I just want to say that despite the fact I disagree with at least 95% of the votes he casts and I can’t understand why he goes along with the Republicans’ shenanigans, Dick Lugar has real political courage, and that is something so rare these days, in either party, that I just have to stop and make note if it. He knows for a near-certainty that he is going to get a tea-party challenge from his right and yet he is still willing to come straight and say that he thinks we should restore the Assault Weapons Ban. When asked about the problems this will cause him, he’s succinct.
…Lugar is going out on a limb by expressing his support for bringing back the now-defunct assault weapons ban – especially because local Tea Party activists have promised to field a primary challenger for the six-term senator.
Lugar has a reputation for working across party lines in the Senate, and his support for gun control legislation would likely put him at odds with a more conservative GOP challenger.
Lugar also said in the Bloomberg interview that a Tea Party challenge is “not one that I welcome, but nevertheless, this is a democracy.”
If I thought Ben Nelson and Mark Pryor were crossing their party to do something courageous, I’d praise them, too. But they’re just cowards.
I regularly speak to the manager at Lugar’s Ft Wayne office, so when I saw this today I called and talked to her for quite a while. I’ve been on the other side of Dick’s votes most of the time too, but he’s a man who is willing to do what he believes is right, damn the consequences.
Really wish we had more like him. I’ve given up on calling Donnelly’s office, I just get pablum and bullshit.
I remember seeing a study that in the 1980s Lugar (based on votes) was basically the median Republican senator in terms of ideology. He hasn’t really changed. His general theory of governance is that Senators should work together to achieve consensus and compromise. That’s a radical idea in today’s Republican.
Nice recognition Booman. He deserves it. You may say that he was THEE key to START getting passed and with it, Obama’s trifecta. Obama knew he could count on Lugar’s word and having a well respected Senator in your corner from the other side on START gave him the leverage he needed to strategize for the remaining needed votes.
I was going to make this point also. Lugar has been big on non-proliferation for a long time and from their travel to Russia I am sure that he knew the President well enough to trust him on this issue.
I’ve taken a particularly dim view of Pryor since he was on-camera extensively in Bill Maher’s Religulous. In response to Maher’s rather pointed questions, Pryor came off, essentially, as endorsing ignorance. Such interviews can be edited to make someone look bad, of course, but Pryor’s attitude reminded me very much of the same sort of intellectual non-curiosity that made GW Bush such a disaster.
Pryor is just as much an asshat as Blanche Lincoln was/is. He just knew to keep his mouth shut.
Lugar is a sane Republican. don’t agree with his policies, but I don’t think he hates America. his support and vocal support is what got START passed.