RINO Watch: Richard Lugar, Carpetbagger

This article first appeared at American Thinker on 02/20/2011
Following in the hallowed tradition of Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel, http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/politics&id=7915809 it appears that Hoosier native Senator Richard Lugar's long tenure in Washington D.C. has helped him morph into a bit of a carpetbagger. Although pettifogger Lugar retains an ownership interest in a 604 acre corn, soybean and tree farm in Marion county Indiana along with his siblings, it appears that Beltway Dick doesn't really live there.
Lugar senior spokesman Mark Helmke acknowledged http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/18/questions_raised_about_lugars_residency_108946.html that the Senator stays at a hotel on his occasional return visits to Indiana. Helmke claimed that Lugar works the farm with his son once a month, “even though he doesn't live there.”
This wouldn't be the first time Lugar used the farm to further his conflicting political interests. Although elected by the people to serve as a Republican in a state with significant dependence on coal for energy, Lugar became the first farmer in Indiana to sign up with the Chicago Climate Exchange http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/06/chicago-climate-exchange-important-partner-sen-richard-lugar/ back in 2006. The establishment of the Exchange was planned to play a central role in Obama's $650 billion cap-and trade scam. Fortunately, the implosion of the global warming canard torpedoed that nonsensical initiative.
As a member of the CCE:
Lugar became what the exchange called an offset producer, entitling him to a financial reward in return for keeping his part of the property untouched. Lugar who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, not only participated in the Climate Exchange program. He also endorsed it in promotional advertising.
Although Lugar never cashed in the stack of off-set certificates he received,
The Climate Exchange ...profited from its association with Lugar, one of the Senate's most influential voices on foreign policy and a highly respected elder statesman...the exchange (used) Lugar's participation to promote itself to farmers and the public, in the form of a ringing endorsement from the Senator that the exchange displays in its marketing tools.
Of course the other featured endorsement in the exchange's promotional materials is from Lugar acolyte, Barack Obama. Senator Lugar also shares our wobbly President's views on strategic arms limitations and who knows what else and has served as a bit of a mentor for our very liberal POTUS.
Like many another bad liberal idea, the Chicago Climate Exchange collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity and closed in November of 2010. Unlike macrame plant hangers, earth shoes and Al Gore, however, Richard Lugar's tenure in the United States Senate continues to defy common sense and just keeps chugging along.
For now.