I realize that all politicians are narcissists to an extent, but judging the value of a political movement on whether it helps you or not seems a bit, shall we say, self-centered.
In one of the more curious comments so far in the challenge by Richard Mourdock to Dick Lugar, Lugar said that he could not say whether the Tea Party movement was good for the GOP until after he knew the results of the May 8 primary.
As reported by The Weekly Standard:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Do you think the movement has been a positive for the Republican party?LUGAR: I’ll wait until—[pause]TWS: Until you’ve won your primary?LUGAR: Until I see how things are going.
As further reported by TWS:
Lugar is confident. He predicts he will win the May 8 primary. “I’m not looking at myself as a casualty,” Lugar said. “The word survivor’s the correct word. [We’re] quite healthy, and I believe we’re going to win in two weeks.”
HuffPo further reports:
He added that “some elements of the Tea Party have opposed me, but not the Hamilton County Tea Party and not several other tea parties, so let’s make clear this is not a monolithic movement in Indiana.”The veteran senator also was not ready to say that the GOP benefited from the movement. “I’ll wait and see how things are going,” he said — and a reporter added, “Two weeks.”
Lugar long has loathed the Tea Party movement, falsely blaming it for the failure to capture the Senate in 2010. As I noted in late December:
Richard Lugar, facing conservative challenger Richard Mourdock, is resurrecting the false meme that the Tea Party cost Republicans control of the Senate in 2010. Au contraire, Carley Fiorina (CA), Dino Rossi (WA) and John Raese (W.Va) were establishment candidates chosen because they were establishment and who lost winnable races. Nevada is the biggest false meme; Sue Lowden lost the primary to Sharron Angle because Lowden self-destructed (chickens for medical services) and was targeted by the Reid machine. If Lowden couldn’t survive the Reid machine in the primaries, she would not have won the general. The Lugar – Mourdock primary match up definitely is on my radar.
Dick Lugar has become a caricature of the Washington insider who thinks the world revolves around him.
You can support Richard Mourdock here. There is little time left. Do it.
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