Indiana Rejects Richard Lugar

Over the course of the last few weeks we had been seeing polls that showed that longtime Indiana Senator Richard Lugar was facing a very serious challenge for the Republican nomination for Senator. Why would Indiana choose to not nominate a Senator who had served them as well as the country well for the last 36 years. For the same reason several other folks have been removed recently.

The tea party. While the Tea Party has been less vocal this time around in the elections and where the Tea Party group has become more the object of derision and distrust one thing must be clear. The Tea Party, especially in primary elections can have an inordinate amount of influence on an election.

Politicians always want their base to be excited. Primaries often, especially at the state level, do not create excitement. As happened in Delaware in 2008 a passionate wing of the party can flood the polls and defeat a candidate whose supporters who are not energized and voting in high numbers. Complacency sets in.

We do not yet know the turnout in Indiana. And perhaps as Indiana is a conservative state we should not draw too much from this example. Still it is disheartening. Richard Lugar was no liberal. By my rights he was not really even a moderate. He was an internationalist. He was very respected by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

That in itself is the problem. Being even respected by the other side is reason to have suspicion cast on you. In Lugar's case the death knell might have rung when he chose to vote to confirm Sonja Sotomayer. Lugar believed in the advise and consent portion of the Senate's role in the confirmation process. He beleived that the President should be able to choose a candidate and as long as the candidate was ethical and qualified the President should be extended the privilege of being confirmed. In short there was no litmus test for Dick Lugar. This made him a pariah to the Tea Party. The fact that Democrats such as John Kerry and President Obama expressed statements of respect for Lugar's career would create smug expressions of satisfaction from Tea Party members who doubted his Republican loyalties.

Still what it says about the future of our country is concerning. This sounds like a broken record but with no moderates, and conciliation and negotiation considered a weakness how can anything be accomplished in Washington. With our country facing choices that might well affect our long term future and economy very soon the prospect for gridlock is much more real than we have faced even in this, historic for it's animosity, session.

Dick Lugar was an admirable public servant. He deserved much better than the Republicans of Indiana gave him.