Running for Mayor

In 1967, Richard Lugar ran for President of the Indianapolis School Board, but he was defeated by a vote of 4–3. So instead, he decided to run for Mayor of Indianapolis. He credits the three years he spent on the School Board as having prepared him to run for mayor, since it introduced him to the city’s issues and acquainted him with its neighborhoods and citizens. In particular, his work on desegregation helped him understand the complex racial issues the city was facing.

Lugar has commented that “I’d created so much of a stir in the three years that I was on the School Board”; it was that “stir” that brought him to the attention of L. Keith Bulen, the chair of the Marion County Republican Committee. Bulen was looking for fresh faces within the Republican party, and he tapped Lugar for the mayoral race.

Lugar has said about the election, “It was hardly a certain path.” Indianapolis had a long-standing history of electing Democratic mayors; from 1930 to 1968, the city had elected ten Democrats and only three Republicans. By 1967, there had not been a Republican mayor for twenty years. Lugar had to defeat several other candidates to win the primary election, including a former Indianapolis mayor and a judge. He then had to defeat a sitting, and fairly popular, Democratic incumbent. He did all these things and won the election, eventually serving a second term as well.

In the "Go Lugar" campaign postcards, the back of one of postcard is addressed to Richard and Charlene Lugar and reminds them of the location of their polling station. The back of the other postcard outlines Lugar’s platform.

John T. Shaw has written that, for the photo used in Lugar's original mayoral campaign, Lugar walked back and forth through this  Indianapolis intersection more than 70 times before the perfect “walking man shot” was found.