Republicans in Indiana have spoken.  They have decided that Senator Richard Lugar does not deserve another term in Washington.  That’s too bad—not just for Senator Lugar, who after all has had a long and successful 36-year career in the Senate—but for the institution of the Senate and the country as a whole.  Let me explain why.

Senator Lugar’s voting record over six terms has been solidly conservative on all major issues.  He supported Ronald Reagan’s policies more than any other Republican Senator.  He has long supported a balanced budget amendment and has regularly opposed large spending increases whenever they have been proposed.  He is a friend of national defense, international engagement and free trade.   He opposed the 2009 stimulus bill; he opposed Obamacare (more than 20 times on the Senate floor); and he led the fight against President Obama’s transparently political decision to kill the Keystone Pipeline.

So where did he go wrong in the hearts and minds of Hoosier primary voters?   In three ways, each of which testifies to unsettling realities about the quality of our current political life.  First is his personal demeanor.  Though he votes consistently as a principled conservative, his personal style is open and collegial.  He patiently hears out Senators on the other side of the political aisle and looks for potential areas of agreement.  He is not a bomb thrower with hard edges, but an inclusive leader.   Never one time—and I served as his chief of staff and his staff director on the Foreign Relations Committee—did I ever see him alter a position of principle to accommodate the other side.  But I did see him invariably assume that his political opponents were individuals of integrity who, even if mistaken, had the best interests of the country at heart.  It is unfortunate that the willingness to think well of one’s opponents and the openness to reach across the aisle is seen today as a sign of political weakness.

Second, Senator Lugar always gives the benefit of the doubt to presidential nominees who come before the Senate for confirmation.   He has opposed nominees who are manifestly unqualified, but he has never thought that ideology alone is a sufficient ground to oppose a presidential nomination.  In this he is closer than his more ideological colleagues to the framers’ original intent, as Hamilton expresses it in Federalist #76.   There Hamilton says that the confirmation process will have a powerful, but generally silent effect in causing presidents not to nominate “unfit” characters, by which he means political cronies which come from the president’s own state, his family, his friends, or out of a general desire to secure popularity.  It may well be that Democrats originated ideological litmus tests for nominees some years back—but it is hard to see how their universal application to all nominees benefits the country.   Senator Lugar’s position is a perfectly reasonable one, as all Republicans know full well whenever a Republican president’s otherwise well-qualified nominee is sandbagged on policy grounds by Democratic partisans. 

But the worst message of all to come out of Senator Lugar’s primary defeat is different:  Senator Lugar was punished by the electorate for taking too great an interest in foreign affairs.  If his interest in foreign affairs had detracted from the pressing domestic issues of overspending, deficits, unfunded entitlements and excessive regulation that would be one thing.  But in Dick Lugar’s case they never did, and he proved over and over that he could walk and chew gum at the same time, that he could represent the immediate interests of his Hoosier constituents and also work to secure America’s long-term interests around the world.   It is fashionable to say that foreign policy has never been more important than it is today.  The fact is that foreign policy is always important.  And there is certainly no shortage of foreign policy challenges which confront us today.   I cannot improve on the words of my friend Stanley Weiss:  

China is a dictatorship without a dictator which owns an ever-increasing share of U. S. debt.  Russia is a democracy with a dictator undermining personal freedoms while threatening to destabilize Asia’s future.  India is a democracy without a real decision-maker.  Europe is a union without any real unity whose debt threatens a return to depression.  Iraq and Afghanistan are wars turning to conflicts, as clashes over succession begin.  Meanwhile, the Arab Spring has turned cold without any real stability in Egypt, Libya, or Yemen as Syria burns. Turning out the one Senator who more than any other has addressed these issues—as well as nuclear non-proliferation, energy policy and food security—is an action which is not just sad but altogether senseless.

With the departure of Senator Lugar, the Senate will lose a giant.   Friends of America’s interests can only hope that other members of Congress will not learn too well the political lessons of this election, and that there will remain in our polity a role for openness, inclusiveness, constitutional originalism, and an abiding care for America’s role in the world.