About The Delaware Primary

From The American Spectator:

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Kids, Check Your Closet Tonight for Christine O’Donnell

By David N. Bass on 9.16.10 @ 12:12PM



At least, that’s the message the swiftly declining mainstream media would have us believe. O’Donnell is downright scary, they say. She doesn’t earn much and has defaulted on her mortgage. She thinks teenagers shouldn’t have sex before marriage. She’s probably a creationist. She’s pro-life. She’s a Catholic, maybe evangelical.



Quick, kiddies, run and hide.



One of the most egregious examples of the fear mongering is courtesy of CBS News. Like a dog responding to Pavlov’s bell, Dan Rather’s former hangout reacted to O’Donnell’s victory Tuesday night with this pathetic excuse for a news story. For “balance,” the reporter fled to Bill Clinton’s former surgeon general, Joyce Elders, to get a range of quotes on why O’Donnell is batty. One of the choicest gems:



CBSnews.com: O’Donnell feels that there should be an absolute ban on abortion.

Elders: Rape is a despicable crime. Just as despicable is the idea that women who get pregnant should not have absolute control over their own bodies.

Huh? So O’Donnell calling for an abortion ban is extreme, but Elders comparing pro-lifers with the "despicable crime" of rape isn't? The scary part is that reporters and editors at CBS News think so. No wonder they view O’Donnell as a puritanical psychopath. I mean, she thinks first graders shouldn’t get taxpayer-funded condoms? What’s up with that?



Part of the media’s O’Donnell heckling is due to the urban bubble journalists and broadcasters live in. They can’t fathom how an intelligent human being could take the conservative line on human life and sexuality — let alone the deficit — because none of their friends or colleagues do. Their mistake is presupposing that the New York City crowd is an authority on everything — or anything.



There’s also a tinge of frustration in the scorn. Two years after Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the Oval Office and the launch of a new generation of liberal policies, voters are turning on the “hope” agenda en masse. Inside-the-beltway forces can’t fathom it, so they deny it, excuse it, make fun of it — anything to avoid the truth.



Will O’Donnell win? Polling, at least so far, says no. But in a strongly anti-incumbent year, when voters hate just about anyone with a “D” beside their name, anything can happen. And O'Donnell is a prime conduit for anti-Washington sentiment in 2010.



Here's to O'Donnell for taking a strong stand on social and fiscal conservatism, and refusing to apologize.



Also from The American Spectator:

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Rasmussen: O'Donnell Trails By Double Digits

By Philip Klein on 9.16.10 @ 9:28AM



Democrat Chris Coons is leading Christine O'Donnell by a comfortable 53 percent to 42 percent margin in the Delaware Senate race, according to a new Rasmussen poll.



Rasmussen now considers the Senate seat to be "solid Democrat," which it notes "marks a remarkable turnaround in a race that at the beginning of the month was rated Solid Republican and was on track to be a GOP pickup."



The difference, of course, is that Mike Castle was a favorite to win, and O'Donnell is a longshot.



As I wrote yesterday, there are arguments that can be made for why it is important for conservatives to make an example of liberal Republicans -- and send a message that conservatives are willing to hand a Senate seat to Democrats to take a stand. But they shouldn't delude themselves into thinking that O'Donnell has a realistic chance of winning the race. Sure, anything is theoretically possible, but clearly Castle stood a much better chance.

 
Also, from The American Spectator:
 
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The Delaware Fury: Is This Really About 2012?

By Robert Stacy McCain on 9.16.10 @ 2:22AM



A few months ago, a friend suggested to me that Mitt Romney's supporters were involved in certain behind-the-scenes maneuvers as part of an effort to stack the deck in Romney's favor in advance of the 2012 presidential campaign. And these supporters, it was said, are especially concerned about thwarting any effort by Sarah Palin to get the 2012 GOP nomination.



That came to mind as I was reflecting on the stunning vehemence of some Republican attacks on Christine O'Donnell. Something else that came to mind: The 2012 primary calendar.



