Indiana is a Republican state. But, it seems that the right wing of the Indiana Republican party almost seems to be daring the state to vote for Democrats. They chose Richard Mourdock over Republican institution, Richard Lugar, for the 2012 Senate campaign. My views on Mourdock’s antics during the Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings are well known. On top of that kind of economic acumen, Mourdock has vowed to bring more partisanship to Washington and featured in his campaign his determination to end the EPA. He’ll be a nice complement to Mike Pence on the ballot.

For those whose tastes run more to the center-right of the political spectrum, the Democrats will be offering blue dogs, Joe Donnelly and John Gregg. If you like center-left, far-left, or radical left; well, I’m sorry, but Indiana has nothing for you.

Update Mourdock, speaking to Chuck Todd, on his governing philosophy:

I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view. […] Bipartisanship means they have to come our way […] To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else with a microphone or in front of a camera. […] Even those Republicans who more often than not vote the right way aren’t coming back into their states or their districts and getting in front of the unfriendly crowds and unfriendly microphones to make the point as to why our point of view is good. […] I feel I can defend the purpose of conservatism, and more Republicans should be doing it just as I want to.

An example of the old quip about declaring that government doesn’t work and seeking office so you can prove it.

Today, I read a column by Noam Chomsky entitled “Jobs aren’t coming back”. Fairly or unfairly, there were three items in the column that made me think of Richard Mourdock.

First, he talks about a number of occasions where companies were shutting down businesses. According to Chomsky, there were efforts afoot by the workers and communities in which the businesses were located to essentially have the workers buy them out instead of allowing them to close, but that these efforts were rebuffed by the owners of the businesses in question.

In one of the suburbs of Boston, about a year ago, something similar happened. A multinational decided to close down a profitable, functioning facility carrying out some high-tech manufacturing. Evidently, it just wasn’t profitable enough for them. The workforce and the union offered to buy it, take it over, and run it themselves. The multinational decided to close it down instead, probably for reasons of class-consciousness. I don’t think they want things like this to happen.

In terms of class-consciousness, Chomsky talks about how Alan Greenspan referred to middle class economic insecurity as a good thing, financially speaking — insecure workers don’t ask for raises, among other things. [Disclaimer: I don’t know a lot about Noam Chomsky. Observation: If we truly had a liberal media, I’d probably know a lot more about Noam Chomsky.]

So, anyway, this class resistance reminds me of Mourdock’s huffing and puffing about Chrysler, in effect demanding that secured creditors get paid less so that workers could be left with nothing. Maybe class warfare explains Mourdock’s efforts, I don’t know. But, maximizing the return for the State of Indiana as a secured creditor certainly does not seem to be a moving force inasmuch as scotching the federal government bailout would have left secured creditors with the reduced liquidation value of Chrysler. But, from Mourdock’s perspective, maybe the reduced dollar return on the secured investment would have been worthwhile so long as unions got stiffed entirely and manufacturing laborers were less secure in their jobs.

The second item mentioned by Chomsky is the threat of nuclear weapons. He doesn’t think much of the policies of the Obama administration on this, by the way. But, attempting to reduce the supply of nuclear weapons has been one of the main policy efforts of Senator Lugar. And, in pursuit of this policy, he has worked with Russians and, possibly even more damning, with Democrats. For this scrap of bipartisanship, Mourdock stands to beat Senator Lugar in today’s primary. (Stanley Weiss wrote an open letter speaking, in part, to this issue. (“The shame of it is that the challenger, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, has been allowed to turn “statesman” into a dirty word. He mocks Lugar for his work to build a bipartisan coalition to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, stating flatly that “The time for being collegial is past — it’s time for confrontation.””)

And, finally, Chomsky notes the environmental catastrophe.

Practically every country in the world is taking at least halting steps towards trying to do something about it. The United States is also taking steps, mainly to accelerate the threat. It is the only major country that is not only not doing something constructive to protect the environment, it’s not even climbing on the train. In some ways, it’s pulling it backwards.

Mourdock’s position on the environment? According to his ad campaign that seems to be littering the Internet, he’s eager to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency.

I have been following Mike Kole’s updates at the Libertarian National Convention via Facebook. Mike is working for the Mark Rutherford for party chair team. A few days ago, Mike offered this bit of foreshadowing:

One thing I really like about the Libertarian National Conventions is that things are very rarely decided before the voting starts. These are real conventions- not the coronations that the Rs & Ds host. Gary Johnson is the frontrunner for the presidential nomination, but I’ve been at conventions where the frontrunner was surprised very late in the day (e.g.: when Michael Badnarik overcame Gary Nolan in 2004). The Chair elections are always contentious. This one will be no different, as Mark needs to unseat current Chair Mark Hinkle, so I will have to work to earn votes for him.

The nominating process for Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates was apparently uneventful. The nominee is former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson who unsuccessfully participated in this cycle’s Republican primary campaign before jumping ship to the Libertarian party’s system. Former Orange County, California, judge James Gray – himself a refugee to the Libertarians after a failed 1998 Congressional campaign as a Republican, is the Vice-Presidential nominee.

