Richard Lugar Shares Thoughts On Rival Richard Mourdock’s Campaign

Longtime Indiana Senator Richard Lugar won’t be helping his Republican rival (who beat him out of this month’s primary) campaign for the coming fall election.

“For the time being, I don’t plan an active campaign,” Lugar said Sunday on Face the Nationwith Bob Schieffer.

Despite this, he did reiterate his primary night words, saying that he’s hoping Indiana voters will support and vote for state Treasurer Richard Mourdock because he wants to see Republicans take control of the Senate. He has offered advice to his former opponent, specifically stating that Mourdock doesn’t stand a chance if he doesn’t drop his stance that Washington needs less bipartisanship, reports USAToday.

“I’ve offered advice to my former opponent and now candidate as to the kind of way he might be a constructive senator, how he can make any difference whatsoever,” Lugar said. “I hope that he will in fact begin to adopt some of those ideas.”

Though Lugar’s loss to Tea Party-favorite Mourdock is attributed to Lugar’s overt willingness to work with Democrats up-to-and-including President Barack Obama, Lugar maintains that his defeat is owed to his hypothesis that, “a large portion of the Republican Party of Indiana believed, apparently, in the idea of individualism as opposed to community, a sense of compromise, or a sense of talking across the aisle.”

Regarding Mourdock’s campaign, Lugar said that the focus should be on the issues, not on mud-slinging. “The country really is looking for answers, whether it be the taxation problem, the budget problem, our problems with allies or enemies abroad,” Lugar said. “There have to be people who are putting it together, who bring about a sense of community in addition to individualism.”

Though Lugar remains defeated, it seems as though he will have a voice in the fall election, even if only from the wings.