awfully impressive man. I might even go so far as to say he could very well be Reagan 2.0, or if not that, given how transformative Reagan was for movement conservatism, at least a leading Republican in the Reagan mold. He just seems to have it all, even the somewhat more tolerant and even liberal positions on some social issues that show him to be a man of the times, not a man against the times, a conservative who is open to progress and change while remaining committed to his fundamental beliefs. Perhaps he could be zeitgeist conservative, the forward-looking proponent of conservatism at a time of massive global change.

Alas:

But not likely, not in today's Republican Party, which would likely rather expel him that have him as its leader.

Yes, Republicans really are too stupid to know what's good for them. Which is good for us, but not good for Huntsman, who will have to wait until 2016, or forever, to make his mark in a party that has abandoned him and all those like him.

 

Do you get what I'm saying?

 

Republicans. Stupid. Huntsman. Never.

Behind the Ad: Thank you, Richard Mourdock, for saying what's on Paul Ryan's mind

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

Where: Indiana.

What's going on: We expect the Democrats to be making effective use of Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's despicable comments on God and rape, and so they are.

Here's the latest.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Quote of the Day: Haley Barbour on Richard Mourdock's rape remarks

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Said the former Mississippi governor, and one of the most quintessential Republicans (a very nearly perfect Republican, in fact), yesterday:

I don't agree with what he said. I thought that what he said was kinda crazy.

Of course, good surrogate that he is, he tried to put some daylight between Romney and Mourdock by saying that the latter's remarks have nothing to do with the presidential race and pivoting to the usual pro-Romney talking points about the economy.

To which I make two points:

1. Far from distancing himself from Mourdock, Romney continues to embrace him. There was a terse statement of discontent from the Romney campaign shortly after the remarks were made, but Romney still enthusiastically supports him in Indiana's Senate race. (And, of course, Paul Ryan's views on such matters are pretty much the same as Mourdock's.) So, yes, it's an issue, and a bad one for Romney, however much Barbour may protest otherwise.

2. Even Haley "Boss Hogg" Barbour thinks what Mourdock was said was crazy. That says something. Just as it says something that Romney, shameless panderer with an unprincipled core that he is, won't take a stand against Mourdock and say enough is enough. (He needs the crazy Republican vote, which is to say, he needs Republicans to vote for him.)

Which is to say, the loathsome Barbour is making Romney look even worse than usual. And that's saying a lot.

With him or against him (and why Romney still stands with Mourdock)

By Mustang Bobby

(Ed. note: Make sure to read the hilarious Onion article MB links to at the end of this post. To whet your appetite: "Responding to inflammatory remarks made by Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock during a debate Tuesday night, Our Lord God the Almighty Father sought today to distance Himself from both Mourdock and the entire right-wing fundamentalist Christian movement, sources confirmed." -- MJWS)

The backlash against Indiana senate candidate Richard Mourdock and his comments about God and rape continues. Some notable Republicans (John McCain and Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire) are distancing themselves while others (Mitch McConnell) are supporting him.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who cut a commercial endorsing Mr. Mourdock, is still with him. Via TPM:

[Wednesday] night the Romney campaign put out a statement disagreeing with Mourdock's comment but not denouncing him. And the campaign did not respond to questions about whether he was withdrawing his endorsement.

The key though is the ad. Democrats are pushing hard for him to ask Mourdock to take it down. And if the Mourdock story grows, I suspect he'll have to ask him to take it down, which would be devastating for Mourdock — not so much because of the ad not showing but because of the merciless press it could spawn so close to election day.

The fate of the ad is what I'd watch to see where this story is going over the course of the day.

Late Update: The Romney campaign has now said they have not asked Mourdock to take down the ad.

Later Update: Freshman GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte cancels trip to campaign with Mourdock. 

Even Later Update: Romney reaffirms support for Mourdock candidacy.

One reason might be is that Paul Ryan's view on abortion is basically the same as Mr. Mourdock's.

When Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin brought up the subject of "legitimate rape" back in August, the GOP couldn't run away fast enough. Now Mr. Mourdock has said something equally outrageous, and yet he's still got support from big names in the party. Why?

It may have something to do with the fact that Mr. Mourdock invoked God in his statement, whereas Mr. Akin only went with pseudo-science. It's far easier to distance yourself from someone who only offers what he thinks are scientific facts as proof rather than incur the wrath of the Almighty by seeming to contradict His Will. Scientific facts are debatable; God is not.

P.S.: According to The Onion, God is not pleased with these recent developments.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Behind the Ad: Richard Mourdock is Mitt Romney's kind of candidate

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: American Bridge (pro-Obama super-PAC).

Where: Web video.

What's going on: Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said pregnancies resulting from rape can be "something God intended." And while the Romney campaign has said they don't support the comments, they indicated yesterday they would continue to support the candidate. In fact, they made an ad for Mourdock featuring the GOP presidential nominee that Romney is not asking Mourdock to take down.

The Obama campaign had this to say:

"The president felt [Mourdock's] comments were outrageous and demeaning to women," Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One.

"This is a reminder that a Republican Congress working with a Republican president Mitt Romney would [feel] that women should not be able to make choices about their own healthcare... This is an issue where Mitt Romney is starring in an ad for this senator [sic] and it is perplexing that he wouldn't demand to have that ad taken down," she said.

American Bridge, a pro-Obama Super-PAC, has produced an ad to draw attention to Romney's support for Mourdock. Mitt may be able to convince some people he has moved to the middle, or was always there, but it's harder to do when he has so many radical conservatives on his team.

In this ad, attention is drawn not only to Mourdock's views on rape but also other positions that place him far outside the mainstream.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Richard Mourdock

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Raped? Pregnant? Hey, there's a silver lining. It's God's will!

It's just not Todd Akin. Republicans generally seem to have some seriously disgusting thoughts about rape. Here's the latest -- another shot in the Republican war on women but also an assault on decency and justice:

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday that pregnancy that results from rape can be "something that God intended to happen."

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God," Mourdock said at a debate. "And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

Yes, that's right, Mourdock -- not some fringe Republican without standing in the party but the GOP's Indiana Senate candidate, having defeated long-time and highly respected Sen. Richard Lugar in the primary earlier this year -- said that his "God" is behind rape, that rape is... divine. As his opponent, Democrat Joe Donnelly said in response:

"The God I believe in and the God I know most Hoosiers believe in, does not intend for rape to happen -- ever," Mourdock's opponent, Rep. Joe Donnelly (D), said in a statement. "What Mr. Mourdock said is shocking, and it is stunning that he would be so disrespectful to survivors of rape." 

Mourdock later issued a statement clarifying his remarks but also lashing out as his critics:

"God creates life, and that was my point," Mourdock said in the statement. "God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick."

Mourdock is obviously an extremist on abortion, and perhaps he did speak a tad inelegantly, but what he said was pretty clear: pregnancy from rape is something that God intended to happen. He can try to rewrite that any way he wants, but it would seem that he's only trying to cover up his real views on the matter: Rape can be a good thing. It's what God wants.

Indeed, even the Romney campaign -- and Romney's a big Mourdock supporter -- ran as far from his comments as possible. "Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views," said his spokesperson, Andrea Saul.

Yes, even Romney understood that Mourdock said something, and believes something, truly crazy and utterly reprehensible. 

Mourdock: "More Dick"

By Carl 

I'm not sure what it is about rape that Republicans find so attractive.

No, I'm sure: rape is not about sex, it's about power, but Republicans want to pretend it's about sex: 

[Indiana Senate candidate Richard] Mourdock, who's been locked in one of the country's most expensive and closely watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate Tuesday night whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. 

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said.

You may remember Mourdock as the Teabagger who ousted Senator Richard Lugar from re-election mostly by painting Lugar as too moderate and too willing to compromise.

