Photo: Tamara Keith /NPR
Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (right) speaks with potential voters on March 31 in Evansville, Ind.
In the wake of his primary victory over Richard Lugar, Senate candidate Richard Mourdock Wednesday sought to establish himself as a mainstream Republican rather than someone on the extreme edge of his party.
In a show of what he called party unity, Richard Mourdock gathered with Governor Mitch Daniels and other statewide elected officials Wednesday to look ahead to November’s general election.
Mourdock addressed criticism leveled at him by his defeated opponent, Senator Richard Lugar. Though Lugar expressed support for Mourdock in his concession speech Tuesday, in a statement released later that evening Lugar said Mourdock’s stated unwillingness to work in a bipartisan way would render him ineffective as a senator. But Mourdock says he’s not willing to compromise his principles.
“My idea of bipartisanship, frankly, going forward is to make sure we have such a Republican majority in the US House, in the US Senate and in the White House that, if there’s going to be bipartisanship, it’s going to be Democrats coming our way,” he says.
Governor Daniels says it was a tough evening for the long-time incumbent and that, in the long term, Lugar will revert to the position of his initial statement of support for Mourdock.
“I thought there were things there that I wouldn’t have said,” he says. “I thought the first statement was the better of the two.”
Mourdock says he feels badly for Lugar and understands his disappointment.