Sarah Palin endorsed Kelly Ayotte, who won a narrow victory in the New Hampshire GOP Senate primary. Palin's endorsement was also credited with securing Sharron Angle's win in Nevada (which holds Jan. 28 caucuses in 2012) and with lifting Nikki Haley to victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary in South Carolina (2012 primary, Jan. 28), which has been a make-or-break state for GOP presidential candidates since 1980.



Delaware -- where Palin's endorsement gave a decisive boost to O'Donnell -- is a Feb. 7 "Super Tuesday" state.



The ferocity of some attacks on O'Donnell may therefore reflect the resentment of Romney supporters toward the success of yet another Palin-endorsed candidate in an early 2012 primary state. And it may be that post-primary naysaying about O'Donnell's chances in the Delaware general election represents an effort of the Romneyites to prevent one of Mama Grizzly's candidates from getting a Nov. 2 victory.



Palin Derangement Syndrome has been known to make people . . . well, "nutty."

 
And, again from The American Spectator:
 
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On Mike Castle's Churlishness

By John Tabin on 9.15.10 @ 6:26PM



Castle's bitter refusal to endorse Christine O'Donnell suggests that Republicans have a problem. No, it's not a tea party problem, as liberal wishful-thinkers are maintaining. It's hardly debatable that the tea party groundswell has been an indicator primarily of political woes for Democrats. As Jonah Goldberg puts it, assuming O'Donnell can't win, "What it proves is that amidst a massive and massively successful grassroots uprising, the tea parties miscalculated in one race. Unfortunate, but hardly calamitous."



But Castle's "screw you guys, I'm going home" moment suggests that what the GOP has is a problem with its moderates. There is no reason that a Northeastern-style moderate Republican can't work with the tea party movement. Scott Brown is most assuredly a Massachusetts Republican, but his landmark upset would not have been possible without conservative enthusiasm. He generated that enthusiasm by working with the base on their number one issue, namely opposition to Obamacare. This isn't complicated. It's how coalitional politics works.



The tea party movement may be a little rough around the edges, and in some case inclined to support candidates who aren't always ideal. This isn't a surprise: One would hardly expect an organic grassroots movement to be a fully mature political machine. But one would expect experienced politicians to attempt to accommodate such a movement. Partisans interested primarily in winning as many GOP seats as possible -- the types whose heads Mike Murphy sees exploding -- may wish that the tea partiers would grow up and work with moderate Republicans. But it is clearly the case that, if they wish to remain competitive, a lot of moderate Republicans need to grow up and work with the tea partiers.

 And, more from The American Spectator:
 
Ignore that First Horseman


By Chris Horner on 9.9.10 @ 8:07AM



Yesterday's Wall Street Journal editorial joined what has become a chorus at National Review whose voices rise to the inescapable, effective endorsement for elevating longtime congressman (and before that, governor, lieutenant governor, etc.) Mike Castle as the Delaware Republican nominee for Senate. This was joined by Team Pawlenty over at Powerline blog. Pawlenty, so you aren't surprised when he sits in for John McCain in the 2012 primaries, has hired a political advisor to update and add nuance to -- not abandon and explain the mistake of -- his activism for Castle's beloved cap-n-trade.



I suppose that makes it about as "official" as things can get in the establishment center-right media: you are to actively support someone for higher office...someone who supports Obamacare, cap-n-trade, using the power of the federal government to dictate what sort of lightbulb you may use, bigger government, higher taxes, fewer freedoms (as Mark Levin has pointed out, one could go on and on with such a list -- see his -- because the guy's been a professional member of the political class since the '60s.)



That is, you are to actively support such a person so long as he is in your Club. Didn't you catch that handshake?



You are to actively support them. Meaning, in a primary contest. Over someone else who does not hold those positions. Over someone who holds positions which adhere far more closely to the principles that unite you, around which you have organized.



