Mourdock's Campaign Lacks Substance and the Right Direction

I wanted to stay out of this race. I wanted to avoid this stupid primary at all costs. However, my sense of being right all the time got in the way, so I’m writing a post about this race. Let me preface this post first with this, I am 100% confident that Lugar will win the May Senate Primary.  Now let me explain to you why that is with a serious of obvious points.

1) Mourdock’s campaign manager, Jim Holden, is an idiot. Anyone who has had the chance (not privilege) to work with him will tell you, Jim is best fit to run a State Treasurer’s campaign, and that is about it. It seems every misstep from the start came from something Jim said or did. Take for instance the move early on in the campaign when Jim called a blogger holding a video camera that was recording a “douche.” Um, seriously? I’m pretty sure campaign 101 covers the chapter on “Don’t say or do stupid things while be recorded.”

This level of stupidity would explain Jim’s unnecessary quest to attack Indiana political journalist Brian Howey. If you’ve ever worked a campaign in Indiana you know that Howey is a dedicated political reporter. He produces his own daily and weekly newsletter and has a syndicated column across the state. While I respect most Indiana political reporters, Howey is one of those guys who runs his own show, so he gets to decide is something is too partisan, or lacks substance and merit. So while you can criticize someone like Matthew Tully, a talented writer for the Indy Star, he still reports to an editor. Howey does not. So don’t piss him off. Naturally Jim’s stupidity has led the charge on the rest of the campaign. More specifically the lack of substance, the ridiculous attacks, and the tag team effort between Mourdock’s campaign and the Indiana Democratic Party, which leads to point number 2.

2) Mourdock’s campaign is avoiding all the real issues. Let’s step back for a second and take a look at a serious issue facing the well-being and future of our country today. The National Debt and Budget deficit. On Mourdock’s well hidden “Issues” page on his website he fails to actually explain his plan for cutting wasteful spending and help lower national debt. It is located somewhere else on his page where Mourdock explains how he is plan ”calls for 2013 starting budgets for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Defense spending to pre-2010 levels with modest increases going forward.” Well you can’t do that.Those programs are non-discretionary and their costs are directly tied to individual qualifications. You can make changes to those qualifications and how those programs deal out their money, but you can’t just tell the Social Security Admin “you’re budget this year is equal to what it was in 2010.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Ryan Plan. I think it’s genius and is pretty much the only way to fix the debt and budget crisis. The problem is, it sounds like Mourdock is supporting that plan in his statement, but since he fails to actually put any substance out there for people to read, no one would know. Instead of actually attempting to have a discussion with voters about how to fix problems facing our country Mourdock is running around yelling the political equivalent of “WITCH!”

Fun Fact: Mourdock’s favorite line to quote, “Barack Obama’s Favorite Republican”, which he uses to call Lugar is actually the title to an article questioning why Obama cites Lugar so much on the campaign trail and the quote is actually this: ”Barack Obama’s Favorite Republican?” So no one actually ever called Lugar that, they just questioned the possibility of it. I mean it is the same as if I titled this post “Jim Holden a Moron?” and everyone walking around saying “don’t hire Jim Holden, he’s been called a ‘moron’.”

3) Point 3 is Mourdock’s failure to connect with voters. You see, the weird thing is Mourdock wants to try to run a campaign in which he points out that Lugar is out of touch with voters. But Mourdock is the one who is using the NRA to attack Lugar. Debt is sky-high, the budget a mess and congress at odds, but don’t worry Richard Mourdock and the NRA will protect your guns. It’s almost as if Mourdock is saying “well the debt can’t be fixed, the end is neigh, but I’ll help America by making sure you can protect yourself during Armageddon.”

Mourdock’s other lines of attack, win by default. Homer Simpson once said, “The two sweetest words in the English language: de-fault!” It seems Richard Mourdock is taking that to heart. He has tried a couple of times now (with the support of the Indiana Democratic Party) to get Richard Lugar kicked off the ballot because of residency issues. This is just ridiculous. Does anyone out there actually believe that Lugar is running some sort of giant conspiracy where he is a prominent public figure in one state, but has secretly moved away with no plans to ever return? This isn’t The Truman Show people, its politics. If you don’t like where your Senator spends most of his days and that will dictate your vote, do us all a favor and throw some chlorine in the gene pool.

I know this post probably isn’t going to sway any voter one way or another. It is just my chance to say and point out a few things. (It felt really good to say “Jim Holden is an idiot” though). I will end on this though, this race is just sad. Lugar has been a great Senator for Indiana. He is an example of a Washington Politician who does not play politics. He goes in there and does what he thinks is right. He doesn’t think about the elect-ability of a vote, or the possible attacks he will face if he does what is right and not what is popular. That is rare today, and it is obviously a quality the Mitch Daniels picked up from his years of working with Lugar.