"Outside Agitators"

Slate.com explains how outsiders began conspiring a year ago to defeat Sen. Richard G. Lugar in today's Republican primary.

Snippets:

"[If Lugar loses], we’ll know that purification of the GOP is coming right along."

"[Jim] Bopp, like the other Mourdockians, hopes that a Lugar loss will put the fear of Tea back into Republicans."

This Indianapolis Observer remains appalled at the current state of political discourse in the United States.

UPDATE
Re the Indiana showdown between Lugar and Mourdock: "A multitude of super PACs and social-welfare nonprofits inundated the state, spending $3.6 million on television advertising, direct mail, phone calls and even a Tea Party Express bus stop. Most of that money came from groups opposed to Lugar. They outlaid $2.3 million compared with the $1.2 million spent by pro-Lugar groups."

There's more here.