Compromise: after Teabaggers are gone from Congress, I think they'll realize a harsh lesson has been given to them. Governing and legislating 330 million people demands compromise because you can't have an army of goose-stepping sheep agreeing with every extremist position you pull out of the Koch brothers' asses.

Mourdock is the second Teabagging candidate to say something repulsive about rape and its consequences. You may recall Todd Akin and his comments about the impossibility of pregnancy during a "real rape."

It's an interesting trope to believe, to be frank: by allowing for degrees of rape, you immediately deflect any challenge from people who's feelings about abortion are more flexible and compassionate than yours. You basically take compassion out of the argument by claiming, in effect, "she had it coming."

It doesn't matter if she was pinned to the ground by a man twice her size, had a knife held to her throat and brutally assaulted, penetrated over and over again: if she got pregnant, she wanted to have sex.

I've never been much for bondage fantasies, and I can't imagine too many women would find this exciting and welcome. I wonder if Akin or Mourdock were in a prison shower and this happened to them, would they still believe in "illegitimate rape"?

Akin at least had the good timing to reveal his disgusting lunacy before the campaign geared up and allowed Romney the opportunity to decry him and to put distance from Akin. Mourdock, however, is currently running television and radio ads featuring both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

Romney can't be sitting comfortably with this. The whole Akin affair took the entire Republican ticket down a peg in polls, and to re-energize the population of women is going to not only hurt Mourdock's chances, but the story will remind women across the nation of the GOP antipathy towards anything in heels.

So Richard Mourdock? Thank you. Thank you for being a heartless dickless bastard.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Say goodnight, Dick Lugar

By Richard K. Barry

Everyone knew it was coming, but the time is upon us. After three and a half decades in the U.S. Senate representing Indiana, Republican Richard Lugar has lost his party's primary bid to run in the general election in November.

With about half the votes counted, the winner, Richard Mourdock, had 59% of the vote to Lugar's 40%, which was enough to call the race.

Lots of outside money involved in this one. Indiana has also been trending more conservative of late, but perhaps the biggest problem for Lugar was incumbency itself. It used to be that incumbency was a guarantee of success, or very nearly. Now it's a weight around any Republican candidate's neck as the incumbent attempts to prove he or she has not been co-opted by Washington or jaded by inside-the-beltway experiences.

Tea Party favourite Richard Mourdock will now face three-term Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly in the fall. It would be nice if Mourdock were the kind of crazy right-winger who beat himself, much as Christine O'Donnell did in Delaware and Sharon Angle in Nevada. Unfortunately, Mourdock has been elected to state-wide office twice and will probably not trip up like the aforementioned pretenders.

As noted, Indiana is trending redder, and it would be a surprise if the GOP lost this Senate seat.

In explaining race dynamics, RealClearPolitics said this:

Mourdock used Lugar’s moderate streak against him. The campaign went after the senator's support for TARP and the DREAM Act, and his votes for President Obama's two Supreme Court justice nominees, for example. FreedomWorks, the National Rifle Association, and other conservative groups rallied behind Mourdock and spent millions campaigning against his opponent. Club for Growth recently ran ads accusing Lugar of "clinging to power." Lugar had support from super PACs, and the candidate's campaign spent roughly $2.4 million on the race, using ads to paint Mourdock as beholden to outside interest groups.

Strike another blow for a dysfunctional Congress.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Republican purification and the coming end of Richard Lugar

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Steve Kornacki at Salon:

It sure doesn't look like Richard Lugar is long for the political world. The news that the major super PAC supporting his candidacy is bailing on him a week before the Republican primary reinforces a growing consensus that the six-term Indiana senator will likely be defeated next Tuesday by his conservative challenger, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock.

And there's a good chance Mourdock could win in November. The Democrats would have a better shot against him than against Lugar, to be sure, but, as Kornacki notes, Indiana is "a traditionally Republican state that's expected to land in the Romney column this fall," even though it went for Obama in '08.

