Free Republic

NEW ALBANY, Ind. — Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday when a woman is impregnated during a rape, "it’s something God intended." Mourdock, who’s been locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Donnelly, was asked during the final minutes of a debate whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to...

Both candidates for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat agree that Capitol Hill is dominated by partisan gridlock – but they differ on if and how Congress can solve the problem, even as they compete for the same undecided voters. U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Granger, has preached a message of centrism and bipartisanship while relentlessly painting Republican state Treasurer Richard Mourdock as an extreme, right-wing ideologue.

Richard Mourdock became one of the tea party's biggest winners of the 2012 primary season when he knocked off veteran Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar in a brutal campaign built on his contention that Lugar was too old, too out of touch and too friendly with Democrats - a RINO, Republican in name only. But the movement's biggest RINO hunter is now changing his tune as he tries to woo moderate voters in a tight race that stands as a key test of the tea party's ability to win outside the nation's most conservative states. Mourdock is matched in the general...

In response to repeated queries from conservatives as to whether Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) is supporting the conservative Republican who defeated the 36-year incumbent for renomination this year, Human Events called Lugar’s office and asked whether the lameduck incumbent is backing State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, now locked in a tight contest with Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly. “Yes, the senator is supporting Treasurer Mourdock,” Lugar press secretary Andy Fisher told us Friday. “On the night of the Friday election (when Mourdock defeated Lugar by a margin of 3-to-2), he said he would vote for him in November.” Fisher also pointed out...

<p>NDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Sen. Richard Lugar says he will not campaign for the man who vanquished him in May's Republican primary.</p> <p>Lugar told conservative Indiana blogger Abdul Hakim-Shabazz in an interview posted Monday that he would not actively support Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock on the campaign trail. The six-term senator had previously left the question unanswered. But he raised eyebrows in July when he introduced Mourdock to Senate Republicans at a weekly lunch.</p>

Indiana is becoming a frequent destination for U.S. Senate Republicans who support the election of Richard Mourdock. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., joined Mourdock in Indianapolis on Monday to talk about health care legislation at an orthopedics hospital. Other senators who have appeared with Mourdock since his May 8 nomination include Dan Coats of Indiana, Rick Rubio of Florida and John Thune of South Dakota. Mourdock’s campaign said Monday that Sens. Coats, Rob Portman of Ohio and John Cornyn of Texas plan to gather for Mourdock events Sept. 26 in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. Cornyn is chairman of the National Republican...

The U.S. Senate race in Indiana remains a dead heat between Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly and Tea Party-backed State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Hoosier State finds Mourdock earning 42% of the vote, while Donnelly draws support from 40%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate in the race, but another 15% are still undecided.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Mitt Romney stumped for tea party Senate candidate Richard Mourdock here on Saturday, arguing that as president he will need such supporters in Washington to help him enact policies to restore fiscal order. Mourdock introduced Romney, noting he had done so four years ago when Romney came to Indiana stumping for 2008 Republican nominee John McCain. “He is back and he’s here in part because he’s the ultimate team player, and politics is all about being a team. This is not a solo sport,” Mourdock said. “And for that purpose alone, governor, thank you so much for...

There appears to be some debate in the Republican Party about just how to play President Obama’s new move on immigration. Some Republicans, including Mitt Romney, have knocked Obama’s motives but steered clear of the policy’s substance. Others, including Marco Rubio and Alberto Gonzales, are tentatively ">on board with the concept but have nonetheless criticized the political play it represents. Then there’s the third category of Republican, on display Saturday at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington D.C. and into which falls Indiana Republican Senate nominee Richard Mourdock. The tea party-backed candidate — who upset longtime GOP Sen....

(CBS News) In his first interview since he lost his primary earlier this month, Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar said he had no plans to campaign for Richard Mourdock, who beat him. "For the time being, I don't plan an active campaign," Lugar said on "Face the Nation." The 80-year old lawmaker, known for reaching a landmark post-Cold War agreement on weapons reductions with Russia, has served in the Senate for 36 years. He lost to Tea Party-backed State Treasurer Richard Mourdock by 20 percent during the May 8 primary. Lugar told host Bob Schieffer that Republican voters in Indiana...

