I'm not the only one who sees Richard Lugar's defeat last night as more evidence the Republican party, long unmoored from reality, has drifted to the edge of the flat world they inhabit. It turns out, Lugar sees the same thing:
[Republican U.S. Senate nominee Richard Mourdock] 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.
But wait, there's more:
I don't remember a time when so many topics have become politically unmentionable in one party or the other. Republicans cannot admit to any nuance in policy on climate change. Republican members are now expected to take pledges against any tax increases. For two consecutive Presidential nomination cycles, GOP candidates competed with one another to express the most strident anti-immigration view, even at the risk of alienating a huge voting bloc. Similarly, most Democrats are constrained when talking about such issues as entitlement cuts, tort reform, and trade agreements.
Says Robert Wright, "It almost sounds as if he thinks Republicans are a bigger part of the problem than Democrats."
In unrelated news, Sunday was the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster. I mention this only because the Atlantic had a side-bar on the Lugar story, and I thought it was interesting. Yay Internet, helping people forget what they were mad about!
Update, from Mourdock: "I have a mindset that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view."
Yep, that sounds like an accurate view of the Republican party.