The real significance of a Lugar loss, though, would extend far beyond November. The fact that he's now fighting for his political life in a GOP primary is a reflection of the endurance of the Tea Party phenomenon. The term itself may feel tired and even dated, a relic from 2009 or 2010, but it's really just a colorful synonym for "Republican Party base." And as Lugar's perilous standing shows, that base is waging the same kind of purity crusade in 2012 that it did in 2010.

(Read the whole thing. It's a good piece that delves into the dominance of party's right-wing base, "Tea Party" or otherwise.)

It's important not to ignore this, to overlook what's happened to the Republican Party over the past few years. It's easy to dismiss the Tea Party, but the mutual co-optation of the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party has resulted in the latter becoming even more extremist.

Long one of its most sensible members, appealing to the center and even to Democrats, particularly with respect to foreign affairs, Lugar is about to become the latest victim of the Republican Party's ongoing, and deepening, campaign of self-purification.

It's starting to feel like Lugar is going down in Indiana

By Richard K. Barry

Here's an interesting footnote to the recent story about Sarah Palin endorsing Republican, and Tea Party-backed challenger, Richard Mourdock in his bid to unseat long-time Senator Dick Lugar in the Indiana GOP primary on May 8th.

The American Action Network (AAN), a "top Republican spending group," according to Politico, has decided that it will drop efforts to assist Dick Lugar's embattled candidacy through a series of ads attacking Mourdock, particularly in the Indianapolis media market.

As Alexander Burns at Politico writes:

Republicans have told me the ads appear to have helped move the needle in Indianapolis, but the sense across the party is that the race has broken in Mourdock's direction throughout Indiana.

For a group like AAN, that would raise the question of whether it makes sense to keep going after a man who looks likely to be the Republican candidate against Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly. Lugar may have been the GOP's strongest general election candidate, but if he is beyond recovery -- or close -- then the next-best thing is a relatively undamaged Mourdock.

Rep. Joe Donnelly

Lugar's unpopularity among some Tea Party voters relates to his positions regarding immigration, voting to confirm then-U.S Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan, the DREAM ACT, the START Treaty, some gun control bills, and congressional earmarks.

The only polling I could find on various scenarios for the general election are based on a March 26-28, 2012 Howey Politics/DePauw University poll, which found that Dick Lugar ran ahead of the Democratic challenger, Joe Donnelly, by a margin of 50% to 29% (14% undecided), but Richard Mourdouck and Donnelly were in a dead heat at 35% apiece (23% undecided).

These are small samples sizes at 503 for each scenario, but it does give you a sense that, with Mourdock as the GOP nominee, this gets interesting.

Sounds like the smart money in the GOP might be abandoning Lugar. Of course, if they were that smart, they would do no such thing.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Sarah Palin endorses Richard Mourdock in Indiana Senate race

By Richard K. Barry

Richard Mourdock is challenging long-time GOP incumbent Dick Lugar for the party nomination in the Indiana Senate race. Lugar is considered by many in the Tea Party wing of the GOP to be too moderate.

Sarah Palin is, naturally, supporting the Tea Party choice in an attempt to push Lugar out. With or without Palin's intervention, the nomination race will likely be close.

Any chance the Democrats have to steal a seat like this is based on the Republicans going rogue with their candidate. It would still be a long-shot, but it's good to see Palin stirring the pot. Thanks for the assist.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Things are getting ugly in the Indiana GOP Senate primary

By Richard K. Barry

Who: Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

Where: Indiana.

What's going on: Dick Lugar has begun airing a new ad in what is becoming a very ugly primary battle with Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock, going so far as to call his challenger a liar.

As The Huffington Post writes:

When they resort to negative ads, it is often a sign that front-running campaigns -- like Lugar's at the moment -- are worried. Indeed, a pair of polls released Monday by Democratic and Republican opponents of Lugar both found Mourdock has climbed to within 6 percentage points of Lugar, even though the incumbent senator remains broadly popular.

