A LOSS OF EXCELLENCE
All political careers end eventually and rarely does the last act play out in grandeur, but I am saddened by the defeat of Richard Lugar.
Indiana voters did a shabby disservice to America. A small turn out in a strident and nasty campaign ended the reelection hopes of one of America's longest serving senators. He is also one of the most capable to grace the US Capitol's upper chamber.
I first covered Lugar when I was assigned to city-county government. The Mayor's office was part of my beat and I learned rapidly this young mayor meant to serve with intelligence and a sense of vision.
Tom Cochrun and Richard Lugar in May 1979 at Fitness Fest
I was producing a documentary. Senator Lugar was an active runner and fitness advocate
David Halberstam called the John Kennedy team The Best and the Brightest, though the highest meaning of that phrase could apply to the Lugar administration in the Indianapolis City County building. Dedicated and imaginative people helped turn Indianapolis from a decaying rust belt city toward the dynamic and exciting urban success America saw most recently in the saturation coverage of the Super Bowl. Lugar planted the vision and started the renaissance.
For the better part of the next 4 decades I covered Lugar.
His 36 years in the Senate is worthy of study and will no doubt be the subject of historians and political scientists. He continued to be a visionary, a consensus builder, he chided presidents, of even his own party, he was a conscience and remains one of the world's wisest on matters of national security, foreign policy, nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction.
He and Sam Nunn did more to save the world from harm, after the fall of the Soviet Union, than people can imagine.
He has also advocated farm and agriculture reform and continues to campaign on issues of nutrition.
Some of my favorite memories are of those nights when I was president of the Press Club and when Senator Lugar
and Representative Lee Hamilton, another foreign policy stalwart, joined us for dinners and debriefs. It was the end of the cold war, the wall was coming down, the USSR was breaking up, the world was changing and on long winter nights Lugar and his friend Hamilton analyzed and gave us
insights they gave to Presidents.
Pundits, fellow politicians and journalists have all said
Lugar would have been a great President, but was too bright to be a good candidate.
Presidents, current and past, admire and respect him. World leaders have sought his wisdom. Members of both parties acknowledge he is one of the smartest. But even that does not make one immune from the voice of the voter.
In this time when a tea party mind set exerts power, when reason gives way to anger, when invective and right wing money have sway, Lugar's time for departure came in a sad little primary vote. Eventually the clock would have run on his time of service, but when reason and skill are in such short supply, it is unfortunate his service is being checked now. America will be the poorer because of it.
DAY BOOK
SPRING SCENES
See you down the trail.
YEP! Sad day. The tea party-ers win on bogus sound bites and the voters have misplaced anger. As you probably saw, Marion County and one other were the only two counties that Lugar won in (out of 92)!. Like other democrats, I asked for the republican ballot (I've never done that before) so I could vote for Lugar. I thought it was that important.
ReplyDeleteGary-
DeleteThanks for the note. Good to hear from you. I suspect Hoosiers are in for a tough election season.
It is sad when Dick Lugar is replaced by a know nothing like Richard Mourdock. Mourdock said last night he is going to Washington to promote less partisanship. I think his defeat of Lugar will put the Indiana senate seat in play for the Dems.
ReplyDeleteThis could affect the balance in the Senate.
DeleteNice tribute to a man who will be remembered in history. I can remember covering him from '69 to '72 and the twinkle in his eye when I would ask him either a tough or a silly question. Last time I saw him was a couple of years later in Phoenix. I can't remember why he was there but he held a news conference. Afterward I walked up and he said "Bruce! What are you doing here!" A genuinely nice guy who will be missed in Washington.
ReplyDeleteI hope there is some way to leverage his remarkable skill. You are right, he is nice guy in a business where that is not the norm.
DeleteTom, a sad day, for sure. I sincerely hope his voice of reason can be used in our world in another capacity that won't have the voting piece attached to it.
ReplyDeleteMy brother in law, Jim Lusk, as a young man in his 20's was on Lugar's advance team. Shortly before the election, Jim suffered a serious accident which landed him in the hospital on election day. Richard Lugar excused himself from his many duties of that day and visited Jim in the hospital.
Quality human being...
Linda,
DeleteYour note makes the point superbly. He is a real "quality person," as others have noted as well.
I hope Jim is recovering well.
Lugar was something we have in short supply these days--a statesman. He was more interested in advancing the causes he supported than adhering to any single ideology. He will be missed.
ReplyDeleteIndeed he will be missed. Thanks for the response.
DeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteAn eloquent tribute as well as a trip down memory lane. He was Rhodes Scholar with a common touch who remembered all of us who covered him over the years. Sad day indeed for all and a shameful one for those revel in replacing him
--FBP
Frank-
DeleteI suspect he will find challenging work in your area after his term ends. There is a lot of intellectual power he can contribute.
I agree, the populace did an injustice not retaining "my good friend Mayor (cum Senator) Lugarrr, as President Nixon called him during a visit to Indianapolis in the late `60's. We all snickered. When such accumulated wisdom is ousted from the ranks we all lose. I was watching from the Indiana State House where worse political shenanigans were taking place about the same time.
ReplyDelete"Twas ever Thus." -w-
That brings a smile. I remember how Nixon pronounced his name.
