DC Dems Think They Have A Way To Win In Indiana Now-- Who Is Dick Mourdock? And Who Is Joe Donnelly?

The extreme right-wing victor in Tuesday's Republican primary in Indiana, Dick Mourdock, was interviewed the following morning by Chuck Todd on MSNBC. “I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view." That point of view isn't out of step with the standard, garden variety Republican line and it's certainly the operating principle by which Miss McConnell and his cronies have obstructed virtually everything Obama and the Democrats have tried to do in the past three years. Making the government into a farce plays into their thesis that government is bad and should be shrunk, made impotent and drowned in a bathtub. They don't want government having the ability to protect ordinary people from the deprecations of financial and ecological predators and other Republican Party financiers. The last votes in Indiana hadn't been counted when the Democratic Party-- many of whom take the same bribes from the same predatory special interests-- wasn't already trying to capitalize on Mourdock's extremism. This is a letter Guy Cecil, Executive Director of the DSCC sent out immediately:

Meet the next Ken Buck-- Indiana Republican Senate nominee Richard Mourdock.

By defeating Dick Lugar and nominating Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party has done it again, handing another strong pick-up opportunity to Democrats.

Like Ken Buck, Richard Mourdock is another right wing extremist who is too far out of the mainstream for independent voters.

This is what Senator Lugar had to say about Richard Mourdock last night:

He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate.  In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party.  His answer to the inevitable roadblocks he will encounter in Congress is merely to campaign for more Republicans who embrace the same partisan outlook.  He has pledged his support to groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it.

Today there are tens of thousands of disillusioned Hoosiers who have supported Dick Lugar their entire voting lives and are likely dismayed by the polarizing, extreme forces that defeated him. While Richard Mourdock is poorly positioned to appeal to these voters, Joe Donnelly is exactly the kind of reasonable, honest, job-focused, centrist these voters have always supported.

In 2010, I served as Chief of Staff to Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, and saw firsthand how Ken Buck’s extremist ideology was rejected by independent voters after his divisive GOP primary. Buck spent weeks trying to untie himself from his previous statements and positions, but the voters in Colorado knew better -- and so will the voters of Indiana.

Like Buck, Mourdock already possess a long rap sheet of misstatements and Tea Party positions that will offend independent voters. 

·         Mourdock spent $2 million of taxpayer money on a lawsuit that could have endangered 124,000 Indiana jobs-- including 4,000 high paying jobs in Kokomo, Indiana-- by killing the Chrysler’s bankruptcy restructuring. Mourdock called the lawsuit his “Rosa Parks moment." Mourdock’s Tea Party opposition to the entire auto industry rescue could have cost the state 140,000 jobs in total.

·         In his defense, Mourdock says, “I didn't take a pledge that I would support every job in Indiana under whatever means it takes to do it.”

·         Mourdock says that “I think there needs to be more partisanship” in Washington.

·         Mourdock has questioned the constitutionality of Social Security and Medicare. 

We’ve seen this movie before, but you don't have to take my word for it. Even Senator Lugar recognizes that Mourdock is a flawed candidate with extreme views, specifically saying “Democrats understand Joe Donnelly will beat Richard Mourdock.” Or, as one Lugar supporter said in an ad warning seniors about Mourdock’s position on Social Security – one that calls for $2,500 cuts in annual benefits-- “Heaven help us-- ‘cause Mourdock won’t.” 



Meanwhile, Joe Donnelly has always had broad appeal with independents. Donnelly was reelected in a Republican-leaning district in 2010 even though the National Republican Congressional Committee and their Republican allies spent more than $2 million trying to defeat him. In fact, Donnelly survived the Republican wave last cycle despite being an original member of the NRCC’s 2010 target list. 

POLLING TODAY: Polling shows that Donnelly starts off with a six point lead against Tea Partier Mourdock.

Donnelly leads Mourdock, 34 to 28. While both candidates still have low name ID, Donnelly already has significant leads with important swing voting blocs that make up the undecided vote, including women, seniors and independents.
 
·         Donnelly leads by 10 among women

·         Donnelly leads by 7 among seniors

·         Donnelly leads by 8 among independents

Last night’s results make Indiana a prime pick up opportunity for Democrats.  There are a lot of longtime Lugar supporters waking up this morning and looking for a mainstream moderate. Richard Mourdock’s ideological extremism doesn't fit the bill. Joe Donnelly does.

