I can see the political ad now. 

It starts out with our gray-haired senior senator, Richard Lugar, his mouth wide open, tongue out, eyes looking inebriated or fatigued.  (You know, one of the images media consultants always find by advancing film frame-by-frame until they capture the most menacing visual of an opponent).

Lugar’s gray diminishes somewhat, and his boyish haircut slowly turns a bit darker and shorter.  Suddenly, Lugar’s skin starts to tan at a noticeable rate, and his lips start turning purple until – voila – it’s no longer Lugar, but rather, President Barack Obama – the man who many in the GOP and/or Tea Party consider the single greatest threat to America’s principles since Elvis Presley shook his hips on national TV. 

Guilt by association is commonplace, so I am not surprised by the press release Indiana State Treasurer and soon-to-be GOP senate candidate,  Richard Mourdock, sent out today, in which he states that Richard Lugar used to be OUR senator but now he’s  “Barack Obama’s favorite Republican.”

The release attacks Lugar for votes that are anathema for the philosophical extremists in the GOP/Tea Party while including as many connecting points to President Obama as possible:

- Lugar voted for Obama’s liberal supreme court nominees;

- Lugar co-sponsored Obama’s DREAM Act;

- Lugar voted against earmark reform;

- Lugar helped get the Start Treaty passed; and perhaps most damning. . .

- Lugar appeared in a TV commercial for Obama.

The release states boldly, “Simply put,  Obama loves having Republican Senator Dick Lugar on his side.”  (Apparently, voting against the opposing party 84%, as Lugar did in 2010, is now being on “their” side). 

Mourdock’s website fronts a slam video connecting Senator Lugar to President Obama, and the website goes so far as to equate Lugar to a fourteen-year-old girl near Justin Bieber by accusing Lugar of “being starstruck.”

As an intial matter, I wish more people would respect the office of the presidency.  I disagreed with George W. Bush vehemently, but I always called him President Bush.  Mourdock’s release seems to drip with contempt toward our president. 

But more importantly, Mourdock’s release tells you what you need to know about the current state of politics on the Republican end of the spectrum.  Notwithstanding Governor Mitch Daniels’ remarks at CPAC that only suicide bombers demand ideological purity, a segment of the GOP constituency demands fealty to its checklist, regardless of the rationale one might offer for deviating.  In short, Treasurer Mourdock’s release embodies why America is seeing the implosion of centrist politics. 

I’m a stalwart Democrat, but even I voted for Lugar back in the 1990s when he bucked President Ronald Reagan and pressed for sanctions in South Africa.  I also respect Lugar for taking a measured approach to his constitutional role.  When Lugar votes for particular Supreme Court nominees, he isn’t endorsing their worldview.  He is acknowledging that they they are qualified.  This approach is a commendable rarity.  Justice Scalia and I almost never agree, but had I sat in Lugar’s seat when Scalia was nominated, there is no doubt I would have concluded the man was qualified to serve.  Would I have had Lugar’s courage to vote “yes,” or would I have subjugated myself to my party’s ideologues?

Lugar has done more than anyone in America to make the world safe against nuclear weapons, and for that he is vilified?  It is noteworthy that what Mourdock focuses on in his release isn’t the merits of the Start Treaty, but the fact “Lugar helped ram the treat through during a lame duck session so that newly-elected Republican Senators couldn’t even consider it.”  The stronger critique appears to be that Lugar wouldn’t put aside a chance to make the world safer for an opportunity to give his new GOP friends a platform to short-sightedly demonize Democrats (and Lugar) on the issue.

But the fact any Democrat can offer praises to Lugar is  precisely why he’s in deep, deep trouble if Mourdock is the only opponent Lugar has in the GOP field.  Lugar  is eighty (a point Mourdock surprisingly makes explicitly on his website), and Lugar has sat in a senate chair for thirty-six years.  This makes it eay to argue that he is “out of touch,” and his critics are right.  Lugar’s thoughtfulness and civility – where you actually tell someone across the aisle when they have a good idea and help them promote it - are the products of a bygone era, pushed aside by our current brand of slash-and-burn, never collaborate, never praise the “enemy,” gotcha politics.

In that environment, any praise made by a Democrat truly buries Lugar, even though we disagree with him constantly.   After all, in politics, you can’t make public friendships with those who don’t live by your party’s checklists.  If you do, you can’t be surprised when the morphing begins.