Indiana has historically been a Republican stronghold and the most conservative state in the Rust Belt. Only two Democratic presidential candidates have won Indiana since World War II (LBJ in 1964 and Obama in 2008). Hoosiers (i.e. residents of Indiana) have though on occasion elected moderate Democrats to Governor and Senator (the two-generation Bayh "dynasty" - Evan Bayh and Birch Bayh - being the most notable Democratic presence in the state). The same year that Obama narrowly carried Indiana (by 0.9%), Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels was re-elected by an 18-point margin. So Obama's win hardly reflected a great trend towards the left in Indiana.
Richard Mourdock is the Republican candidate. He is a two-term Indiana State Treasurer who has been actively involved in Indiana politics since the late 80s (he ran unsuccessfully for Congress a few times). I early May, he won the Republican primary and ousted incumbent Senator Dick Lugar in a highly publicized race. Tea Party groups, top national conservative groups and conservative figures endorsed Mourdock and poured millions into a campaign to defeat Lugar. With cash, endorsements and a Republican base of voters increasingly vary of a conservatism less ideologically pure than that of Michelle Bachmann, Lugar lost the election (see this earlier post).
Nobody can accuse Richard Mourdock of being anything less than the Tea Party's wet dream. On every issue that can be placed on a left-to-right spectrum, Mourdock is firmly on the right. On social issues, he opposes abortion, same-sex marriage (and civil unions) and gun control. He opposes the DREAM Act and any form of amnesty for illegal aliens. On health-care, Mourdock has questioned the constitutionality of Medicare and Medicaid, he supports a Voucher program and he has criticized the Ryan Plan (which introduced a Voucher system, and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid) for not going far enough. He would of course never raise taxes, and he opposed the withdrawal from Iraq and would want to stay indefinitely in Afghanistan. The only issue where he seems to divert from a hardline stance is on abortion where he would be willing to make exceptions in cases of some "crisis pregnancies" (rape, incest and the life of the mother?). I somehow doubt that's enough to get Democrats in Indiana to cross party lines. The issue of bipartisanship is where Mourdock's extremism can be seen the most clearly. He seems to be completely unwilling to reach across the aisle on any issue and the only bipartisanship acceptable to him consists of "Democrats coming to the Republican point of view". What Mourdock hopes to accomplish in the Senate, a legislative body based on bipartisanship, except clogging things up, I don't know know.
Mourdock has done much poorer in the polls than can be expected from a Republican candidate in a Republican state. Dick Lugar would've easily won a general election. The tough primary race and the support for Dick Lugar in the state go some way to explain why he's doing so badly. Joe Donnelly, Dick Lugar and the national/state media have also painted a picture of him as an extremist and it would seem as if that narrative is sticking. I will look closer at the polls in my next few blog posts but it would be interesting to see how the Mourdock disapproval polls look.
Mourdock can either continue to run as an unrelenting conservative or try to moderate his language and align himself with likable, respectable establishment Republicans (Gov. Daniels, for example) rather than the more extreme Tea Party figures who endorsed him and campaigned with him against Lugar. As Mourdock seems to be slipping in the polls (Joe Donnelly has a slim lead in the newest poll), it seems as if Mourdock might be trying to change up his campaign and paint himself more moderate.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
The Democratic Candidate - Rep. Joe Donnelly
In 2008, Obama won Indiana by a single point. He became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Despite an Obama win in 2008, Indiana is four years later a fairly safe state for Romney and remains a Republican-leaning state. While the presidential race in the state is firmly in Romney's hands, the Senate race is a toss-up. This bodes well for Democrats who at the start of the year were expecting the Indiana Senate seat to be firmly Republican (the six-term incumbent Dick Lugar would've easily won a general election).
Joe Donnelly is the Democratic nominee. He's a three-term congressman who faced a tough re-election bid this fall after redistricting turned a fairly safe seat much more conservative. This urged him to run for the Senate seat vacated by Dick Lugar. He went on to win the Democratic nomination in an uncontested primary. This means that he emerged from the primary unscathed and without having to spend any money (unlike Mourdock, the Republican nominee, who had to fight a tough primary and spend a lot).
