Super PACs To Play A Major Role In Lugar-Mourdock Race

A former aide to Sen. Richard Lugar is heading up a newly-created Super PAC, Indiana Values SuperPAC, to assist his well-funded campaign in defeating his Republican primary opponent, Richard Mourdock. FreedomWorks for America, will aide Mourdock in dislodging Lugar, who has already served six consecutive terms in the Senate. The Journal-Gazette has a story today that begins:

Super PACs, the boon and bane of Republican presidential candidates, will try to sway GOP voters in Indiana when they choose a nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Supporters of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., have formed a super political action committee named Indiana Values SuperPAC. Lugar’s challenger in the May 8 primary election, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, is getting a boost from a super PAC called FreedomWorks for America.

Super PACs “are just part of the lay of the land these days,” said Andy Klingenstein, a legislative aide to Lugar in the early 1980s and the treasurer of Indiana Values SuperPAC.

Federal court rulings in the past two years have allowed for the creation of the groups, which operate independently of candidate campaigns and can raise and spend unlimited sums of money to try to elect or defeat candidates.

For all the criticism laid at SuperPACs, the reality is that the only reason the candidacies of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have an opportunity to compete in this year's Repubican presidential nomination battle is because of all the money SuperPACs have dumped into the race on their behalf to offset the money advantage of Romney's campaign, and to a lesser extent, Ron Paul's campaign, have over their poorly-financed campaigns.