Schramm - GOP Risks Defeating Best Hope for Taking Senate
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Martin Schramm-
Q: Name the Republican senator who, according to Congressional Quarterly voting records, most often supported Ronald Reagan’s agenda during his eight-year presidency.
(A) Ted Stevens of Alaska
(B) Jesse Helms of North Carolina
(C) Howard Baker of Tennessee
(D) Dan Quayle of Indiana
(E) Richard Lugar of Indiana
Q: Name the Republican senator whose 2012 re-election was once considered the Senate’s surest thing, but was targeted for defeat by conservatives – even though their effort may kill GOP hopes of capturing the Senate.
(Here’s a hint: He has probably done more than anyone else to generate new jobs in his state. Need another? Here’s a second hint: He has probably done more than anyone else now in the Senate to secure America’s homeland in today’s age of terrorism. OK, here’s a final hint: If you got the first question right, you’ll get this one, too. Which makes it way too easy, since he’s the only one on the list who still is in the Senate.)
Yes, the correct answer to both questions is: Richard Lugar of Indiana.
He is celebrating his 80th birthday this week by campaigning harder than any of us thought he’d ever have to again. Believe me, he has to. And that’s a fact that tells us much about what has gone terribly wrong in the once-Grand Old Party.
Lugar may be the best of what the Republican Party – and for that matter, the Democratic Party – has to offer us. Lugar is famous for being a centrist – yet he has always voted consistently to his conservative economic principles. A quiet man seeking his sixth term in the Senate, Lugar famously teamed with then-Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., to help safeguard the U.S. homeland a decade before al-Qaida terrorists showed us that even our homeland can be vulnerable. The Nunn-Lugar program famously secured many of the world’s so-called loose nukes.
But in Indiana, folks know all about that, but not surprisingly, they care most these days about what voters in every state care about most of all: jobs. That is where Lugar has done some of his most valuable – but not always best-known – work. Again, he got into the business of creating jobs in Indiana early. He pushed a 1979 plan that saved Chrysler back when it appeared the automaker was about to be put up on cement blocks. He required Chrysler to get rid of much of its subsidiary work. That created small companies in Indiana to manufacture specific items. Example: One Indiana entrepreneur put his neighbors to work making rubber seals for doors of Chrysler vehicles.
Lugar also pushed to develop ethanol, the alternative fuel made from corn, not Middle East oil. Ethanol has been justifiably criticized as being too costly to produce – notably because of the costs of trucking corn to refineries. Now, small refineries are being built near the cornfields. Ethanol has created thousands of jobs in Indiana. Lugar’s family still operates a farm outside Indianapolis that grows corn, soybeans and black walnuts. But in the Senate, Lugar, ever conservative, fights to cut corn subsidies.
Enter Richard Mourdock. He’s Indiana’s little-known state treasurer, a staunch conservative who gained Tea Party-movement backing in his challenge of Lugar in Indiana’s May 8 primary. Mourdock’s mantra is that bipartisanship is what is wrong with America – and that we need more partisanship. Even if it means gridlock. He is funded by conservative groups, including Club for Growth and Freedom-Works.
The latest poll shows Lugar with a narrow lead of just 42 percent to 35 percent. They are statistically tied among registered Republicans. But independents and Democrats can vote in Indiana’s GOP primary.
The only way Republicans can lose this Senate seat is if Lugar loses to Mourdock. And that could cost Republicans their best chance of capturing the Senate in November.
Abba Eban’s famous observation, spoken long ago by the late Israeli foreign minister about Palestinians, applies aptly to the 2012 Republicans: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”[[In-content Ad]]
Q: Name the Republican senator who, according to Congressional Quarterly voting records, most often supported Ronald Reagan’s agenda during his eight-year presidency.
(A) Ted Stevens of Alaska
(B) Jesse Helms of North Carolina
(C) Howard Baker of Tennessee
(D) Dan Quayle of Indiana
(E) Richard Lugar of Indiana
Q: Name the Republican senator whose 2012 re-election was once considered the Senate’s surest thing, but was targeted for defeat by conservatives – even though their effort may kill GOP hopes of capturing the Senate.
(Here’s a hint: He has probably done more than anyone else to generate new jobs in his state. Need another? Here’s a second hint: He has probably done more than anyone else now in the Senate to secure America’s homeland in today’s age of terrorism. OK, here’s a final hint: If you got the first question right, you’ll get this one, too. Which makes it way too easy, since he’s the only one on the list who still is in the Senate.)
Yes, the correct answer to both questions is: Richard Lugar of Indiana.
He is celebrating his 80th birthday this week by campaigning harder than any of us thought he’d ever have to again. Believe me, he has to. And that’s a fact that tells us much about what has gone terribly wrong in the once-Grand Old Party.
Lugar may be the best of what the Republican Party – and for that matter, the Democratic Party – has to offer us. Lugar is famous for being a centrist – yet he has always voted consistently to his conservative economic principles. A quiet man seeking his sixth term in the Senate, Lugar famously teamed with then-Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., to help safeguard the U.S. homeland a decade before al-Qaida terrorists showed us that even our homeland can be vulnerable. The Nunn-Lugar program famously secured many of the world’s so-called loose nukes.
But in Indiana, folks know all about that, but not surprisingly, they care most these days about what voters in every state care about most of all: jobs. That is where Lugar has done some of his most valuable – but not always best-known – work. Again, he got into the business of creating jobs in Indiana early. He pushed a 1979 plan that saved Chrysler back when it appeared the automaker was about to be put up on cement blocks. He required Chrysler to get rid of much of its subsidiary work. That created small companies in Indiana to manufacture specific items. Example: One Indiana entrepreneur put his neighbors to work making rubber seals for doors of Chrysler vehicles.
Lugar also pushed to develop ethanol, the alternative fuel made from corn, not Middle East oil. Ethanol has been justifiably criticized as being too costly to produce – notably because of the costs of trucking corn to refineries. Now, small refineries are being built near the cornfields. Ethanol has created thousands of jobs in Indiana. Lugar’s family still operates a farm outside Indianapolis that grows corn, soybeans and black walnuts. But in the Senate, Lugar, ever conservative, fights to cut corn subsidies.
Enter Richard Mourdock. He’s Indiana’s little-known state treasurer, a staunch conservative who gained Tea Party-movement backing in his challenge of Lugar in Indiana’s May 8 primary. Mourdock’s mantra is that bipartisanship is what is wrong with America – and that we need more partisanship. Even if it means gridlock. He is funded by conservative groups, including Club for Growth and Freedom-Works.
The latest poll shows Lugar with a narrow lead of just 42 percent to 35 percent. They are statistically tied among registered Republicans. But independents and Democrats can vote in Indiana’s GOP primary.
The only way Republicans can lose this Senate seat is if Lugar loses to Mourdock. And that could cost Republicans their best chance of capturing the Senate in November.
Abba Eban’s famous observation, spoken long ago by the late Israeli foreign minister about Palestinians, applies aptly to the 2012 Republicans: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”[[In-content Ad]]
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