In an exclusive interview with The Brody File, Sen. Richard Lugar says that the national Tea Party groups who are trying to oust him have some nerve to call themselves “political philosophers.” He goes on to say that he understands, “the Constitution I think as well as my opponent, maybe even more.”
Lugar is in big trouble in Indiana. His 36 year tenure as a United States senator may come to an end if he loses to his GOP primary opponent Richard Mourdock.
Mandatory Courtesy: CBN News/The Brody File
David Brody: What do you think is going on exactly? Because Club for Growth and all of these groups that you're mentioning, FreedomWorks, and there's a few others. They talk about wanting to have a constitutionally conservative Senate rather than just a Republican Senate. There seems to be a serious shift to ideological conservative brand of Republicanism, if you will. What is your sense as to what's going on in the Republican party right now? And do you feel like you're getting caught up in that a little bit?
Sen. Richard Lugar: Well some of those groups that you have mentioned have their own definition of conservative, their own definition of the Constitution. In other words, they take the position that they are the Constitution. They are conservatives.
Now, correspondingly, the National Chamber of Commerce, and the Indiana Chamber. Likewise, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Indiana Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Businesspeople, one group after another actually involved in business, creation of jobs, market economy, the supply and demand of our country, quite apart from the Farm Bureau, which I'm close to because I'm a farmer and I look at the corn and bean prices everyday.
I'm a conservative, because I have been a businessman. I've been involved in running a business and creating new jobs with my brother, manufacturing food machinery. I've managed a 604-acre farm successfully with a profit every year for over 50 years. I am market-oriented, I understand the Constitution I think as well as my opponent, maybe even more. Maybe we've studied it a little bit tighter. All I'm saying is essentially, groups come into Indiana saying 'We are the Constitution, we are the conservatives, but we have very specific things in mind as to what a conservative ought to be.'
And in some cases they say it's not like the Chamber of Commerce. They say, 'They're the establishment.' These are actually people who are in business, who are doing the job creation, who have to understand supply and demand, who have to live with the Constitution every day and course of law. But these people have the temerity to come in as political philosophers, or whatever they are, and say, 'We are the future.'