WANE-TV: [...] Lugar has been a Member of Congress for almost 12,500 days, the longest in Indiana history. Some members of the Tea Party movement say that's long enough.
They [The Tea Party] want a more conservative candidate, and met in central Indiana last month to start the process of uniting behind a single opponent for Lugar in the 2012 Republican primary.
"[We're saying to Lugar] thank you for what you've done. We respect you greatly as a person and for what you've done in the past. But to go forward, we feel it's going to need to be a different candidate," Tea Party activist Pat Miller told NewsChannel 15 in January.
Among other criticisms, Tea Party activists have taken Lugar to task for supporting the new START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, claiming the U.S. is giving up too much and Russia is not giving up enough.
"I've been working systematically for 20 years going to Russia trying to help direct a situation in which we're taking warheads off of missiles every day, destroying missiles that were aimed at us; destroying submarines that carried misslies up and down our coast," said Lugar. "I've got to say 'Get real'. I hear Tea Party or other people talking about they were against START. I said 'Well, now, hang on here.'"
Lugar continued, "If you want to get into START, let's talk about it, but realistically as Americans, not as some Republican renegade. [I'm] trying to take warheads of Russia [out of circulation] so they won't hit Indiana."
RINO attributes aside, I wonder if it ever dawned on Lugar that being in the Senate since 1977 might make him a wee bit out of touch with the real world. Even if Lugar was a stanch conservative, this concept of life long careers in Congress really has to start coming to an end. I find that these long stays in Washington creates a very stale group think. It also gives these Congress Critters an overblown sense of entitlement.
Allahpundit at Hot Air points out that challenging Lugar could risking turning a safe Red seat Blue. I say, so what. The thing about keeping RINOs because they can win, is that you end up losing in the end when they choose to go rogue on important issues.
We are going to have only one shot at legislatively repealing ObamaCare after 2012. It will be in our best interest to make sure that the Senate is populated with as few RINOs as possible. There are 23 Democrats up for reelection in 2012, Republicans only need four seats to gain a majority, therefore we can afford to be picky.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: WANE-TV
Via: Hot Air