Knucklehead Award Friday Part Seventeen

Our seventeenth winner is Steve Osborn. He gets the award for the following.

LaPORTE, Ind. - A Libertarian candidate who lost to U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar by more than 1 million votes in the Nov. 7 election has asked for a recount in 10 precincts.

Steve Osborn, who lives in LaPorte County's Scipio Township, filed a petition Tuesday with the Indiana Recount Commission seeking the recounts in precincts in Howard, LaPorte, Porter and St. Joseph counties.

Osborn, who ran for Congress twice before, received 168,773 votes — about 13 percent of the vote — compared with 1,171,256 for Lugar, who won his sixth term in the Senate. Lugar is so popular that Indiana Democrats did not field a candidate this year to challenge him.

Osborn had little to say Tuesday about why he's seeking the recount in the 10 precincts.

"I'll have more comments after the counts are done," he told The Times of Munster.

In his petition, Osborn included the $100 bond the state requires to recount 10 precincts, along with an extra $30 for postage costs. Additional recount costs would fall to taxpayers, and the state spent roughly $100,000 to retally a congressional race two years ago.

The Indiana Recount Commission must agree to certify Osborn's petition.

Kristi Robertson, the Democratic co-director of the Indiana Election Commission, said the recount commission will proceed with Osborn's request unless an attorney for Lugar's office files a counterpetition seeking to block it.

Lugar's campaign office had no comment on the recount.

In filing his petition, Osborn made no mention of why he is seeking it, she said.

I'll give a reason for Osborn's petition- He's nuts. Fortunately the State of Indiana will be saved from having this embarrassment for US Senator, but Steve Osborn won't go away empty handed. He is our seventeenth Knucklehead of the day.