Joe Donnelly is a Blue Dog Democrat (i.e. a moderate Democrat) with a fairly conservative voting record. On fiscal policy, he has opposed the termination of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and he has opposed any cuts to military spending. On immigration, he opposes the DREAM Act and is pushing for tougher border control. On social issues, Donnelly opposes abortion and gay marriage. He is also endorsed by the NRA and has a conservative record on gun rights. He did however vote for the Affordable Care Act and the Stimulus, something that Mourdock will undoubtedly try to focus attention on.
In a Republican leaning-state, Donnelly is going to have to talk about his bipartisan credentials and emphasize his conservative record. He will also have to point out Mourdock's lack of bipartisan credentials and make the case that Mourdock will add to the gridlock in Congress. Dick Lugar, whom Mourdock defeated in the primary, is popular statewide and Donnelly would do good to characterize Mourdock as the hardliner, the extremist, who ousted the gentle, old, beloved Dick Lugar (who will not campaign for Mourdock). Characterizing extreme politicians as extreme and getting it through to people can very hard unless they slip up and say something astoundingly stupid or extreme. An extremist like Todd Akin would most likely be far ahead in the Missouri Senate race if he hadn't slipped up with his "legitimate rape" comments. Donnelly has been blessed in that he can contrast the unknown Mourdock with the well-known Lugar, and by doing so illustrate to people how extreme he is. That's how he's going to have to attract disgruntled Lugar supporters, and moderates and conservatives that swung for Obama in '08.
Obama narrowly defeated McCain in Indiana by vastly outspending his opponent and by running a great campaign in the state. Donnelly is likely to be outspent and won't have the same advantage as Obama had in northwestern Indiana (which is part of the Chicago metropolitan area where Obama has been a prominent figure ever since he started his career in the Illinois Senate) but he has a convincing narrative on his side and his success will depend on how well he can push that narrative and hammer home the point that Mourdock is too extreme for Indiana.
In my next blog post, I will examine Richard Mourdock, Donnelly's opponent.
Joe Donnelly is the Democratic nominee. He's a three-term congressman who faced a tough re-election bid this fall after redistricting turned a fairly safe seat much more conservative. This urged him to run for the Senate seat vacated by Dick Lugar. He went on to win the Democratic nomination in an uncontested primary. This means that he emerged from the primary unscathed and without having to spend any money (unlike Mourdock, the Republican nominee, who had to fight a tough primary and spend a lot).
Joe Donnelly is a Blue Dog Democrat (i.e. a moderate Democrat) with a fairly conservative voting record. On fiscal policy, he has opposed the termination of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and he has opposed any cuts to military spending. On immigration, he opposes the DREAM Act and is pushing for tougher border control. On social issues, Donnelly opposes abortion and gay marriage. He is also endorsed by the NRA and has a conservative record on gun rights. He did however vote for the Affordable Care Act and the Stimulus, something that Mourdock will undoubtedly try to focus attention on.
In a Republican leaning-state, Donnelly is going to have to talk about his bipartisan credentials and emphasize his conservative record. He will also have to point out Mourdock's lack of bipartisan credentials and make the case that Mourdock will add to the gridlock in Congress. Dick Lugar, whom Mourdock defeated in the primary, is popular statewide and Donnelly would do good to characterize Mourdock as the hardliner, the extremist, who ousted the gentle, old, beloved Dick Lugar (who will not campaign for Mourdock). Characterizing extreme politicians as extreme and getting it through to people can very hard unless they slip up and say something astoundingly stupid or extreme. An extremist like Todd Akin would most likely be far ahead in the Missouri Senate race if he hadn't slipped up with his "legitimate rape" comments. Donnelly has been blessed in that he can contrast the unknown Mourdock with the well-known Lugar, and by doing so illustrate to people how extreme he is. That's how he's going to have to attract disgruntled Lugar supporters, and moderates and conservatives that swung for Obama in '08.
Obama narrowly defeated McCain in Indiana by vastly outspending his opponent and by running a great campaign in the state. Donnelly is likely to be outspent and won't have the same advantage as Obama had in northwestern Indiana (which is part of the Chicago metropolitan area where Obama has been a prominent figure ever since he started his career in the Illinois Senate) but he has a convincing narrative on his side and his success will depend on how well he can push that narrative and hammer home the point that Mourdock is too extreme for Indiana.
