For 36 years, Jim Rice was a loyal supporter of Richard Lugar, the six-term Republican senator from Indiana with a reputation for compromise and stature in Washington. Now, Rice says he will vote for a Democrat.
A 60-year-old civil engineer, Rice is put off by the campaign of Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party favorite who defeated Lugar in a Republican primary with an anti-tax, anti-Washington message.
The race for the open seat between Mourdock, the state treasurer, and Democratic Representative Joe Donnelly will probably pivot on which candidate can win over the kind of voters who cast ballots for Lugar regardless of party affiliation, with control of the U.S. Senate at stake.
“Politics have taken a nasty turn,” said Rice, who lives in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel in vote-rich Hamilton County, which ranks among the three-dozen wealthiest counties in the U.S. “I will vote for Donnelly just in terms of what Mourdock did.”
Continue reading Fate of Indiana Senate Seat Resides With Lugar Loyalists
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