But, true to Kole’s prediction, all hell broke loose when the Libertarians got to voting for a national party chairman.

After a relatively uneventful president and vice-presidential nominating process, all hell broke loose at the Libertarian National Convention when the Libertarian Party attempted to pick a new national committee chair. The race between current chair Mark Hinkle and vice chair Mark Rutherford fell into disarray when a group of delegates associated with Lee Wrights made a push for the option of None Of The Above.

Wrights was the last remaining challenger to Johnson for the Presidential nomination. Speculation is that he’s involved in upsetting the nominating apple cart so he can take the party chairmanship if Hinkle and Rutherford are procedurally barred by a successful “None of The Above” (NOTA) vote. He apparently denies involvement.

(Mark Rutherford is a Hoosier, former Libertarian Party of Indiana chairman and current vice-chair of the national party; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be taking much of an interest.)

In the first round of voting, Hinkle was eliminated but Rutherford didn’t get over the 50% mark, so it went to a second round. At that point, a guy seen as a Wrights surrogate spoke on behalf of None of the Above. Second round, NOTA beat Rutherford 273-269, but improprieties were alleged. A revote put Rutherford on top. The other side alleged improprieties. The recount was thrown out. And a third round of voting was underway which, if I’m reading the stories correctly, yielded a Rutherford win over NOTA 278 – 277 but then the chair declared a write-in vote valid which created no winner for failure to carry a majority. The meeting was adjourned for the night.

While Mike said this process was always contentious, I have to think that this one is going to leave a mark.

Update So, it looks like on Sunday, the results were essentially vacated and nominations from the floor were accepted. Lee Wrights, Mark Rutherford, Geoff Neale, Bill Redpath, Ernest Hancock, and Wes Wagner were nominated. Wrights declined and endorsed Neale. By the fifth round of voting, Neale and Mark Rutherford were the two left standing. The vote that round was Neale 212, Rutherford 205, NOTA 29. Rutherford was eliminated and, head to head with “None of The Above,” Neale won with 264 – 159 and is now the chairman of the Libertarian National Party.

Eric Bradner, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, has an article about Lugar challenging Mourdock’s Chrysler antics.

A couple of critiques. First, it characterizes the argument that secured creditors would have gotten less under Mourdock’s proposal as a Joe Donnelly argument. Certainly Joe is pointing it out; but this was a central finding of the bankruptcy court. (pdf) Second, it lets Mourdock skate on his explanation of how Chrysler would have been saved and how secured creditors would have gotten paid more if Mourdock had gotten his way. Mourdock says vaguely, “I’m sure someone would’ve stepped up if the government hadn’t been involved.” (I’m paraphrasing.) But there was nobody. Chrysler had been looking for investors for years; nobody. The bankruptcy court took offers. It was early 2009 – nobody was investing in anything. The assets were wasting.

This was a political move by Mourdock. His complaint wasn’t that secured creditors were getting less than they would have otherwise. His complaint was that the government was being used to benefit unions in any way. His acts were an effort to cut off the nose to spite the face — it would have been fine, under his scenario, for secured creditors to get less so long as the unions got nothing.

It was short sighted, and he should be more accountable for what he was trying to do and why; not be allowed to say vaguely that the money fairy would have appeared to give secured creditors more money if only the socialist Obama administration hadn’t interfered. If he thinks secured creditors would have gotten more under his proposal, he should show us the math.

As for Lugar using this angle against Mourdock; it’s about time.

Eric Bradner, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, has an article on John Gregg’s Washington D.C. connections. Eric is one of the best state political reporters out there and a nice guy on top of that, but I think this article — if you’re not too careful about reading the particulars — lends itself to false equivalency.

The set up is that Gregg is hammering Pence on being of Washington D.C. and yet Gregg has connections to D.C. politicians and they’re raising money for him. In particular, there was a fundraiser for Gregg at a restaurant in D.C.:

Among the hosts were a number of former and current senators and House members, including Evan Bayh, Baron Hill, Joe Donnelly, Andre Carson and Pete Visclosky. Also invited was Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, head of the national Democratic Governors’ Association.

The underlying problem may be with Gregg’s messaging – it’s, perhaps necessarily, overly simple. “D.C. is bad, m’kay.” Pence isn’t a problem because he’s of D.C. He’s a problem because he’s the embodiment of why D.C. is dysfunctional: all political rhetoric, strict partisanship, and no interest in actual governance. By just focusing on “D.C.” instead of with the more complicated notion of Pence’s role in D.C., it opens him up to this kind of false equivalency any time he has something to do with federal politicians.

I did run into a small sign of hope last night – a moderate Republican who finds John Gregg more appealing than Mike Pence. The reason this is only a small sign is that: a) I don’t have a good idea of how many Indiana Republicans are still moderate; and b) this guy was very tuned in politically – he actually knew the particulars of both candidates. This doesn’t help at all with the type of voter who skims the Bradner article, throws up his hands, and says, “Bah, both sides do it; there’s not enough difference between these damn politicians for me to care; I’m on Team Republican, so I’m voting Pence.”