DeleteTom: Richard Lugar is a very special person and a decent guy; but, the winds were changing politically in Indiana and certainly the economic situation did not help, he might have been able to leave the U.S. Senate on his terms. I was disappointed when he announced in November, 2010 that he was running for re-election, to his seventh six-year term, which would begin when he was 80-years-old. Perhaps I am out of touch, too, but we should not be electing 80-year-old men or women to four or six year terms of office. It is fine for them to finish their terms when they turn 80, but statistically, the average age of mortality is 77.4 years for men and 81.3 years for women. Richard Lugar could have gone to Mitch Daniels in 2010 and asked Mitch to continue his work in the U.S. Senate. Daniels would have won in a landslide, guaranteeing the Republicans that they would hold the Senate seat. It is up for grabs. Mourdock is not a strong candidate. He has been a so-so state treasurer. His only brave act was to act for Indiana taxpayers by opposing the conditions Steven Rattner set up for the Chrysler bankruptcy, which put Indiana taxpayers' investment in Chrysler's bonds (Kokomo transmission plant and the still-born (and empty) plant for the Chrysler-Getrag joint venture north and west of Tipton). Lugar (and Bayh) said not a word in protest. Indiana taxpayers lost what was a logical investment for the state government, which put the U.A.W. ahead of secured creditor for Chrysler's assets, breaking Indiana and federal bankruptcy laws. Despite Obama's statements to the contrary, somebody would have purchased Chrysler's assets and most of the U.A.W. employees of Chrysler would still be employed (likely all of them) if the U.S. government had let the bankruptcy process continue without intervention. I am not anti-union, as I have the greatest respect for them and fully appreciate the role they have. Lugar did hot help himself with his campaign, which seemed tired and listless when not going negative against Mourdock. Lugar looked even more out-of-touch when it was revealed that the address at which he has registered for office and to vote was his former address, at his residence he and Char Lugar sold in 1977 upon his election to the Senate. While it was technically legal under the U.S. Senate rules, he had to get an opinion from the Indiana attorney general to rubber-stamp that it was legal. All Richard Lugar had to do was register to vote and run for elections from the family farm homestead in Decatur Towhship in southwestern Marion County. Instead, it was also discovered that while he stayed at friends' homes or in hotel suites billed at taxpayer expense, that he overbilled his expense account, which then he had to publicly reimburse for years of hotel stays. All of this went to the aura of Lugar being out-of-touch. Many county and city Republicans were at odds with Lugar not helping out in local races across the state. I realize it is a symptom of the "What have you done for me lately ?" attitude that pervades all relationships in this transactional society. I worked for Dick Lugar when I was in high school as a member of the Teenage Republicans in 1967 when he first ran for mayor. I have voted for Dick Lugar every time he was on the ballot. But this year, it was there were signs that it was time for change. He reminded me of Bill Hudnut in the last couple of years of Hudnut's final term as mayor of Indianapolis. He did not look at you, only through you, as if he was just going through the motions. I voted for Mourdock, not because I liked him, but because it was time for a change. Joe Donnelly may well get my vote in November if he is the better candidate for changing the status quo in Washington. I shall miss Richard Lugar, but it was time. He should, if he wants, be an ambassador to an organization like the United Nations.
ReplyDeleteJed,
DeleteThanks for such an honest and once again historically rich post. As others have noted, I suspect he can still make significant contributions.
Tom : I've said before that Lugar/Nunn or Nunn/Lugar would not have been a bad way to go. Considering the actions of GOP state legislatures and the positions of the national party, it is difficult to discern where this party is going or what end it really wishes to achieve.
ReplyDeleteRay-
DeleteNow there is a real "dream team" idea. Think of the what if's of that potential.
Thanks, Tom, for the "e-town meeting" and for evoking the responses of a number of folks who both chronicled and participated in illuminating the rise of Indianapolis and who mentored so many along the way. If you think back just to the INTERN class in Lugar's office in 1970 (the year before his re-election as Mayor) alone, it included a governor of Indiana, a Speaker of the House, a Federal court judge, three Presidential advisers, a prominent primary care physician, a career diplomat as well as a handful of leading (and all honest!) attorneys. Over the years, his legacy of attracting people to public service, through his leadership programs and particularly encouragement of women to enter politics and government at a high level, begins to approach some of his more well-known initiatives.
ReplyDeleteLarry Landis
Larry-
DeleteA great point. He did attract and encourage many good people. I count you among those and especially as part of that contingent of the "best and brightest" young servants.
Tom: I hope people will remember Dick for the positive contributions he made to improve Hoosier lives thru the years and not his defeat. Like you, I have good memories of times spent with Mayor and then Senator Lugar. In all the times I introduced him at an event or he was a guest on the show he always spoke without notes...this is an art form few achieve.
ReplyDeleteGary Todd
Gary-
DeleteYou were there at the beginning when he and his team started the great revitalization of Indpls. People will remember him as a great senator, but before that he helped create a new mind set for how American cities could be better and more livable places.
Good of you to share your memories.
Tom: You remember your early days in Journalism, and connecting with my father Fred Moore Hinshaw, in Muncie, IN. I certainly am one in the Hinshaw family, who were of opposite political persuasion of the Republicans and the party of Richard Lugar. But I have been a supporter of Mr. Lugar over the years and and sad to see the results of the recent primary and his defeat to one in the party who certainly will not draw and consensus in the Senate. Richard Lugar was a champion of getting things done and reaching across the isle. He will be sadly missed. I fear that the current treat of partisanship will only lead to ineffective governing which will not benefit our nation.
ReplyDeleteDavid Hinshaw
David-
ReplyDeleteYour dad taught me a lot about political reporting. I was just a cub and of course he was a veteran by then. He was in the legislature and could share great insights. Since he could not do some of the interviews or stories, he pointed me in the right direction. An extraordinarily valuable learning opportunity. I've heard from several democrats who crossed over.
Thanks for the response.