Mourdock's Comments Costing Republicans Senate Seat

For those of you who read my column in The American Complaint Department, this week's was about the ridiculous comment made by Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (read the article here).  In his final debate with Joe Donnelly and Andrew Horning, Mourdock was asked about his position on abortion in the case of rape.  If you haven't heard, Mourdock said that, if a woman got pregnant from rape, it was "something God intended to happen."  

Of course I think his statement is ridiculous, but great news has come out about Mourdock's Senate campaign.  The results of the first independent poll that has been released since his statement came out today.  The poll shows that Mourdock is now trailing Joe Donnelly by an 11 point margin.  If this poll is even close to accurate, Mourdock has likely ruined his chances of winning this race with his extremist comments.  He would have to pull off a miracle come back in the final four days of the election.  I doubt that is likely because Indiana television stations are being flooded with commercials condemning Mourdock's tea party extremism.  In the short time it took me to write this blog, I have seen about 6 or 7 commercials using Mourdock's comments against him. 

Most importantly is what this means for the election in general.  Republicans have been working very hard to gain a majority in the Senate.  This was going to be an uphill battle, but Indiana Republicans made it even harder when they replaced 35 year incumbent Richard Lugar with a tea party extremist candidate.  Lugar was a well-known moderate Republican that has worked well with Democrats for decades.  The desire to rid themselves of anyone who has worked across the aisle has now likely lost Republicans a seat that has been a mainstay for over three decades.  I hope Republicans take this into consideration as proof that the majority will reject the tea party extremist element that has been infecting their ranks.  It lost them an ally in the Senate, and will continue to destroy the Republican party from within.  Of course, that's not an entirely bad notion.