Part of Lugar's problem lately has been the pounding he's taken from both sides over the fact that he lives in Virginia, not Indiana. A local election commission ruled last week that he is not eligible to vote in his former hometown, although state officials have declared that he is eligible to run.

The ad is built around Lugar's contention that Mourdock is intentionally misrepresenting Lugar's position on Obamacare. Oh, heavens no. Not that.

At root, this is a battle between an establishment conservative, Lugar, and a Tea Party-backed insurgent, Mourdock, who has been endorsed by the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Citizens United, and the Tea Party Express.

With the primary two months away and things getting close, it may be hard to call this one, but I'm willing to bet the Democrats would rather run against the Tea Party guy than the one who has been around forever. 

From the movement that brought you Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell.

Here's the ad:


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.) 

What does Mitch Daniels have against women's health?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM:

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels released a statement Friday afternoon saying he will sign legislation stripping federal funds from Planned Parenthood in Indiana, the first state to make such a move. 

This is somewhat odd, it seems to me, given that Daniels tends to focus on economic issues and avoid divisive social ones... unless, of course, he's gearing up for a 2012 presidential run and this is a move aimed at stirring up support with the extremist grassroots base of the GOP.

And, indeed, Daniels is specifically targeting Planned Parentood for providing abortion services:

Any organization affected by this provision can resume receiving taxpayer dollars immediately by ceasing or separating its operations that perform abortions.

But Planned Parenthood is about far more than abortion. It's about women's health, and abortion is actually a small part of what it does. More than that, it's about providing health services to women who can't otherwise afford them:

"We do around 500 pap tests a week," Indiana Planned Parenthood President Betty Cockrum told TPM in an interview earlier on Friday. "We will be making phone calls to Medicaid patients all over the state and telling them, either you have to pay for that pap test out of pocket, or you need to find someone else who can take you as a Medicaid patient. We can't do it anymore."

There are 28 Planned Parenthood centers in the state. Almost 60 percent of patients seen last year were living under the poverty line.

Daniels may be doing this to boost his own popularity at home, but he's already in his second term and he can't run for a third consecutive one. So is he doing it simply out of principle? Maybe, but it does seem much likelier that he's doing it with an eye on the White House. Steve Benen:

That only 3% of Planned Parenthood's operations deal with abortions, and that public funding of abortions is already legally prohibited, apparently didn't matter.

What's especially striking about this is how cruel and unnecessary it is. Daniels has been governor of Indiana for more than six years, and he's never had a problem with Planned Parenthood funding. He was Bush's budget director for more than two years, and he never had a problem with Planned Parenthood funding.

But now that he's thinking about running for president, and has hysterical right-wing activists to impress, now Mitch Daniels has suddenly discovered Planned Parenthood funding -- which has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades -- is no longer acceptable to him. 

Indeed, so much for Daniels as a "serious" Republican.

Lugar faces the Tea Party music

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A couple of weeks ago, R.K. Barry wrote an Elephant Dung post on how the Indiana Tea Party is going after long-time and highly-respected Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, planning a 2012 challenge that could ultimately bring down one of the few remaining sensible Republicans on Capitol Hill. Well, it ain't lookin' good for Lugar:

Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock will launch his primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Tuesday with the support of a majority of both the state's 92 Republican county chairmen and its state party executive committee, he told the Fix in a recent interview.

"I feel bad that he's going to be humiliated by this list," Mourdock said.

Mourdock added that he believes Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and Rep. Mike Pence (R), the party's two leading figures in the Hoosier State, are going to stay neutral in the primary -- though Daniels, who was Lugar's campaign manager three different times, has already committed to voting for the senator.

That such a large contingent of the party establishment should come out against or withhold support from an incumbent senator is highly unusual and reflects the difficult path ahead for Lugar in advance of the May 8, 2012, primary fight. It also suggests there is a clear path to victory for Mourdock.

