Obama’s favorite Republican — Dick Lugar — is history, and the Tea Party lives.

Mourdock gives victory speech in Indianapolis ~ Video http://barracudabrigade.blogspot.com/2012/05/mourdock-gives-victory-speech-in.html

(Indy Star) — Sen. Richard Lugar’s 36-year Senate career is now history.The Associated Press called the race for Mourdock about 7:45 p.m. Lugar was defeated in today’s Republican primary election by Treasurer Richard Mourdock, ending his bid for a seventh term in the U.S. Senate.Mourdock will face Democrat U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly and Libertarian Andy Horning in the November election.Lugar is an Indiana icon who has influenced everything from the political makeup of Indianapolis to global nuclear proliferation. As mayor of Indianapolis, he led the effort to create Unigov, combining city and county government. And as the GOP leader in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he’s played a lead role in combatting the spread of nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union.But while voters may have appreciated those things, in the end he was seen as a figure from the past who didn’t have a place in the Republican Party’s future.Voters cited his age, 80; his Virginia address where he’d lived since 1977; his votes for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees and his support for keeping earmarks in the hands of the legislative branch rather than surrender that power to the White House. And party insiders noted that Lugar had been a distant figure, not bothering to come to party events in Indiana until this year, when it was too late to kindle the relationships that could help him win.Mourdock, over and over, pounded home the message that it was time for a change. And a drive through Indiana’s countryside would find st many, if not more, “Retire Lugar” yard signs than signs calling for him to be re-elected.(NBC News) — NBC News has declared Richard Mourdock as the projected winner in the Indiana Senate primary. Mourdock defeated six-term Republican foreign policy elder statesman Sen. Richard Lugar. http://weaselzippers.us/2012/05/08/knocked-out-nbc-calls-it-for-richard-mou rdock/