Sen. Lugar’s Remarks to Supporters, Prepared Follow-Up Statement

May 10, 2012

Remarks by Senator Richard G. Lugar

Hoosier Republican primary voters have chosen their candidate for the U.S. Senate. I congratulate my opponent on his victory in a hard fought race. I want to see a Republican in the White House, and I want to see my friend Mitch McConnell have a Republican majority in the Senate. I hope my opponent prevails in November to contribute to that Republican majority.

I am deeply grateful for the remarkable efforts of thousands of volunteers who devoted countless hours to my campaign. The enthusiasm of good friends and loyal supporters over many months was tremendously encouraging. I thank my campaign team, who made enormous personal sacrifices and never stopped working hard or seeking a path to victory. Most of all, I want to thank my loving wife, Char, our four sons – Mark, Bob, John, and David — and the entire Lugar family for their understanding, support, and love. Char and my family have been indispensible to every aspect of my public service from the Indianapolis School Board, onward.

My public service is not concluded. I look forward to what can be achieved in the Senate in the next eight months despite a very difficult national election atmosphere. First among my goals will be passing a good farm bill that saves taxpayers billions and gives farmers the best chance to prosper. I also will use this period to advance the work of the Nunn-Lugar program and other initiatives that benefit U.S. national security.

At the end of my term, I will look forward to new opportunities to serve Indiana and our nation. I will embrace projects where I can deliver the most benefit. I will continue to support the Nunn-Lugar program in every way that I can. I also want to build on my work related to nutrition and energy issues, both locally and globally.

I have no regrets about running for re-election. All of us should believe in the nobility of standing before the public and asking for their vote, even if doing so can be a very daunting task. I still counsel young people to consider elective public office, and I hope some listening to me tonight will do just that.

Serving the people of Indiana in the U.S. Senate has been the greatest honor of my public life. Hoosiers deserve the best representation possible. They deserve legislators who listen to the entire spectrum of citizen’s views and work to achieve consensus. They deserve legislators who, each day, go to work thinking about how they can solve problems that matter to Hoosiers. I am proud of the solutions we have brought to problems over the years and the initiatives we have undertaken to build Indiana and to protect our country.

We are experiencing deep political divisions in our society right now. These divisions have stalemated progress in critical areas. But these divisions are not insurmountable. I believe that people of good will – regardless of party – can work together for the benefit of the country.

I remain optimistic about the future of Indiana and the United States. The news media and political leaders spend a great deal of time talking about what is broken in our country. To some degree, that is the nature of the business. But we should also have confidence that the unique American experiment is alive and well. Our political system still can work.

We possess the resources, human talent, and entrepreneurial energy to sustain our status as the economic envy of the world. Our culture still is the global reference point for progress among modern societies. People from all over the world still want to come here to study, live, and invest. And we still enjoy unprecedented freedoms that billions of people in our world can only dream about. The task before us is to come together as Americans to sustain the American dream at home, while protecting our security and advancing our leadership abroad.

I cherish the confidence that each of you has placed in me, and I urge you to join me in a determination to continue to serve our country and our state. God bless each of you and God bless America.

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Prepared Statement of Senator Richard G. Lugar on the Concluded Indiana Senate Primary

May 8, 2012

I would like to comment on the Senate race just concluded and the direction of American politics and the Republican Party. I would reiterate from my earlier statement that I have no regrets about choosing to run for office. My health is excellent, I believe that I have been a very effective Senator for Hoosiers and for the country, and I know that the next six years would have been a time of great achievement. Further, I believed that vital national priorities, including job creation, deficit reduction, energy security, agriculture reform, and the Nunn-Lugar program, would benefit from my continued service as a Senator. These goals were worth the risk of an electoral defeat and the costs of a hard campaign.

Analysts will speculate about whether our campaign strategies were wise. Much of this will be based on conjecture by pundits who don’t fully appreciate the choices we had to make based on resource limits, polling data, and other factors. They also will speculate whether we were guilty of overconfidence.

