Boston Newspaper Editor Wants Hoosier Democrats To Save Lugar

Sen. Richard Lugar is facing his most difficult political race since his election to the U.S. Senate 36 years ago. His Republican primary opponent thinks he's lost his conservative values and has been living in Washington too long. So who is advising Indiana Democrats to switch parties in the May 8th primary and take a Republican ballot in order to save Lugar's political career? The answer is the editor of the Boston Globe, a dyed in the wool liberal Democrat. Here's a little of the advice Peter Canellos has for Hoosier Democrats:

 . . . Caught in the middle are Indiana’s Democrats and independents. They can take Republican ballots, and that presents a dilemma. While Lugar is clearly the preferable candidate, many Democrats are salivating at the thought of a Mourdock victory, because the seat would become a target for a Democratic takeover. With an uncontested senatorial primary of their own — US Representative Joe Donnelly will be their nominee — most of Indiana’s Democrats are content to stay home and let the Republicans slug it out.

But they shouldn’t. If Democrats care about bipartisanship, and are disgusted by the congressional Republicans’ wall of resistance to any policy associated with Obama, they should jump in and save Dick Lugar.

The notion that congressional minorities can, by halting progress even on middle-ground legislation, engineer their comebacks is the most obnoxious political strategy to emerge in decades. By blocking such bills, the minority legislators make the president and his allies seem impotent, depressing their supporters. As Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has pointed out: If bipartisan legislation is successful, it helps the president and other incumbents; if nothing gets through, however, voters become outraged and demand a change. The only change available is the minority party that’s done all the blocking.

The Democrats tried a version of this strategy after 2006, but only after six fitful years of alternately cooperating and sparring with the Bush administration. Afterward, when Bush needed their support on the politically treacherous bank bailout, they gave it. Republicans have taken a more scorched-earth approach, blocking even those programs that they themselves once introduced — from the individual mandate for health insurance, to “cap-and-trade” plans to limit carbon pollution, to loans for renewable energy — mainly because Obama embraced them.

Senior senators like Lugar — who, after 36 years, has the right to his own judgment — can be checks on destructive partisanship. So conservative activists try to rein them in with right-wing challenges in Republican primaries, knowing that in a conservatives-only contest, the loudest and most unyielding conservative is likely to win. Fear of such challenges cause many GOP incumbents to kowtow to extremists; some, like Maine’s Olympia Snowe, are so put off they leave of their own accord.

The best way for Democrats to combat this tactic is not to lick their chops in hopes of a Tea Party victory. True, those candidates can be easier targets for Democrats. But some extremists win, pulling the Republicans further to the right. And conservative activists don’t mind losing to prove a point. Former GOP senators like Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania can attest to the cost of deviating from the activist-enforced line. Successful right-wing primary challenges can gain the conservative movement more through the terrified obsequiousness of GOP officeholders than it would lose in a few Democratic victories.

For Democrats and independents to rally around Lugar might appear to confirm that he is, as the Mourdock forces ludicrously claim, “Obama’s favorite senator.” But it would also show that dignity and commitment to public service have a broader appeal than crass adherence to partisan destructiveness. Indiana Democrats should make sure the best candidate wins the Republican primary, even if they plan to vote against him in November.

Richard Mourdock continues to be blessed by Richard Lugar's friends. I'm always fascinated how the fans of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have the audacity to suggest Republicans in Congress practice scorched earth politics when that is precisely how the Democrats in Washington operate as a matter of course. Bipartisanship to them is shorthand for giving more power to Washington to tax, regulate and control our lives. Anyone who opposes their agenda is by definition a partisan extremist.