INDIANAPOLIS -- U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar said he doesn't intend to campaign for the man who defeated him in Indiana's Republican primary. Lugar said Sunday on CBS' "Face The Nation" that he would not actively campaign on behalf of GOP senatorial nominee Richard Mourdock. The state treasurer will face Democrat Joe Donnelly in November.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that Richard Mourdock's upset victory over incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) last week was a "tea party phenomenon."

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Richard Mourdock's Senate campaign is now the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission. It has to do with the accusation that the Mourdock campaign improperly downloaded information from a GOP database. The state Republican Party last week cut off the campaign's access to the database known as Salesforce. The complaint was filed by John McCane, a former mayor of Rushville, who alleges that Mourdock used a state campaign committee to pay the $125 fee to access Salesforce and then illegally transferred information including email addresses to his federal campaign.

It’s not enough for Operation Counterweight to get a candidate through the primary. We need to support the candidate immediately to keep the momentum going. Richard Mourdock is not running to the left (often mischaracterized as running to the center) one bit. Listen to this interview, which has the mainstream media up in arms because Mourdock defined bi-partisanship as Democrats coming over to our side on issues (3:25): “What I hear you say is you’re not going to compromise,” O’Brien observed. “In fact, the only compromise you’ll do is really getting other people on the other side of the aisle...

A few weeks after the recent synod of the bishops of journalism — known to us taxpaying chumbolones as the White House Correspondents' Association dinner — the secular clergy pronounced sentence on Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock. Mourdock had the audacity to whomp the heck out of six-term U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar in Tuesday's Indiana Republican primary. Mourdock's sin, according to the high priests of establishment journalism? He's a conservative, and a constitutionalist, backed by the tea party. Watching all this from the bordering state once called Illinois — now known as the wind-swept economic wasteland of Madiganistan — makes me...

Michael Bennet, the Democratic Senator from Colorado who defeated GOP candidate Ken Buck in 2010, emailed supporters last night to slam newly-chosen Indiana GOP Senate nominee Richard Mourdock: Last night in Indiana, Sarah Palin's hand-picked Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock beat 36-year incumbent Senator Dick Lugar in the state's Republican primary. Lugar knew the value in working together to get things done and the Senate will miss his bipartisan tendencies. On the other hand, the name Richard Mourdock might be new to you, but his Tea Party ideology is more of the same Palin-style extremism we've seen from the likes...

While State Treasurer Richard Mourdock's win in the Indiana Republican primary over Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) was not unexpected given recent polls, it was welcome. As Sebastian notes, he was a guy "who didn’t even think enough of the Second Amendment to sign on to the Heller brief." However, interesting as Mourdock's win and Lugar's loss is, that isn't the most interesting thing that came out of Indiana yesterday. Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) who will be facing Mourdock in the general election became the first Democrat to support the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's efforts to get Attorney General...

Instant analysis of Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar’s crushing defeat at the hands of state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in Tuesday’s Republican primary cast it as yet another example of a tea party-aligned GOPer ousting a prominent face of the party establishment. And that instant analysis would be wrong. Lugar lost — and lost badly — for a number of reasons, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with the relative tea party-ness of his opponent. At its heart, Lugar’s defeat was attributable to the fact that he broke the political golden rule: Never lose touch with the people who...

In a tough year for Senate campaigns, Democrats will take everything they can get. This year's map of Senate races heavily favors the GOP, which will defend only 10 seats to Democrats' 23. Six Democratic incumbents have declined to run, and Democrats will have to defend seats in 11 competitive races, while Republicans will only defend in five. All of which makes Sen. Dick Lugar's loss welcome news for Democrats, who seem to have figured all along that their candidate, Blue Dog Rep. Joe Donnelly, would fare better against Tea Party-backed, Saran Palin-endorsed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in November. Now...

Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana lost his party’s nomination tonight because he had lost touch with the party’s grassroots. Since his election to the Senate in 1976, Lugar had cut a profile as a moderate Republican: He had supported the ethanol mandate, backed the Brady Bill, and opposed the Iraq surge. In previous cycles, Republicans had forgiven Lugar his ideological transgressions, but in recent years, he had become more brazen. Not only did Lugar support the DREAM Act; he cosponsored it. Not only did he vote for New START, he spoke forcefully in its favor. True, Lugar wasn’t Arlen Specter...