The current primary between Dick Lugar and Richard Mourdock, for some reason, reminds me of the primary between now state Sen. Greg Walker and former state Sen. Bob Garton. Indiana did not trade up in the latter case and I don’t see that they would in the current primary either.

Mourdock is trying to get traction over Lugar based on whether or not he owns a house in Indiana. It’s a bit odd to me that Lugar has been re-elected for decades and now some are shocked that he spends most of his time in D.C.; their support somehow hinged on the particulars of his accommodations when he returned to the state.

In the meantime, what’s Mourdock’s signature accomplishment? Investing in distressed Chrysler assets, being surprised when the fire sale prices he bought them at turned out to be indication that they were troubled assets, then spending $2 million in legal fees trying to kill Chrysler so Indiana could get less money out of the bankruptcy.

I’ll take Sen. Lugar whose real mortal sin, of course, is being friendly to President Obama that one time.

Mark Mellinger, reporting for WANE, has a story entitled Candidate wants to license drinking. In a debate in Auburn, Indiana, House candidate Gary Harbaugh proposed legislation that would license people to drink alcohol in a manner similar to the ways drivers are licensed.

This struck me as a stupid idea. The, upon more thought, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Then, upon even more thought, I think I was probably correct initially.

David Brooks, stopped clock of the New York Times, has a column entitled The Possum Republicans. He describes the process by which otherwise reasonable Republicans get forced ever rightward by less reasonable members of their party.

It reminds me of a couple of sayings I’ve seen in other contexts: “Whoever cares least in a relationship has the most power.” The rightward edge of the party (I hesitate to call it the “fringe” anymore) doesn’t care about elections or governance nearly as much as it cares about ideological purity. Unless they see unalloyed conservative purity — as defined by them, of course — they’ll attack through a primary or otherwise. Witness Mourdock v. Lugar. Sen. Lugar is a lock as a candidate, is essentially sound with his governance, and is hardly a liberal. Yet, because he dares to talk with the “other side,” he’s persona non grata among the more foaming elements of his party.

The other notion is that “If you’re trying to beat me up, and I’m trying to kill you; I’m going to win.” Ideologues of any kind are simply more ferocious than pragmatists. They’re more emotionally invested and less prone to restraint. Moderates simply don’t have the energy or incentive – at least in the short term – to stand up to these people.

But, sooner or letter, there is going to be an inflection point. I don’t know how far away it is or what pain will be involved when it arrives, but eventually the ideologically approved spectrum will be so narrowly defined that the in-group will simply be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the out-group; ferocity and purity notwithstanding.

I’ve heard this twice in the last couple of days, Romney taking the Mourdock-type talking points about the auto bailout. In particular that the unions, as unsecured creditors, got more than they should have in the Chrysler bankruptcy in light of the fact that secured creditors got lss than 100%. Politifact takes a look and calls Romney’s claims false when he says that Obama gave the companies to the unions. I heard one of Romney’s surrogates regurgitate the nonsense about how secured creditors were getting shafted in violation of 200 years of bankruptcy law.

I recall, at the time, Abdul and Josh Clayborn giving some credence to this notion. Abdul was mainly relaying Mourdock’s claims while Josh seemed to embrace it. But, the bankruptcy judge specifically addressed the claim that the secured creditors were being unfairly treated and rejected it. Mourdock’s complaint was that entities that happened to be unsecured creditors were getting paid before secured creditors got 100%. O.k., sounds like a problem.

Let’s say Joe has two creditors, one is the bank that loaned him the money for a car, the other is his buddy Fred. The bank is secured and he owes the bank $1,000. He also owes Fred $1,000. His only asset is the car, only worth $500 at the moment. Now typically what would happen is that you sell the car, the bank gets the $500 and Fred gets nothing. If Fred gets $200 and the Bank only gets $300 of the proceeds of the car, that’s a problem.

But, in this case, there is a third party. Let’s call him Barry. Barry comes in and says he’ll pay $1,500 if he gets the car and Fred and Joe agree to go to work for him. $750 goes to the bank and $750 goes to Fred and Joe as a sort of signing bonus. In this scenario, the bank has no cause to complain. It gets more than it would have if the car was simply sold.

Mourdock and Romney’s bellyaching is a lot like the Bank throwing a tantrum because it didn’t get all $1,500 or the $1,000 left on the bank note. Their main complaint is that Fred and Joe got something out of the deal; preferring, apparently, the scenario where they only get $500, so long as Fred and Joe get nothing. They ignore that, without the take-it-or-leave-it offer by Barry, they don’t even get the $750. They get $500.

If the complaint is that Barry is the government instead of Bain Capital, that’s a policy disagreement, not some sort of miscarriage of bankruptcy law. Fact is, Bain Capital (or anyone else) weren’t willing to step up and offer the secured creditors any more than they got.