The campaign of Sen. Richard Lugar has been falsely accusing his Republican primary opponent of failing to show up for work 66% of the time because he did not personally attend every meeting of every board on which he sits. As is common practice for state officials who sit on state boards, he often sends a representative of his office in his place. Mourdock's campaign has released this spot to refute the false allegation, which is necessary because the Indiana media, which is in the tank with Lugar, refuses to report on Lugar's false and misleading attack against Mourdock.
The Weekly Standard takes a look at the 80-year-old Lugar's effort to win re-election to an unprecedented seventh term in an article titled, "The Bell Tolls for Lugar." Here's a sampling of what Kenneth Tomlinson writes:
After a lifetime of political good fortune in Indiana, Senator Richard Lugar can’t catch a break. He is facing what Politico calls his “toughest reelection campaign in decades,” and with the May 8 GOP primary looming, he desperately needs to repair relations with party conservatives.
In few states is the party base as certifiably conservative as in Indiana. One poll shows 70 percent of the state’s Republicans respect the Tea Party—and few issues raise the ire of these party activists like congressional earmarks in spending bills.
So what does Lugar do? Three months before the primary, when the Senate had a chance to ban this symbol of big-government malfeasance, Lugar joined with Harry Reid in a key Senate vote to save earmarking.
Lugar’s primary foe, Indiana treasurer Richard Mourdock, immediately hit statewide television with ads that not only decried the Senate vote but also exposed Lugar’s support over the years for such infamous earmarks as Alaska’s bridge to nowhere, a rainforest for Iowa, and a teapot museum for North Carolina. “Dick Lugar won’t vote to end wasteful spending and earmarks. I will,” Mourdock declared.
A couple of days later Mourdock was back on television holding a news conference in front of the Indianapolis home Lugar lists as his official voting address—despite the fact that he sold the house 35 years ago and has lived in McLean, Virginia, ever since. (Lugar even lists the old address on his driver’s license.)
Lugar’s spokesman compounded the political damage when he sought to justify Lugar’s not having a residence back home in Indiana: “It’s just like the United States military. If you’re . . . in service to this country and you’re overseas, you keep your last place of residence.” One newspaper mocked the response with the headline: “Lugar ‘in defense’ of country from Virginia.”
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