Due to the preoccupation with the presidential race, one tends to forget that all seats in the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate are also up for reelection.
One important race features the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana. Lugar was first elected to the Senate back during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, and is finishing up his 6th term of office.
In 2010 conservative Republicans showed that they had little respect for seniority and were willing to take on Republican incumbents. Now they are taking on Lugar - and their candidate is Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock.
This week Mourdock received a boost when the conservative Club for Growth endorsed him arguing that the challenger is a strong conservative on economic issues and it does not believe that Richard Lugar is such a fiscal conservative.
“What our country needs, now more than ever, is genuine fiscal restraint and economic growth. Lugar has time and again voted to expand the size of government, raise taxes and increase government regulation. Examples abound through the decades.”
Additional ammunition for conservative Republicans is provided by complimentary remarks made on numerous occasions by President Barack Obama . In the 2008 campaign the Democrats aired an ad in Indiana showing Obama and Lugar together. On foreign policy matters Obama claims that he has frequently consulted with Lugar on foreign policy issues.
Richard Mourdock has also pointed to a contribution that Lugar once received from George Soros a name that instantly produces apoplexy amongst conservative Republicans.
This week Mourdock took his campaign to the house that Lugar sold in Indianapolis decades ago and claimed that Lugar when he comes back to his home state stays in hotels and no longer maintains a physical address in Indiana. Lugar in response has upped his visibility in Indiana.
As Israel is an important issue to conservative Republicans, Mourdock has been emphasizing it in his attacks on Lugar. Lugar on foreign policy belongs to the school of former Secretary of State James Baker, and therefore he is not considered one of Israel's more passionate backers. Mourdock in an article last December in the conservative Human Events found material for attacking Lugar on this issue.
In 1998 Lugar was one of 4 senators to vote no against the resolution sanctioning those helping Iran develop ballistic missiles. In 2001 only Lugar and Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel voted against a bill extending sanctions against Iran. Also in 2001 87 members of the Senate sent President George W. Bush a letter saying that Yasser Arafat should not be invited to meet with high-level officials until he renounced terrorism against Israel. Lugar refused to sign.
In 2002 Lugar voted against legislation prohibiting imports of Iraqi oil till Baghdad (still under Saddam Hussein) stopped compensating families of Palestinian suicide bombers. In 2007 Lugar and Hagel were again the 2 Republicans voting against the resolution designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary guard Corps as a terrorist group. Lugar spoke favorably of the Saudi "peace plan" of 2002 and did not challenge President Obama when he called for Israel to return to the 1967 armistice lines.
Lugar has responded by publicizing a list of pro-Israel measures that he supported and they included statements calling for a 2 state solution and support of the peace process. Lugar has generally been supportive on foreign aid appropriations for Israel and he advised the administration to closely consult with Israel on Iran. Lately he has been active in sounding the alarm about Hizbollah penetration in Latin America. While he did not actually criticize Barack Obama's call for a return to the 1967 borders, he did speak of it as needlessly inflammatory and counterproductive