As such, positions (I won't wade so deep as to say "principles") are meaningless. All abandonment of them is to be rationalized away.



Just a note first. The abandonment of principle for expedience has a very unhappy history, politically and otherwise, and is uniformly looked back upon with regret, often in sorrow.



Let me write it here first: meet the media's new favorite Republican, Sen. Mike Castle. Keep that pancake makeup in your man-purse, Rep. Castle. Meet the Press et al. will fall all over themselves to book you regularly for your tales of just how wrong and heartless your colleagues are being. Thank goodness they will have you. That Lindsey Graham had worn so thin. You're so much less unpredictable, anyway.



It's no longer even worthwhile to ask is our Republicans learning? The question is can they?



Note: Yes, I've cleaned up some typos. Hurrying to get two little tornadoes to school can help lead to more of those than usual.

 
And, lastly from The American Spectator:
 
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Don't Tell Me She Can't Win, Sir

By Jeri Thompson on 9.15.10 @ 5:28PM



The response by the Republican political establishment to the Christine O'Donnell victory over liberal Republican Mike Castle in Delaware has been an embarrassment. A strong, vocal woman upturned the political tables in Delaware, a state where both political parties have been run like blue-blooded patriarchies for the better part of half a century, and all the boys that compose "the establishment" can muster is omniscient edicts about her absolute un-electability in a general election.



Funny, I don't recall hearing similar talk from the likes of Mssrs. Rove and Cornyn after Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, Joe Miller won in Alaska, or Rand Paul won in Kentucky. In fact, despite similar sliming by the state party apparatus before Paul's victory Rove was downright supportive of him, saying on Fox News that Rand Paul could win the general election, just as he could win the primary. And this was after the state party did its darnedest to tear Paul apart and to make him look like an incompetent kook, in many ways similar to what the Republican political class has been doing to O'Donnell.



The difference here is that once the primary was over, the political elites in Washington stood by their men. Why won't they do it for the woman?



It's ancient history by Washington standards, but when Sarah Palin ran against the political establishment in Alaska and did to that state what O'Donnell may be poised to do in Delaware, she faced similar political whining and whispers from the party elders, even after she won the governor's race and even after she was accepting the offer of Sen. John McCain to serve as his running mate on a national ticket.



While they may not be intending to be sexist, the message, the attitude and whining sure make many in the GOP look eerily like the elites we are trying so hard to usurp. The sexism issues aside, it's time for the Washington GOP establishment to man up and stop sulking over losing -- no, getting walloped -- by a woman they continue to insist is unqualified despite the fact that she has a pretty big win under her belt under pretty difficult circumstances.



I might point out that being trounced by an unqualified (they think) opponent is more a reason, not less, to humbly buck up, congratulate her and move forward. Frankly, it seems an emotional response. Strange, huh? This behavior does not play well with the very grassroots voters they are counting on to put them over the top in November. It's time they understood these are different grassroots from anything the D.C. crowd has dealt with before.



The fact is, despite all of the Beltway Boys' attempts to co-opt the Tea Party movement -- which to my way of thinking is really a revitalized conservative movement under a much bigger tent -- the movement has refused to play the Washington game.



When self-anointed "tea party leaders" have attempted to direct the movement, the citizens themselves have been savvy enough to sniff out many of the charlatans and keep their grassroots organizations focused on achieving their goals of throwing the bums out of office where necessary and appropriate.



Perhaps the reaction to O'Donnell is the result of the Beltway Boys' understanding that the movement that has been taking hold across the country really is out of their control. Or perhaps they really are intimidated by a woman who has already proven that she can do it without them.



Regardless, Christine O'Donnell is our party's nominee for a STILL highly winnable seat in Delaware. Lest we forget, this was the seat held by a plagiarizing career politician incapable of keeping his foot out of his mouth, Joe Biden. The people in Delaware believed they could do better. They voted for the conservative in the race. Now we need to support her and help get her over the finish line.