Considering the Information Generation, September 11, Richard Mourdock and Lake County, Indiana
Warning - You are entering a political zone. History, philosophy and politics have dominated my day and I am sharing that with you...
The day is no more than halfway over but it has been a great day. My wife and I got up early and attended the Reagan Breakfast in Schererville, Indiana (South-East of Chicago) at a venue near the corner of US 30 and US 41, which at one time in history was the busiest intersection in the United States in the days before all the Interstates.
Richard with two boosters
A friend and a Richard Mourdock campaign staffer, Suzy Barnhart, met with us soon after we arrived at The Patrician for the event. State Treasurer and Senatorial candidate Mourdock had planned on attending but then realized that a family marriage (cousin) was taking place and he needed to choose family over politics. So Suzy was suddenly given the responsibility for speaking on behalf of her candidate with only a few hours notice. She was certainly glad to see us wearing our bright red Mourdock shirts! So Richard Mourdock was willing to attend our event had a marriage not intervened, and he had certainly been there at our annual Lincoln Day Dinner even though he was not the keynote speaker (Mike Pence in this case) at the event. He had been the featured speaker at a Tea Party candidate debate during the last round of primaries. I had also met him at a second Tea Party event. I have not seen Dick Lugar involved with any similar events since he apparently only attends very expensive booster dinners devoted to bringing him money. So that means I never see him!
Dick Lugar is running as an incumbent Republican for Senate in the primary. The man chosen to speak on his behalf kept talking about what Lugar had done back 25 and 30 years ago. The sad thing is that Richard Lugar was a conservative Republican at one time. We call people like Dick Lugar "RINO" as in "Republican in name only." Dick Lugar left his conservative and Constitution-supporting point of view behind after a couple of decades of being a Senator and has become a Beltway Boy. Our Founding Fathers never anticipated the concept of a career politician, they were men of work and action who accepted a public office for a time as a service to the nation, not a career. Funny that the listed Indiana address for Dick Lugar is, according to neighbors, a deserted house? Hmmm.
When the Lugar booster was done with his ancient history lesson about the Dick Lugar of long ago, Suzy stepped up to the podium and discussed the Richard Mourdock of recent history. His accomplishments while in office, his stated positions on important issues and a few of the numerous endorsements he has received.
Suzy pointed out Mourdock's battle against the Obama bailout of Chrysler "... On Sunday (June 7), the Indiana State Police Pension Fund, the Indiana Teacher's Retirement Fund, and the state's Major Moves Construction Fund filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting an emergency stay to delay the sale while they challenged the deal.[10] The funds argued that the sale went against U.S. bankruptcy law because it unlawfully rewarded unsecured creditors ahead of secured creditors..." Richard Mourdock battled for Indiana pension funds against the Obama Administration all the way to the Supreme Court.
Apparently Dick Lugar would not battle for Hoosiers in court, as he is not too fond of a large part of his constituency:
Dick Lugar "misremembers" the Reagan Big Tent concept. We do not expand the tent to cover the ones on the outside, we invite them in where the traditional Constitutional Conservative voters have made room for them. During the Reagan Administration, large numbers of voters and Congressmen chose to walk into that big tent. Ronald Reagan had no desire or need to pull up the stakes on the tent and move it, he just kept the opening unzipped and made room for everyone to join him.
We had the pleasure of meeting several good local and state office-holders and the keynote speaker, Andy Card, who was a man that worked with Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush and George W Bush, being the Chief of Staff for the latter President Bush and famed for being the man who whispered in President Bush's ear about the 9/11 attacks.
The day is no more than halfway over but it has been a great day. My wife and I got up early and attended the Reagan Breakfast in Schererville, Indiana (South-East of Chicago) at a venue near the corner of US 30 and US 41, which at one time in history was the busiest intersection in the United States in the days before all the Interstates.
A friend and a Richard Mourdock campaign staffer, Suzy Barnhart, met with us soon after we arrived at The Patrician for the event. State Treasurer and Senatorial candidate Mourdock had planned on attending but then realized that a family marriage (cousin) was taking place and he needed to choose family over politics. So Suzy was suddenly given the responsibility for speaking on behalf of her candidate with only a few hours notice. She was certainly glad to see us wearing our bright red Mourdock shirts! So Richard Mourdock was willing to attend our event had a marriage not intervened, and he had certainly been there at our annual Lincoln Day Dinner even though he was not the keynote speaker (Mike Pence in this case) at the event. He had been the featured speaker at a Tea Party candidate debate during the last round of primaries. I had also met him at a second Tea Party event. I have not seen Dick Lugar involved with any similar events since he apparently only attends very expensive booster dinners devoted to bringing him money. So that means I never see him!
