Mourdock turns to Washington for help

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WISH) - Washington Republicans stepped up the efforts to help Richard Mourdock win the Indiana Senate race Wednesday. No fewer than four Republican Senators are in Fort Wayne campaigning for Richard Mourdock. They include John Cornyn of Texas, the man in charge of GOP Senate races.

Mourdock was at the Statehouse earlier to accept an award from 60 Plus, a national group that calls itself a conservative alternative to AARP. He told the small crowd that changes are coming to government entitlements.

"Whenever they come, for those people who on that day are over the age of 55," said Mourdock, "every promise that has ever been made in Social Security and Medicare must be kept to the penny."

In the meantime, new ads from the Karl Rove-led PAC, Crossroads GPS, try to tie Democrat Joe Donnelly to the president.

"But when President Obama needed Donnelly's vote to pass his trillion dollar health care bill," the ad says, "Donnelly said yes." While Mourdock tells voters to consider which party will the control the Senate. "You know this race is about whether or not Harry Reid's going to be the majority leader," said Mourdock. "That's why I've got friends coming to town."

"All he cares about is Washington," says Donnelly of Mourdock, "and he is an exact epitome of why Washington is broken, ‘cause all he focuses on is Washington.”

Donnelly wants to focus on statewide issues and in his newest ad he literally stands in the middle of the road as a now familiar passing driver yells, "Hey, Donnelly, it's my way or the highway." Donnelly reacts by saying, "We need less reckless partisanship and more Hoosier common sense."

He has tried to distance himself from some of the president's issues but says he'll vote for him.

"President Obama at crunch time stood up for the workers of Indiana," said Donnelly. "He's not perfect, none of us are."

Both the Mourdock campaign and the Indiana Republican Party thought that Donnelly's plan to vote for Obama was big news. They both put it in news releases. Polls show that in Indiana, it's easier to find opponents to the president than it is to find supporters for Mourdock.