Reason Writers Around Town: Matt Welch at CNN Opinion on Richard Lugar's Primary Defeat
Writing at CNN Opinion, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch makes the case that primarying a candidate who disagrees with you on matters of importance is a perfectly reasonable tactic, no more "ideological" than supporting "pragmatic" big-government solutions. Here's how the column starts:
Chances are that most of you reading this are opposed to at least some of the following federal laws and policies: the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the auto bailout, the serial raising of the debt ceiling, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, marijuana prohibition, systematic increases in the Department of Education budget, Medicare Part D, sugar subsidies, obstacles to gay marriage, the nationalization of the mortgage industry and the infuriating performance (or even existence) of the Transportation Security Administration.
Some of you may even consider one of these controversial policies your single most important political issue.
So here's a real question, in the wake of Sen. Richard Lugar's convincing Republican primary defeat Tuesday at the hands of tea party favorite Richard E. Mourdock, an event broadly panned in the media as a bellwether for ideological extremism: How, exactly, is a citizen motivated by strong opposition to one or more of the policies above supposed to influence politics?