Trump leads GOP tripe talk in their fight against Donnelly for Senate

Let’s be honest – it’s likely the only reason that Joe Donnelly, the Democrat who has been a U.S. senator from Indiana the past six years won that post because his Republican opponent was (in the words of '70's TV ideologue Archie Bunker) a “meathead.”

DONNELLY: Can he win in '18?

I don’t doubt that GOP partisans are resentful of the fact Donnelly beat Richard Mourdock back in 2012 – even though one could say it was their own fault for beating up on the long-time, and legendary, Sen. Richard Lugar in their primary that year.

WHICH IS WHY Donnelly is going to get dumped all over for the next few months, particularly since Republicans decided this week in the Indiana primaries just who would be their nominee would be to challenge Donnelly in the Nov. 6 general elections.

One can say that Republicans didn’t make the mistake of picking the most outspoken ideologue of the three, which means they may have learned from their mistake of ’12 when Mourdock (a former state treasurer) wound up bringing national shame on himself and the political party with his rancid rhetoric about rape and abortion.

Remember he was that guy who said women who became pregnant as a result of rape should just accept that it was God’s will, of a sort, that they have the baby?

But it’s not like nominee Mike Braun needs to say crazy and inane things for this campaign cycle to get stupid. If anything, Braun has the head GOP nincompoop in his corner to spout out nonsense-talk.

BRAUN: Can he take back Lugar's seat?

I’M TALKING ABOUT President Donald J. Trump, who Thursday night ventured to Elkhart, Ind., for a campaign rally meant to appeal to the kind of people who will forevermore think The Donald is their kind of guy – no matter what he says or does.

Which meant Donnelly was his target of choice – even though I know of many Democrats who are distrustful of the senator from South Bend, Ind., because they think he’s handling his voting record on issues to avoid taking opposition to Trump.

Donnelly doesn’t want to give Trump types political ammunition in the form of votes against the ideas they hold most dearly.

TRUMP: Getting involved in Hoosier politics

Not that it matter much what Donnelly has actually done. For Trump (and GOP partisans) are determined to demonize him no matter what is really said or done.

FOR TRUMP ON Thursday pointed out that Donnelly didn’t support all of the president’s trash talk of the Affordable Care Act and opposed that measure of last year that Trump bills as significant tax cuts for the American people.

Even though Donnelly isn’t a reliable vote for Democratic partisan issues and proposals, Trump says that the first-term senator “will do whatever Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tell him to do.

Trump claims Donnelly supports, “the radical, liberal agenda. It never, ever fails.”

Which is political trash talk of the most absurd. Donnelly’s voting record has been so unpredictable from the so-called progressive stance. The true hard-core liberals view someone like Donnelly as unreliable.

A QUICK REVIEW of his record includes only 60 percent support for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 58 percent support for the League of Conservation Voters, 35 percent backing for the American Civil Liberties Union, a grade of “D” for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and an “F” for the NIAC that lobbies on behalf of Iranian-Americans.

EMANUEL: Will he help prop up Donnelly again?

If anything, it might be said that Donnelly is a person who tries thinking for himself – rather than following a knee-jerk party line of any type. But that’s exactly what the Hoosier GOP wants for themselves and for all of us – thinking they can bad-mouth Illinois because we’re the exact opposite of their partisan leanings (and possible to reinforce that following our own election for governor).

It may be that Indiana winds up balancing out Illinois on the national scene, although my own thoughts about the Hoosier senator is that I still remember the first time I ever met him – at a fundraiser put together for him by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago.

It was Chicago campaign cash that helped him run for office in 2012. It may well be people determined to undermine Chicago’s political influence (and suck up to Trump) who will be the most outspoken critics of Donnelly come November.

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