Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a 35-year member of the Senate and one of Washington’s leading experts on U.S. foreign policy, lost his bid for reelection Tuesday after a conservative backlash inside the GOP denied him his party’s nomination for a seventh term.Read the rest here.
Lugar’s loss — the first for a senator this year — appears to be another victory for the tea party conservatives who roiled the Republican Party in 2010 when they defeated two GOP senators in primaries and knocked off several more establishment favorites in open Senate primaries.
I for one am not celebrating as the far right seems to be. Dick Lugar was one of those old fashioned men who was a patriot and a gentleman first, and a Republican second. His defeat is further evidence that there is no room in the GOP for those kinds of people, especially given the man who beat him. Washington has enough hard nosed take no prisoners partisan clowns. It really doesn't need another one.
Concur. This is not a gain for conservatism. It is a loss for statesmanship.
ReplyDeleteOK, but look: Lugar sold his home and didn't even live in Indiana. He never attended events back "home" or spent time with this constituents. This has little to do with statesmanship and a lot to do with a sense of a politician's entitlement that, normally on AO, would get criticism. As Scott Brown famously said, "It's the people's seat." Amen.
ReplyDeleteOur upper legislative chamber is a Senate, not a House of Lords. Thirty-six years is beyond enough time for any one person to serve in it.
By the way: read some of what Mourdock had to say in the aftermath of his victory about Lugar. Mourdock is plenty gentlemanly. You're not a scoundrel just because you choose to contest an election in this country.
My problem with this sort of situation is that establishment Republicans actively discourage any sort of "changing of the guard" and then feign shock and dismay to see "their guy" ousted by some far-right, hyper-partisan zealot. (Not that I'm saying that's the case with Lugar's opponent... but it clearly was the case in 2010 in certain races, so I'm generalizing.)
ReplyDeleteI just can't help but feel that there were probably many reasonable, intelligent, civic-minded people who would have liked to have challenged Lugar (probably for the last several elections) who were made to feel petty or unpatriotic for wanting to do that. So I can't help but feel a bit a little bit of Schadenfreude when these primary campaigns lead to stunning upsets.
I don't much care for "the Tea Party" but I'm glad to see them cleaning house, since no one else will.
Of course, alternatively, if we're all going to fall back on the idea that the Senate is for the elder statesmen who shouldn't be subject to the whims of a fickle electorate, which is actually not a terrible idea, then I'm all for repealing the 17th amendment.
ReplyDeleteIf we're going to have entrenched politicians that can't be gotten rid of, let's at least have them held accountable by the state legislatures, since clearly most of them are unresponsive to their constituencies.
It just seems crass to me that everyone talks up the importance of letting "the people" decide and then everyone pulls back in revulsion when "the people" don't decide the way they were told to.
I liked his foreign policy expertise, but as I say this, I'm wondering why any representative should be in office long enough to develop any kind of expertise. Therefore, good riddance.
ReplyDeleteJohn, I'm somewhat surprised about your characterizing those who take firm, principled stands as "partisan clowns".