Richard Mourdock in Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg

On Budget & Economy: OpEd: 2009 auto bailout not worthwhile despite saving jobs

Mourdock simply could not accept that government getting involved could be a good thing, even if it prevented the destruction of thousands of lives. But I wonder, sometimes, whether he talked to any of the families whose livelihoods could have been wrecked by his legal adventure. Did he think about the stakes for them?

To Mourdock, it seems, the most important issue at stake in the auto rescue was that investors on the bond market would have to take a haircut. To the rest of us, the most important issue was that families lives could be ruined by the same kind of economic disaster that had nearly killed my hometown half a century earlier.

On Corporations: 2009: Challenged Chrysler auto bailout, and lost

Cleverly, Mourdock realized that Indiana's pension funds owned some Chrysler bonds, and reasoned that this might give him standing in court to challenge the deal. When else would an obscure state treasurer get a chance to not only assert free-market principles but also provoke a showdown with the Obama administration? The temptation was irresistible, and so Mourdock went to court.

The stakes were enormous: If he succeeded, the entire rescue might have been prevented, pushing the company into liquidation. The company, its assets, the jobs--would be gone forever.

On May 29 2009, New York's federal bankruptcy court rejected the motion. Mourdock appealed. In June, the Supreme Court also affirmed the sale.

On Families & Children: Pregnancies resulting from rape express the will of God

Helped by his far-right credentials and loyal Tea Party base, Mourdock won the primary, ending Lugar's thirty-six years of Senate service.

In the general election Mourdock faced Donnelly, who had entered the Senate race after his House district got redrawn unfavorably by the now very Republican state legislature. During the final debate in the last days of the election, Mourdock made another national splash--this time by saying that he believed pregnancies resulting from rape were an expression of the will of God. An outcry followed and national Republicans distanced themselves from him, allowing Donnelly to beat the odds and win the seat.