In my next blog post, I will examine Richard Mourdock, Donnelly's opponent.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Introduction - The History of the Indiana Senate Race, 2012
As part of a course in U.S. Politics, we are supposed to a pick a US election to analyze this fall. Seeing as how someone had already picked the massive Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown race for Teddy Kennedy's old Senate seat, I was left with Indiana as the most interesting race this fall. The race was first brought to my attention back in early 2012 when political commentators were noting how Tea Party groups were trying to unseat two of the most senior Republicans in the Senate - Orrin Hatch of Utah and Dick Lugar of Indiana. In 2010, Tea-Party candidates won various Republican Senate primaries at the expense of establishment Republicans... among them we had Sharron "2nd Amendment remedies" Angle in Nevada, Joe Miller in Alaska, Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell in Delaware, Ken Buck in Colorado and Mike Lee in Utah. Only Mike Lee - who defeated the reliably conservative incumbent Bob Bennett in the primary - would go on to win the general election. Had Republican primary voters chosen electable candidates instead of Sharron Angle, Ken Buck and Christine O'Donnell, Democrats would in all likelihood have lost the Senate and one Senate Majority Leader in Harry Reid.
What we're seeing in Indiana is fairly similar. Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party favorite, took on Dick Lugar, an incumbent and one of the more centrist Republican Senators. Dick Lugar, who was fairly certain to win in a general election lost against Mourdock who is now in a general election toss-up against Joe Donnelly, the Democratic nominee (whom I know nothing about at the moment, but I'll get to him in my next blog post). Or that's at least what the polls show at this fairly early stage of the election. So we may see a repeat of 2010, when Republicans squandered the chance of regaining the Senate by nominating unelectable candidates. Keep in mind though that polls at this rather early stage in local and state races without incumbents aren't particularly meaningful, and since Indiana is considered a Republican-leaning state, it would seem as if Mourdock would be better set to win this race.
So as an avid follower of U.S. politics, the Indiana race will be interesting to analyze because it relates so well to the national trend and can provide so much insight into what's going on at the national level. Here we have yet again the expulsion of a moderate Republican in favor of a Tea Party extremist. A Senator Richard Mourdock would only be in the Senate to obstruct and clog things up even further. What's Mourdock's idea of compromise and bipartisanship? His idea of compromise is that Democrats come to agree with him on everything. Is a Senator Mourdock going to be around to get that massive post-2012 debt reduction deal passed? Is he going to help push through bipartisan tax reform? Immigration reform? Education reform? No. Mourdock is only going to be a hindrance to any solutions to the problems the U.S. is facing. For me, he personifies the right-wing fundamentalism that has plagued the Republican party since 2008, and the obstructionism that has lead to a political crisis in Washington.
Regardless of whether Republicans take the Senate or not, and regardless of whether Mourdock wins this race, the right-wing faction of the Republican party has won a victory. By ousting the less than "severely conservative" Lugar in a much publicized primary race, the effect is certain to push other Republicans with a less than perfect conservative record to go further right. As Barney Frank so aptly put it: “It [the Republican majority in Congress] consists half of people who think like Michele Bachmann … and half of people who are afraid of losing a primary to people who think like Michele Bachmann.” Case in point, after Bob Bennett lost against Mike Lee in 2010, the above-mentioned Orrin Hatch immediately started preparing for a primary fight in 2012. He went from a 75 percent conservative rating in 2007 to a 100 percent conservative rating in 2012. In the process, Orrin Hatch, who once introduced the DREAM Act (which would provide permanent residency to the children of illegal immigrants if they go to school or join the military) to the Senate, became a vocal opponent of it when it was re-introduced by Democrats after Obama's election. Republicans of course filibustered (blocked the majority from passing the bill) the whole thing and a slew of Republicans who once supported the bill joined in on the filibuster.
Dick Lugar's mistake in all of this was to not prepare adequately for his primary challenge and flip-flop his way into "severely conservative" territory (like Hatch did). He was one of three Republicans to vote for the DREAM Act when Democrats re-introduced it (the other two had lost or would go on to lose primaries to Tea Party challengers). He got pounced for not living in Indiana, for his age and his status as a veteran Congressman at a time when Congress was as popular as Hugo Chavez. But his downfall was a less than ideologically perfect conservative record and a will to reach across the aisle (you might, for instance, recall how presidential candidate Obama cited his work with Lugar to bolster his bipartisan credentials in the presidential debates in 2008).