From what I can tell, Mourdock isn't just another Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, or John Raese. While he's to the right of Lugar, he would appear to be a competent figure who could well win a general election in what is already a red-leaning state. And he's not a full-on Teabagger:

Mourdock is clear on one thing: he is not running as a tea party candidate. While he welcomes the support of tea party groups and says he expects them to coalesce around his campaign, he recognizes the limitations of being defined as a tea party candidate.

"Mr. Lugar will try to paint me that way, because he's speaking very demeaningly about the tea party right now," Mourdock said. "I think he's doing it that way to set it up and say, 'Mourdock is some wild-eyed extremist.'"

Well, an extremist he is, if well within the mainstream of today's GOP, but Lugar will likely have a hard time making his case stick, what with so much of the state party likely to line up behind Mourdock. (Although an endorsement from Daniels would help.)

What's interesting, though, as we continue to track the GOP's civil war, is that Lugar is hardly a moderate. As R.K. put it:

It seems that Lugar's sin is that he voted to confirm a couple of liberal Supreme Court justices and voted for the START treaty to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It's not like he voted for health-care reform or the economic stimulus package, offenses that would likely have gotten him beheaded before they threw him out of office. No, just a couple of votes on the Supremes and a missile treaty seems to be enough to incur the wrath of the radical right.

Never mind that based on so many other indicators he's a fairly conservative fellow, which is born out by the fact that he's always been pro-life and pro-business, and an advocate for lower taxes and smaller government.

He's a solid conservative, in other words, and a loyal Republican -- not that either is good enough these days, not with the Tea Party demanding absolutism on a broad core of policy positions. And even compromising on a couple of issues (which pretty much everyone in Congress has to do over the course of a long career), even showing a breadth of understanding beyond narrow ideological parochialism (which Lugar, a foreign policy expert, certainly has done), can bring about one's downfall at the hands of the Republican Bolsheviks.

R.K. notes that Lugar is "just too damn strong and viewed as unbeatable by the political establishment," and hence that a Tea Party challenge would be "a colossal waste of time," but this isn't just about the Tea Party anymore. Rather, it's about a broader conservative challenge to Lugar, including from within the state party establishment. It's hard to imagine Lugar losing, but it's easier now than ever before, what with the Tea Party and the Republican establishment making nice all across the country, endangering not just Lugar but even the likes of Orrin Hatch in Utah, hardly anything other than a hardcore conservative.

This says a lot about the state of the Republican Party today as it looks ahead to 2012, a party of increasing extremism that, with the Tea Party pushing its buttons, is trying -- often successfully -- to purge its ranks of "sinners," of those who have deviated from the far-right line.

And I'm all for it, because it just makes Republicans even more unelectable. They won the House last year because of a bad economy and low voter turnout (and successful propaganda), but things will be different next year, with Obama rebounding, the economy (hopefully) improving, and enthusiasm among Democrats returning (if not quite to '08 levels). Moving further and further to the right while dismissing even the likes of Richard Lugar would just make their chances even worse.

(photo)

Jeb Bush talks up Mitch Daniels for 2012

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The supposedly smarter Bush brother:

Jeb Bush likes Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' 2012 presidential prospects. The former Florida governor told a private gathering of Jacksonville business leaders that Daniels is the only potential candidate he's heard who demonstrates a willingness to face up to harsh realities.

"Mitch is the only one who sees the stark perils and will offer real detailed proposals," he said, speaking at a reception held before he took the stage in front of a crowd of real estate professionals.

Well, look, Daniels is certainly one of the saner Republicans these days -- which admittedly isn't really saying much -- and his one and a half terms as Indiana governor have proven him to be a relatively responsible fiscal conservative. Not that I go for such policies, but he's preferable to most others in the GOP.

But Jeb's got the year wrong.

In terms of the Republican nomination, this isn't 2008, when a moderate could win as the sitting vice president to continue the Reagan presidency (Jeb's dad), or 1996, when a long-time leading establishment figure could win to face a popular president at a time of economic health (Dole), or 2000, when a safe conservative could win after eight years of Clinton and things generally looking good both domestically and internationally (Jeb's brother), or 2008, when another long-time establishment figure, if also something of a former maverick, could win with the party bitterly divided after eight years of Bush II, defeating a fairly weak primary field (McCain).