The truth is that the headwinds in this race were abundantly apparent long before Richard Mourdock announced his candidacy. One does not highlight such headwinds publically when one is waging a campaign. But I knew that I would face an extremely strong anti-incumbent mood following a recession. I knew that my work with then-Senator Barack Obama would be used against me, even if our relationship were overhyped. I also knew from the races in 2010 that I was a likely target of Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and other Super Pacs dedicated to defeating at least one Republican as a purification exercise to enhance their influence over other Republican legislators.

We undertook this campaign soberly and we worked very hard in 2010, 2011, and 2012 to overcome these challenges. There never was a moment when my campaign took anything for granted. This is why we put so much effort into our get out the vote operations.

Ultimately, the re-election of an incumbent to Congress usually comes down to whether voters agree with the positions the incumbent has taken. I knew that I had cast recent votes that would be unpopular with some Republicans and that would be targeted by outside groups.

These included my votes for the TARP program, for government support of the auto industry, for the START Treaty, and for the confirmations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. I also advanced several propositions that were considered heretical by some, including the thought that Congressional earmarks saved no money and turned spending power over to unelected bureaucrats and that the country should explore options for immigration reform.

It was apparent that these positions would be attacked in a Republican primary. But I believe that they were the right votes for the country, and I stand by them without regrets, as I have throughout the campaign.

From time to time during the last two years I heard from well-meaning individuals who suggested that I ought to consider running as an independent. My response was always the same: I am a Republican now and always have been. I have no desire to run as anything else. All my life, I have believed in the Republican principles of small government, low taxes, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and trade expansion. According to Congressional Quarterly vote studies, I supported President Reagan more often than any other Senator. I want to see a Republican elected President, and I want to see a Republican majority in the Congress. I hope my opponent wins in November to help give my friend Mitch McConnell a majority.

If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington. 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.

This is not conducive to problem solving and governance. And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve. The most consequential of these is stabilizing and reversing the Federal debt in an era when millions of baby boomers are retiring. There is little likelihood that either party will be able to impose their favored budget solutions on the other without some degree of compromise.

Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country. And partisan groups, including outside groups that spent millions against me in this race, are determined to see that this continues. They have worked to make it as difficult as possible for a legislator of either party to hold independent views or engage in constructive compromise. If that attitude prevails in American politics, our government will remain mired in the dysfunction we have witnessed during the last several years. And I believe that if this attitude expands in the Republican Party, we will be relegated to minority status. Parties don’t succeed for long if they stop appealing to voters who may disagree with them on some issues.

Legislators should have an ideological grounding and strong beliefs identifiable to their constituents. I believe I have offered that throughout my career. But ideology cannot be a substitute for a determination to think for yourself, for a willingness to study an issue objectively, and for the fortitude to sometimes disagree with your party or even your constituents. Like Edmund Burke, I believe leaders owe the people they represent their best judgment.

Too often bipartisanship is equated with centrism or deal cutting. Bipartisanship is not the opposite of principle. One can be very conservative or very liberal and still have a bipartisan mindset. Such a mindset acknowledges that the other party is also patriotic and may have some good ideas. It acknowledges that national unity is important, and that aggressive partisanship deepens cynicism, sharpens political vendettas, and depletes the national reserve of good will that is critical to our survival in hard times. Certainly this was understood by President Reagan, who worked with Democrats frequently and showed flexibility that would be ridiculed today – from assenting to tax increases in the 1983 Social Security fix, to compromising on landmark tax reform legislation in 1986, to advancing arms control agreements in his second term.

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. Our political system is losing its ability to even explore alternatives. If fealty to these pledges continues to expand, legislators may pledge their way into irrelevance. Voters will be electing a slate of inflexible positions rather than a leader.

I hope that as a nation we aspire to more than that. I hope we will demand judgment from our leaders. I continue to believe that Hoosiers value constructive leadership. I would not have run for office if I did not believe that.

As someone who has seen much in the politics of our country and our state, I am able to take the long view. I have not lost my enthusiasm for the role played by the United States Senate. Nor has my belief in conservative principles been diminished. I expect great things from my party and my country. I hope all who participated in this election share in this optimism.