Robert Novak wipes the floor with Kerry's assertion that he is supported by Republican Senator Richard Lugar from Indiana.
Kerry's campaign attempts to avoid the liberal stigma and assume a bipartisan image. In doing so, he implies support from such Republicans as Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Chuck Hagel -- and Dick Lugar. That puts Lugar in an uncomfortable position of being used by the Democratic nominee for president.Lugar, age 72 and ending his 28th year in the Senate, is no Republican heretic. Congressional Quarterly rates him as Bush's most faithful Senate supporter at 99.2 percent (with 251 out of 253 votes). The National Journal rates him tied, along with 12 other senators, as the chamber's most conservative member. He is Indiana co-chairman of the Bush re-election campaign and supports the Iraq war.
Lugar is a workhorse and not a showhorse, to use the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn's distinction. [...follows discussion of Lugar's legislative activities...]
Lugar is a gentleman of the old school, not inclined to call up Kerry and tell him to knock it off. Speaking Oct. 15 in Carmel, Ind., Lugar said it is "very, very unfortunate" that Kerry is "trying to stir up waters when we, in a very bipartisan way, on the Foreign Relations Committee support our troops." In Culver, Ind., Oct. 17, he said: "It does infuriate all my friends, and they wish that somehow or other I could seize Sen. Kerry and tell him, 'Don't do it.'"
[...] Kerry stresses he is a colleague of Lugar on Foreign Relations, but the chairman [Lugar himself, FB] notes that the Democratic nominee missed 22 out of 23 committee sessions on Iraq. Even before the 2002 election kicked off presidential campaigning, Kerry was present for only 12 of 38 meetings. He co-sponsored none of the Nunn-Lugar legislation. As the classic Senate showhorse who was just waiting to run for president, perhaps he ought to give a workhorse a break and drop him from his speeches.
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