This is the worst omen for Dick Lugar in a slew of bad omens this week.
The SuperPAC which has dumped $600,000 of advertising into the Indianapolis market is pulling out of the race:
The American Action Network is pulling out of the Indiana GOP Senate primary, dropping its efforts on behalf of embattled Sen. Dick Lugar less than two weeks before the May 8 election, sources told POLITICO.
Dan Conston, a spokesman for AAN, explained: “We’ve decided we’re going to let this race play out.”
The group has already begun to pull its TV dollars; no further ads will run after Tuesday and digital advertising in the race has stopped effective immediately.
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.
While Lugar has a lot of money in the bank, this is a sign that the Republican establishment has given up on him and doesn’t want to damage Mourdock for the general election:
Lugar still has a big warchest to draw from, so the loss of ads against Mourdock won’t hurt him that badly in the air war. But this is the latest sign that the race is slipping away from the six-term senator, who has been badly damaged after it was revealed he’s lived in Washington, D.C. for decades and is a top target of many conservative groups.
The race seems to be slipping away from Lugar and the American Action Network may want to avoid inflicting any more damage on Mourdock, the likely nominee, ahead of what could be a competitive general election race against Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.).
Lugar still has John McCain, Pat Boone and Mitch Daniels (barely) stumping for him. It has come to that.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
and to think that some people wanted Mitch Daniels to run for President. Pathetic.
Mitch Daniels rocks. He’s supporting Lugar (tepidly, it must be pointed out) because Lugar gave him his start back in the 70s.
Richard Mourdock was even quoted saying that he’d “walk through fire” for Gov. Daniels. And with good reason. Daniels has been a phenomenal conservative governor.
Dick had better have some heretofore unrevealed slow-jam chops in him.
[…] INDIANA: Pro-Lugar SuperPAC calls it quits. […]
I’ll never fault someone like Daniels for remaining loyal to a party elder who helped them get their own start years earlier. On the other hand who would be better to carry the message that it is time to retire than a longstanding political friend?
Palin did that for McCain.
McCain wasn’t Obama’s favorite Republican either. Daniels could have said what Palin did that Lugar was a statesman for x number of years but it’s time for new ideas and a new person. Daniels is establishment and part of the good ole’ boys. Shame on him.
I’ll never fault someone like Daniels for remaining loyal to a party elder who helped them get their own start years earlier.
With all due respect, I’d much rather that Daniels, or any politician, for that matter, be beholden to the electorate and the Constitution rather than some person who helped launch their political career. I believe that displaced political loyalty is a significant factor in understanding how our country finds itself deep in the weeds.
What changed?
Palin endorsed Mourdock.
That there tells Lugar’s SuperPAC to stop wasting their time and money.
The SuperPAC gets it. The GOPE RINO’s don’t.Mitt is their candidate. Palin is left to scare the daylights out of them all.
Yes I think she has had a good look at the Senate & penciled in the ones they need (for the moment ) & the ones that have got to go.
Sens like Hatch & McCain must have value but both are not 100% likely to make it to 2016/18.
That would be my thinking if I were in SP’s shoes. But then can’t choose between the boots she wore at Madison or the Purple suede shoes she wore in Elvis’s hometown.
There is very little movement on the DEms side -don’t they have 23 up for election ? A healthy party would be primarying them also. All may not be well.
Is it just me or does Lugar seem to become more reptilian with each passing day?
At any rate, he should be getting the hint right about now. But he’ll be hard to shake. He’s got a lot of friends with power.
[…] Via Professor Jacobson’s Legal Insurrection, we learn the pro Lugar Super PAC, American Action Network, is dropping its deep pocketed support for Indiana Senator Richard Lugar. […]
[…] become part of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party is battling entrenched GOP people in Utah, Indiana, and now […]
This tells me that despite all the attempts by the Propaganda Ministry to belittle her, the SuperPAC bundlers in D.C. know the name of the game and recognize that Palin’s endorsement packs a huge punch, especially in a primary.
Here’s what I think happens: Palin will have her PAC run her own summer and fall campaign for downticket people to stick Romney and the GOP in the eye. The Lord helps those who help themselves, and nobody in the GOP reached out to help Palin when she was in trouble, so she will help herself and those Movement Conservatives who believe in reform.
The GOP won’t like this, because they have their own favored people, but Palin doesn’t give a damn about the GOP Establishment. You saw that with the endorsement of Mourdock.
I agree in part with you: Sarah will definitely march to her own drummer and use her PAC to help the Pubs she favors. Those Pubs will be (generally) more conservative, more tea-party friendly, and more Main Street rather than Wall Street.
But she won’t do it in a way to upset Mitt because she’s enough of a team player to know that if Mitt goes down, all her work down-ticket won’t matter much.
The ideal setting is this: Mitt wins, Obama is out, Holder, Geithner, Clinton, etc pack their bags, Pubs take the Senate and hold the House, and Sarah gets enough of her favored Pubs into office to ensure that Mittens can’t tack left. Along the way Sarah builds enough good will so that if she wants to run in 2020 she can; if she wants to go for the Senate from Alaska in 2014 she can, etc.
If Mitt loses, Sarah gets enough of her favored through (fewer though if Obama wins since that will carry down ticket Dems) to keep Obama from truly wrecking the country (we hope), and in 2016 the Pubs have no choice but to turn to the only standing proven winner.
This is a very smart strategy on her part, and it happens to be good for the Pubs, particularly if the ‘establishment’ finally begins to get the message.
Fair enough, and good news. The Question remains, why did they back Lugar to begin with? Better choices at the outset would instill more confidence.
Why did they back Lugar? Because he’s a six-term Senator who has been a (more or less) faithful pink Republican all these years. That kind of seniority gets you help when you ask for it. That’s just the way the establishment works.
Would have been better if he had decided last year to retire; he could have influenced who got the Pub nomination and would have (in a Romney administration) had his pick of cushy semi-retirement positions. Ambassador to France is really sweet, I hear.
Now let’s nail Hatch, ok?
[…] that might be a moot point anyway, because a pro-Booger SuperPAC doing a lot of media buys on Indianapolis TV is throwing in the towel, 11 days before the […]
In 2010, Palin “carpet bombed” and “barnstormed” the USA endorsing and stumping for Tea Party/Conservatives to get a beach head (establishing her “street cred”). Now, I wonder if she’s picking and choosing like a chess player finding “strategic targets”.
Do I hear the bus starting up? Oh wow, I hear something else…a bunch of MSM cars following a “irrelevant” politician.