This is, or will be, 2012, and, as we saw last year, and as we continue to see now, the Republican Party has changed. It has moved, and is moving, further and further to the right and the Tea Party has become a major player across the country, booting out even credible hardcore conservatives who haven't met their far-right agenda or conspiratorial predilections. The Tea Party has its members on Capitol Hill now, but it's bigger in the base -- and you have to win the base to win the nomination. And it's not just the Tea Party. While there is significant overlap, the Republican Party is also the party of the Birthers. And of course it's not just fiscally but socially conservative in the extreme.

And Daniels just doesn't cut it. He's raised taxes, after, even going so far as to propose a tiny tax increase on the wealthy (a one percent increase for one year) that was rejected by his own party. And while he's socially conservative, he's not an activist social conservative. As Nate Silver noted recently, Daniels "has called for a "truce"... on social issues, and expressed a willingness to consider tax increases to rectify a budget deficit." I see how Jeb might like all that, but Republican primary voters certainly won't, should he even decide to run.

2012 just won't be his year, not as a relatively sane "moderate" in a party that is speeding away from him to the distant right.

(photo -- Daniels is the short one in the middle.)

Elephant Dung #14: Tea Party goes after Republican Senate icon Richard Lugar

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By R.K. Barry

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Long-time Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana is up for re-election in 2012 and, it seems, he just isn't conservative enough for the local Tea Party contingent. But who is? Really. I wouldn't be the first to claim that the sainted Ronald Reagan would be hard-pressed to pass muster with this gang, given his penchant for tax increases and signing missile treaties with those darn Ruskies. Imagine anyone calling Ronald Reagan a RINO (Republican in Name Only).

It seems that Lugar's sin is that he voted to confirm a couple of liberal Supreme Court justices and voted for the START treaty to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It's not like he voted for health-care reform or the economic stimulus package, offenses that would likely have gotten him beheaded before they threw him out of office. No, just a couple of votes on the Supremes and a missile treaty seems to be enough to incur the wrath of the radical right.

Never mind that based on so many other indicators he's a fairly conservative fellow, which is born out by the fact that he's always been pro-life and pro-business, and an advocate for lower taxes and smaller government.

As David Weigel points out at Slate, the challenge probably won't mean very much. He writes:

Indiana's going to be complicated. If Mike Pence runs for governor, as everyone expects him to, does he throw his senior senator under the bus? Doubtful. If the GOP race for president drags on a bit, it will drag on to Indiana, driving higher turnout -- and Tea Party coups have not been won with high turnout, but with voter enthusiasm in sleepy late primaries. 

Add to that the fact that Lugar is just too damn strong and viewed as unbeatable by the political establishment and you have a colossal waste of time in the making. But that won't stop them.

 As one Tea Party activist remarked:

[We're saying to Lugar] thank you for what you've done. We respect you greatly as a person and for what you've done in the past. But to go forward, we feel it's going to need to be a different candidate.

Yeah, I'll bet that made him crap his pants.

You have to admit that these Tea Partiers are not shy. In any case, there seem to be a couple of candidates available more to their liking, though it appears doubtful that either will have much traction.

One of the things that comes through consistently with Tea Partiers is their utter lack of practical political sense. They are true believers. Fail their purity test, which is probably inevitable for any politician who has been in D.C. for more than a weekend, and expect to hear about it -- in a big way.

That may make them all feel good and noble but it won't do much for their electoral chances. Someone really should explain that to them, but I'm not going to be the one to do it. It'll be more fun if they figure it out for themselves. 

Makes you wonder what other Republican heavyweights they're going to go after next.

