Richard Mourdock Quotes
If not for the Tea Party, the Republican Party would not be coming back to its roots.
Mourdock, Richard. Interview. The Washington Post, 9 May 2012.
In 2010 there was a very conservative populist movement that not only took a very right wing position for traditional Republicans, but attracted many of the racists, Nazis, and extreme fringe movements that embarrassed many of the Tea Party members who, because it was a movement and not a disciplined party hierarchy, claimed that they could not be responsible for the hateful signs and slogans of a minority of people who would show up at a Tea Party rally. At the same time, the Tea Party endorsed some candidates who were not very well vetted and were so extreme or quirky (one had been into witchcraft) that orthodox Republicans didn’t want to be associated with them. The moderate Republicans especially were placed in an awkward position as some of the Tea Party candidates unseated incumbent Republicans in primary elections and then some made very weak candidates in the general elections while others were more successful. Palin, already at the populist and quirky wing of the Republican Party warned and threatened the moderates.
The Republicans had lost the 1960 Presidential election narrowly with the moderate wing of the party in control. Goldwater argued that to win, the appeal must be much more conservative and that what characterized the campaign with the right wing of the party in control. This time, the Republicans were trounced by one of the largest margins in history.
Richard Earl Mourdock is an American politician who served as treasurer of the state of Indiana from 2007 to 2014. Running with the support of the Tea Party movement, he defeated six-term incumbent U.S. Senator Richard Lugar in the May 2012 Republican primary election. He lost the November 6, 2012 general election for Lugar's seat to Democratic congressman Joe Donnelly.
