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May 2, 2012

EDITORIAL: The politics of Primary 2012

More at stake than just a few contested races

TERRE HAUTE — In less than a week, voting Hoosiers get a chance to make a statement about the future of politics in their state and beyond. But whatever that statement turns out to be, the final punctuation marks won’t be added until November. It’s possible that nothing will be settled by the end of the night May 8.

That’s because results of the primary, in which political parties choose their candidates for the fall general election, may have a direct bearing on balloting results in November.

For lack of a better term, call it the Tea Party Effect. One need only look at what happened on the national level in 2010 to see the potential for what could happen in Indiana in 2012. With the backing of the tea-party movement — an element of the Republican Party that is militantly conservative on fiscal and budgetary issues — several GOP challengers defeated mainstream Republicans in bitter 2010 primary fights.

The most notable instances came in Delaware and Nevada, where Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle won Republican Senate nominations over GOP establishment opponents. While both were tea-party darlings, neither were acceptable enough to independents or moderates, who then sided with the Democrats. Most political observers believe the Democrats who ultimately won those races — Chris Coons in Delaware and Harry Reid in Nevada — could not have done so if the Republicans had elected a more mainstream candidate in the primary. It was, after all, a big Republican year.

A similar dynamic exists this year in the Indiana Republican primaries for U.S. Senate and 8th District U.S. House. Six-term Republican Sen. Richard Lugar is challenged by tea-party backed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in a race expected to be close. In the 8th District, first-term Rep. Larry Bucshon is challenged by tea-party favorite Kristi Risk, who narrowly lost to Bucshon in the 2010 GOP primary.

If either GOP challenger wins, the Democrats’ chances of winning in the general election will increase — by a lot. Indiana leans to the right. But it’s far from certain how far to the right its voters are willing to go.

Because of that, it would appear more is at stake in the GOP primary than just a couple of races. There is a battle raging for the heart and soul of Indiana’s Republican Party. And the winners in the spring are hardly guaranteed the same results in the fall.

Stay tuned. The primary may almost be over. But this political year is just beginning.

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