Dick Lugar is running as an incumbent Republican for Senate in the primary. The man chosen to speak on his behalf kept talking about what Lugar had done back 25 and 30 years ago. The sad thing is that Richard Lugar was a conservative Republican at one time. We call people like Dick Lugar "RINO" as in "Republican in name only." Dick Lugar left his conservative and Constitution-supporting point of view behind after a couple of decades of being a Senator and has become a Beltway Boy. Our Founding Fathers never anticipated the concept of a career politician, they were men of work and action who accepted a public office for a time as a service to the nation, not a career. Funny that the listed Indiana address for Dick Lugar is, according to neighbors, a deserted house? Hmmm.
When the Lugar booster was done with his ancient history lesson about the Dick Lugar of long ago, Suzy stepped up to the podium and discussed the Richard Mourdock of recent history. His accomplishments while in office, his stated positions on important issues and a few of the numerous endorsements he has received.
Suzy pointed out Mourdock's battle against the Obama bailout of Chrysler "... On Sunday (June 7), the Indiana State Police Pension Fund, the Indiana Teacher's Retirement Fund, and the state's Major Moves Construction Fund filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting an emergency stay to delay the sale while they challenged the deal.[10] The funds argued that the sale went against U.S. bankruptcy law because it unlawfully rewarded unsecured creditors ahead of secured creditors..." Richard Mourdock battled for Indiana pension funds against the Obama Administration all the way to the Supreme Court.
Apparently Dick Lugar would not battle for Hoosiers in court, as he is not too fond of a large part of his constituency:
Richard Lugar Insults Conservatives, Indiana GOP County Chairmen
Yesterday, I received an interesting piece of spam from Richard Lugar’s campaign. I call it “interesting” because it indicates that Lugar apparently intends to court voters who might be contemplating a vote for Richard Mourdock by calling them morons. And then speaking to them as if they were morons:
Second, while I agree that O’Donnell and Angle were bad candidates (and strongly disagree on Buck), it’s ridiculous to claim that the GOP would have done better if it had nominated the candidates who were routed by the aforementioned bad candidates in the primary. This is the same line of thinking that posits that we lost to Obama because McCain was such a crappy candidate, and we should have instead nominated… one of the people who lost to McCain. Does not compute.
Third, math is apparently not a strong suit of Dick Lugar. The GOP currently controls 47 seats in the Senate. Adding three more seats (CO, NV, DE) would put us at 50. Thus, even supposing Castle would vote to repeal Obamacare, the best we could accomplish on an Obamacare repeal vote would be a tie, which would be broken by Joe Biden. Which is completely academic anyway, since a) the Democrats would filibuster the vote and b) failing all of that, Obama would just veto it. But, yeah, if those TEA Party people weren’t such morons, we’d totally have repealed Obamacare by now.
We’re not halfway through 2011, and Richard Lugar’s campaign already smells of desperation. The main obstacle to his defeat at this point is disunity among the many groups of people Richard Lugar is currently insulting.
Unfortunately, a large number of Republican County Chairmen have been duped into participating in the same failed scheme that resulted in Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle and cost us two crucial Senate Seats in 2010. (If the Republican parties in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado had taken the Reagan “big tent” approach, we would have already repealed Obamacare.) Mr. Mourdock has hired the same consultants that brought us these unelectable candidates, and with Mr. Donnelly joining the race the pattern is complete.A few things. First, while a candidate might think voters are morons for not wanting to vote for him, it is generally a bad idea to say it out loud, on the off chance that some of those voters might be persuaded to come home.
Second, while I agree that O’Donnell and Angle were bad candidates (and strongly disagree on Buck), it’s ridiculous to claim that the GOP would have done better if it had nominated the candidates who were routed by the aforementioned bad candidates in the primary. This is the same line of thinking that posits that we lost to Obama because McCain was such a crappy candidate, and we should have instead nominated… one of the people who lost to McCain. Does not compute.
Third, math is apparently not a strong suit of Dick Lugar. The GOP currently controls 47 seats in the Senate. Adding three more seats (CO, NV, DE) would put us at 50. Thus, even supposing Castle would vote to repeal Obamacare, the best we could accomplish on an Obamacare repeal vote would be a tie, which would be broken by Joe Biden. Which is completely academic anyway, since a) the Democrats would filibuster the vote and b) failing all of that, Obama would just veto it. But, yeah, if those TEA Party people weren’t such morons, we’d totally have repealed Obamacare by now.