If you want to know more about who Mourdock is, the Washington Post had a revelatory article about his freaky career yesterday. But right now I want to do something that Guy Cecil and other DC Democrats don't want anyone to do-- look at just who Joe Donnelly is. We've covered him here at DWT plenty. I wonder if he'll use this ad again this year; it wouldn't surprise me.



But it's not just a matter of throwing progressives-- or even Obama-- under the bus to curry favor with the lizard brains. He practically morphed into a Republican even though he was in a pretty blue district. On crucial roll calls since he was elected to Congress, his ProgressivePunch score is a dismal 32.26%. Yes the DSCC engineered a sneaky, primary-free coup so that someone who has voted against progressive ideas 67.74% of the time would get the Senate nomination. His voting score since he decided to run for Senate, by the way, has only gotten worse-- much worse. This year that score sunk to 25.80. By way of comparison, Ron Paul (R-TX) and Walter Jones (R-NC) vote with the Democrats far more often than Donnelly. Paul's score is 35.60 and Jones' is 37.01. Donnelly is down at the bottom of the Blue Dog pack with reactionary Confederates like John Barrow (GA), Mike Ross (AR) and Dan Boren (OK). He's 100% anti-Choice, anti-gay and votes for Big Business interests over the interests of ordinary working families. He was one of the most enthusiastic of the 64 Democratic supporters of the Stupak Amendment, restricting women's choice, voted to defund Planned Parenthood all 3 times the GOP tried to do that, and was one of only 17 viciously homophobic Democrats to join the Republicans in voting against including the LGBT community in Hate Crimes protection. And this wasn't an anomaly of his part. When Patrick Murphy's amendment came up to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell only 26 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the GOP against it-- and one of 'em was Joe Donnelly. Only 4 "Democrats" voted both against the DISCLOSE Act and for the Republican effort to end voluntary public funding for presidential elections. One of those 4, of course, was Donnelly.

This year Eric Cantor and John Boehner have come to depend on Donnelly as someone they know they can always count on to allow them to proclaim to the world that their unhinged right-wing drivel has "bi-partisan" support. All this in a district that Obama won with 54% (the same percentage that Donnelly got when he defeated incumbent imbecile Chris Chocola in 2006). Two years later Donnelly was reelected with 67% and won every single county in the district, even the reddest of them! By 2010 Democrats and left-leaning independents were sick of him-- and showed their displeasure by staying away from the polls on election day. He barely eked out a miserable 48-47% win. He held onto 91,330 voters, down by about half from 2008, while Jackie Walorski, his GOP opponent, took 88,787, more than the Republican candidate against Donnelly did in 2008. And on the county level, the worm had turned. For example, Donnelly's 53% win in red-leaning Carroll County in 2008 turned into a staggering loss (31%) 2 years later. And he spent double the money Walorski did. When the DSCC started maneuvering to get Donnelly his primary-free ride to the Senate nomination, I mentioned that it was "absolutely perverse for the DSCC to even consider recruiting a slouch like Donnelly who will do nothing but confuse voters about which party stands with working families and which party stands with Big Business. In fact just last week, the GOP brought up 3 bills rewarding Big Oil-- and Donnelly was one of the few Democrats to vote with the Republicans all three times. He was also one of the few Democrats who ran TV ads attacking Nancy Pelosi and Democratic energy and immigration policies in last year's midterms. If you think Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin and Blanche Lincoln are good Democrats, you'll love Joe Donnelly in the U.S. Senate as well." And that was even before he helped force Dick Lugar into backing away from his support of the DREAM Act. Expect hysteria type solicitations from the DSCC that the existence of the universe depends of you contributing to Joe Donnelly's campaign. Let the special interests he serves pay for his campaign. This is one Senate page that Joe Donnelly will never-- not in a billion years-- be part of.

UPDATE: It Starts

The DSCC just sent me a donor letter signed by Big Oil corporate shill Mark Begich, the horribly disappointing Alaska senator. It went to everyone who ever donated to Begich, a mistake I made when he first ran. "I'm a strong supporter of Democrat Joe Donnelly in the Indiana Senate race," he burbled. "He's a hard worker and an effective Congressman-- and he's going to be the kind of Senator I can work with to get the country back on track. In the House, Joe has been a common sense voice for progress. He's shown that he knows how to get things done, and we need more of that in the U.S. Senate-- not more destructive Tea Party obstructionism. Joe Donnelly isn't just the best choice for Indiana. His victory in November will be good for America and good for Alaska."