UPDATE: Lugar cruises on way to winning 6th term

INDIANAPOLIS -- Voting sites had not even closed in parts of Indiana before U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar took the stage Tuesday evening at the state Republican headquarters to wrap up the easiest of his string of easy re-election campaigns.\nLugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cruised to victory for a sixth straight term without a Democratic foe.\nThe crowd at the GOP headquarters welcomed the senator with applause and held up Lugar 2006 signs. Gov. Mitch Daniels, a former Lugar aide and campaign manager, wore a Lugar campaign button from 1976, when he was first elected to the Senate after a 1974 loss to Democrat Birch Bayh.\nLugar thanked voters for the opportunity to represent them.\n"This is a celebration tonight for Indiana," Lugar said.\nDemocrats decided not to field a candidate against Lugar this year, saying it would be a waste of time and money to challenge the longest-serving U.S. senator in Indiana history. The Indiana Democratic Party instead focused on winning control of the Indiana House and hotly contested congressional seats.\nLugar, 74, faced Steve Osborn, a Libertarian from LaPorte, and two write-in candidates.\nThe race seemed lopsided heading into Election Day.\nOsborn said last month that he had raised less than the $5,000 benchmark for having to report contributions to the Federal Election Commission. Meanwhile, Lugar, who has won the previous three elections with more than two-thirds of the vote, had raised more than $4 million.\nLugar even paid for television commercials touting his efforts to promote alternative fuels and destroy abandoned nuclear weapons. Some political observers said the commercials helped voters learn more about Lugar. Others thought the ads were a breath of fresh air among the nasty commercials for candidates in races for U.S. House seats.\nEnergy independence and foreign policy have been the focus of the campaign for Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When Lugar filed to run for re-election earlier this year, he pledged to run a vigorous campaign even if he had no Democratic challenger.