We’re not halfway through 2011, and Richard Lugar’s campaign already smells of desperation. The main obstacle to his defeat at this point is disunity among the many groups of people Richard Lugar is currently insulting.
We had the pleasure of meeting several good local and state office-holders and the keynote speaker, Andy Card, who was a man that worked with Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush and George W Bush, being the Chief of Staff for the latter President Bush and famed for being the man who whispered in President Bush's ear about the 9/11 attacks.
Never have I heard a long speech that was so compelling and informative. We were aware it was a long speech but the crowd hung on every word. One very short conversation, muffled, by a man answering a cell phone was the only interruption during the entire speech. Andy Card, now a Dean at Texas A&M University, was a Boy Scout, a man who served in the Merchant Marine and also went to Harvard after first receiving a BS in Engineering from the University of South Carolina. He ventured first into local and state politics and eventually into the White House. His inside look at the Bush Administration during the week of 9/11 was one of the most inspirational and moving testimonies I have ever heard. I am much fonder of Bill Clinton than Barack Obama, but the Clintons did manage to separate the CIA and the FBI so successfully that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated despite the fact that, had the two services shared information, it is pretty certain the ringleaders would have been arrested before they could have carried out their plots. George Bush managed to do the following between 9/11 and 9/14.
- He refused to panic at the news. Panic would have scared the children and pleased our enemies.
- He acted decisively upon understanding the situation. He made sure the military and the air traffic controllers and all parts of government were aware that war had been declared on the USA and thus strong measures were called for...and were taken.
- He gave the FBI a new mission - stop the next attack. The FBI did exactly that. He also made sure that the CIA quit being the CYA and shared information that the FBI needed to have and vice-versa.
- He ordered the assembly of a War Council. He scheduled a meeting at Camp David.
- He got out of the way of his military commanders and led from the Executive Branch rather than hang around in a big deep bunker in Omaha with them.
- He assured the American people that we would answer the attacks.
- He went to New York City and encouraged the responders, met the grieving and/or hopeful relatives of the dead and missing and spent time with every single one of them gathered in the giant room set aside for them.
- He met with and thanked the volunteers from all fifty states and all thirty-eight countries who came to help look for victims and survivors and deal with the mess.
- He went to Ground Zero and stood upon a broken fire truck and spoke with the men and women there who were working to save lives. The crowd, even the Japanese volunteers, broke out in a chant of "USA - USA - USA."
- He announced to the World that there was now a choice - be for us or against us. He called upon those for us to join us in defeating the enemy.
- He and his advisors and cabinet and staff attended a huge church service filled with military and civilians and prayed and sang hymns and listened to Billy Graham speak, then President Bush spoke to all with courage and conviction.
- He identified the primary enemies and determined to attack the nation most responsible while starting the search for the individuals most culpable for the attacks.
Andy Card showed us a compassionate, decisive, determined, brave and intelligent man who was unlike the caricature presented to the public by the liberal news media. President Bush gave detailed instructions and duties to each member of his cabinet with specificity and understanding so that the entire nation would be mobilized and prepared for what might come. All airplanes were grounded. Many of our allies, like Canada, welcomed our flights onto their landing strips in order that the airspace could be cleared. Andrew Card revealed the man of faith and compassion who, at the end of a long Friday collapsed into a seat in the new Air Force One and seemed exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Card told President Bush that he had done everything a President should and could do. President Bush opened his eyes wide for a moment, looked at his Chief of Staff and simply said, "thank you."
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, when speaking of Lake County, Indiana in 1962, called it the most corrupt county in the nation. RFK was a Democrat, but he did not like organized crime and corruption, nor did his brother and then-President F Kennedy. Perhaps that is why both men were killed? Corruption likes being corrupt and the corrupted hate being identified and rooted out. President Bush shared that same opinion of our county. To this day it is still said, for until the last election when County Assessor Hank Adams won office, none but Democrats had held a County elected office since the administration of FDR. Gary, Indiana has been run into the ground by corrupt Democrats and Lake County has been losing jobs and opportunities for many decades because of the corrupt Democratic Machine. Usually the only way a Democrat loses a County office is when he is indicted and convicted of a major crime, which has happened dozens of times in the last two generations. Even the left-leaning local paper, the Times, will admit to this:
Political corruption not limited to Chicago or Illinois
Last year the conservative movement was energized by Tea Party activists who helped elect new conservative leaders and retire some others. Next on their agenda is removing Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, a man that MSNBC called “