********** 

Update (by MJWS): Lugar, for his part, is being gracious, though you can tell he's rather annoyed. Take this brilliant comeback, for example:

"I've been working systematically for 20 years going to Russia trying to help direct a situation in which we're taking warheads off of missiles every day, destroying missiles that were aimed at us; destroying submarines that carried misslies up and down our coast," said Lugar. "I've got to say 'Get real'. I hear Tea Party or other people talking about they were against START. I said 'Well, now, hang on here.'"

Lugar continued, "If you want to get into START, let's talk about it, but realistically as Americans, not as some Republican renegade. [I'm] trying to take warheads of Russia [out of circulation] so they won't hit Indiana."

Lugar's an admirable guy, I say from across the partisan divide, but there's no way the Tea Party is about to "get real."

Elephant Dung #11: The Tea Party prepares for 2012 takeover of GOP

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

To an extent, the Republican Party and the Tea Party are the same thing.

The latter isn't politically independent, even if a small minority of its members are, it's solidly Republican. And the Tea Party has become such a major part of the Republican Party that it's hard to tell the two apart.

To be sure, there are a number of Republicans, mostly in what has been the party "establishment," who aren't Teabaggers, but that number, and their power, appears to be in decline.

To put it another way, the Republican Party and the Tea Party (which, again, is mostly Republican anyway) have embraced each other. Now, another word for "embrace," in this context, is "co-opt," as each sees the other as its vehicle for electoral success. The Tea Party needs the Republican Party, and vice versa.

But, hugging notwithstanding, the relationship is not always amicable, not least with the Tea Party trying not just to co-opt the Republican Party but to take it over and control it. The Tea Party doesn't just want to be one of the Republican Party's main components but its dominant force. It doesn't want the Republican Party to be an umbrella party (like the Democratic Party) with multiple perspectives and policy positions within it, but a rigid ideological party of Tea Party dogma.

It wants the Republican Party, that is, to be the party of Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and the rest of the Teabaggers who ran last year to varying success. And, to that end, and drunk on delusion, it's gearing up for 2012:

Leaders of more than 70 Tea Party groups in Indiana gathered last weekend to sign a proclamation saying they would all support one candidate — as yet undetermined — in a primary challenge to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Republican who has represented the state since 1977.

They are organizing early, they say, to prevent what happened last year, when several Tea Party candidates split the vote in Republican Senate primaries, allowing the most establishment of the candidates to win with less than 40 percent.

The meeting in Sharpsville was hardly the exception. Just three months after the midterm elections, Tea Party organizers are preparing to challenge some of the longest-serving Republican incumbents in 2012.

In Maine, there is already one candidate running on a Tea Party platform against Senator Olympia J. Snowe. Supporters there are seeking others to run, declaring that they, too, will back the person they view as the strongest candidate to avoid splitting their vote. In Utah, the same people who ousted Senator Robert F. Bennett at the state’s Republican convention last spring are now looking at a challenge to Senator Orrin G. Hatch.

The early moves suggest that the pattern of the last elections, in which primaries were more fiercely contested than the general election in several states, may be repeated.

They also show how much the Tea Party has changed the definition of who qualifies as a conservative. While Ms. Snowe is widely considered a moderate Republican, Mr. Hatch is not. Mr. Lugar, similarly, defines himself as a conservative.

Ah, but that's not good enough anymore.

You can't just be a "conservative," you have to be a Tea Party conservative, a right-wing extremist like Rand, Angle, and O'Donnell, predominantly on economic issues (where the insane views of Ayn Rand are standard fare) but also on social ones (the Tea Party may be known best for its views on "limited" government, but it's extremely conservative, if not generally theocratic, on social issues as well, even allowing for hyper-libertarian exceptions like Rand).

And if even an Orrin Hatch isn't good enough, well, you know just how far to the right the Tea Party is -- and would like the Republican Party to be.

So are we headed for an ugly, internally divisive Republican primary season, with Teabaggers challenging any and all Republicans who don't meet their far-right standards, including established conservatives like Hatch?

Hopefully. Let's see what these Teabaggers are made off -- and let's watch the Republican Party reap what it has sown. 

Bring it on.