So that's the history of the Indiana Senate race for 2012 up until this point, why it interests me and how this Senate race relates to the state of the politics in the US as a whole. In my next blog post, I'll look closer at Richard Mourdock and Joe Donnelly, and the policies they stand for. I'll also take a deeper look at the demographics of Indiana and the issues at play in the state.
What we're seeing in Indiana is fairly similar. Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party favorite, took on Dick Lugar, an incumbent and one of the more centrist Republican Senators. Dick Lugar, who was fairly certain to win in a general election lost against Mourdock who is now in a general election toss-up against Joe Donnelly, the Democratic nominee (whom I know nothing about at the moment, but I'll get to him in my next blog post). Or that's at least what the polls show at this fairly early stage of the election. So we may see a repeat of 2010, when Republicans squandered the chance of regaining the Senate by nominating unelectable candidates. Keep in mind though that polls at this rather early stage in local and state races without incumbents aren't particularly meaningful, and since Indiana is considered a Republican-leaning state, it would seem as if Mourdock would be better set to win this race.
So as an avid follower of U.S. politics, the Indiana race will be interesting to analyze because it relates so well to the national trend and can provide so much insight into what's going on at the national level. Here we have yet again the expulsion of a moderate Republican in favor of a Tea Party extremist. A Senator Richard Mourdock would only be in the Senate to obstruct and clog things up even further. What's Mourdock's idea of compromise and bipartisanship? His idea of compromise is that Democrats come to agree with him on everything. Is a Senator Mourdock going to be around to get that massive post-2012 debt reduction deal passed? Is he going to help push through bipartisan tax reform? Immigration reform? Education reform? No. Mourdock is only going to be a hindrance to any solutions to the problems the U.S. is facing. For me, he personifies the right-wing fundamentalism that has plagued the Republican party since 2008, and the obstructionism that has lead to a political crisis in Washington.
Regardless of whether Republicans take the Senate or not, and regardless of whether Mourdock wins this race, the right-wing faction of the Republican party has won a victory. By ousting the less than "severely conservative" Lugar in a much publicized primary race, the effect is certain to push other Republicans with a less than perfect conservative record to go further right. As Barney Frank so aptly put it: “It [the Republican majority in Congress] consists half of people who think like Michele Bachmann … and half of people who are afraid of losing a primary to people who think like Michele Bachmann.” Case in point, after Bob Bennett lost against Mike Lee in 2010, the above-mentioned Orrin Hatch immediately started preparing for a primary fight in 2012. He went from a 75 percent conservative rating in 2007 to a 100 percent conservative rating in 2012. In the process, Orrin Hatch, who once introduced the DREAM Act (which would provide permanent residency to the children of illegal immigrants if they go to school or join the military) to the Senate, became a vocal opponent of it when it was re-introduced by Democrats after Obama's election. Republicans of course filibustered (blocked the majority from passing the bill) the whole thing and a slew of Republicans who once supported the bill joined in on the filibuster.
Dick Lugar's mistake in all of this was to not prepare adequately for his primary challenge and flip-flop his way into "severely conservative" territory (like Hatch did). He was one of three Republicans to vote for the DREAM Act when Democrats re-introduced it (the other two had lost or would go on to lose primaries to Tea Party challengers). He got pounced for not living in Indiana, for his age and his status as a veteran Congressman at a time when Congress was as popular as Hugo Chavez. But his downfall was a less than ideologically perfect conservative record and a will to reach across the aisle (you might, for instance, recall how presidential candidate Obama cited his work with Lugar to bolster his bipartisan credentials in the presidential debates in 2008).
So that's the history of the Indiana Senate race for 2012 up until this point, why it interests me and how this Senate race relates to the state of the politics in the US as a whole. In my next blog post, I'll look closer at Richard Mourdock and Joe Donnelly, and the policies they stand for. I'll also take a deeper look at the demographics of Indiana and the issues at play in the state.
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