Sep 21 2010
O’Donnell In Real Trouble This Time, Does Not Deserve Tea Party Support
Look, we all make mistakes. It is really important that people admit when they are fooled into believing something or in someone based on desire instead of facts. Those who opposed Obama expect this from independents and others who mistakenly put their faith in Obama’s words during the campaign. We railed about the lack of vetting when the media promoted his flawed and inexperienced candidacy. We should expect the same honest assessment from those – including Governor Palin and Senator DeMint – who put their reputations on the line with Christine O”Donnell.
O’Donnell spouts a lot of words and phrases that echo the Tea Party and GOP priorities this year. But she also has been skirting the laws and filing misleading paperwork and financial statements. Instead of representing the best of America, she at times reflects the worst of DC. Just watch this fair and damning CNN piece:
The flap now coming into the public about her campaign finance shenanigans is devastating to the broader Tea Party, GOP and conservative cause. There is no getting around it any more. Christine O’Donnell does not deserve the backing of these organizations and supporters. In fact, she may not deserve to be claim any association with the good, hard working people trying to take back their country from people who flaunt the laws and misuse the public trust.
We cannot allow candidates to shrug off the rules. This is how you get decorated war veterans like Randy “Duke” Cunningham find themselves in jail for abusing his congressional seat. We let bad behavior get a pass, until it grows into corruption.
This kind of false reporting is a special affront to us small business owners and federal contractors who follow the financial reporting rules to the ‘T’. While I disagree with much of my corporate reporting requirements, I know some level of honest reporting is required to avoid charlatans and crooks from ripping people or the tax payers off. If O’Donnell cannot face this, admit she screwed up and promise to make reparations, then she is just another slick-dodging pol – and does not deserve the support of the Tea Party movement.
Is the price of DC power really worth this?
AJ,
You are watching the MSM.
I’m watching O’Donnell.
Her campaign style, particularly with laughing at the witchcraft stuff, was pure Reagan/Palin “Happy Warrior.”
Even, Charles Krauthammer noticed that, as lurker9876 pointed out in another thread.
In the current environment, that means a great deal.
It doesn’t mean she will win, by any means.
However, with $2 million in the bank and lots more coming from Tea Party small contributors, the Democrats are going to have to spend real money they need in places like CA, Wash, WVA to make sure they don’t get “Castled” in DE.
Sounds like the argument now is, Better to let the Democrat win than to support a candidate this badly flawed.
And I’m okay with that, since that’s exactly what I thought about Castle. As you said when you asked “Is the price of power really worth this???” – Some elections aren’t worth the price that has to be paid for victory.
of course all the arguments about how any republican, no matter how badly flawed, is better than a dem in the seat ring kind of hollow now. But that was never an argument I bought into.
It isn’t going to matter. Latest polling has Coons at 54% and O’Donnell at 39%. That is a Fox poll that has her down by 15 points. Considering that Democrats outnumber Republicans in DE by 22 points, she isn’t doing to bad for a “tea party” candidate but it looks like she stands to lose by a considerable margin UNLESS Democrats just stay home in droves.
and I wanted to add: Ed Morrissey just wrote a comment that mirrors my own thinking completely.
“One last note: Plenty of people say that this proves that Delaware Republicans should have nominated Castle over O’Donnell. That’s certainly a reasonable analysis, but consider how that would have played out. If Castle continued his support for cap-and-trade, the DISCLOSE Act, and other big-government policies for the next four years, would the GOP establishment worked to kick him out of that seat — or doubled down on supporting him? In the long run, it might be easier to run against Coons in 2014 (when the seat comes up for normal election) with a better-prepared Republican challenger than to dislodge Castle in another primary fight.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/21/fox-poll-shows-odonnell-down-15-points/
(end quote)
“Better to let the Democrat win than to support a candidate this badly flawed.”
No, it would have been better to nominate the candidate that had a chance of winning and was actually ahead of Coons in the polls.
Nominating O’Donnell has handed the election to the Democrats just as happened in New York 23 with Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava.
In Delaware, the “purer” the conservative, the more likely they are to lose. There just aren’t that many Republicans and even fewer conservatives in Delaware but “staunch conservatives”, like “staunch liberals” just can’t understand that.
So the Republicans are going to end up with 100% of nothing instead of a candidate who votes with them 50% of the time.
Castle would ONLY support Cap and Trade when he is in a Democrat dominated Congress. He is a political chameleon. If the Congress turns redder, so does he.
This wasn’t a year when “Hey, I go with the flow, whatever” was going to work as a campaign slogan.
In a state where most of the people are liberal, you are not going to elect a “staunch conservative”. In a state where most of the people are conservative, you aren’t going to elect a “staunch liberal”.
But some people of various political persuasions just don’t get that everyone else doesn’t think like they do.
I guess I am just upset here because it looks to me like the “tea party” is the Democrats’ best friend in Delaware, they just got a Democrat elected that WAS behind in the polls.
And that would be two Democrats in the past couple of years that Republican “activists” have got elected. One in NY and now one in DE, when in both cases, the establishment Republican candidate was ahead.
Look at the last line of your last post to see the crucial point that you’re missing: This isn’t about winning for “republicans”. This isn’t about keeping the same circus going with just an updated label on the door. Now for professional consultants and party apparatchiks, of course that’s all that counts – but that’s not what’s animating the voters this year, not anymore.
“Establishment Republicans” are just as big a part of the problem as the democrats are. If we can’t vote in people dedicated to taking a sledgehammer to the Establishment, then all of this is for nothing.
The Establishment must fall.
Trent:
Oh please, it is not just the MSM. The idea that this lady can not be questioned because the MSM can not be trusted and hence anything they say about her is rubbish is ridiculous.
Christine O’Donnell was in trouble with people in Delaware long before the Tea Party movement came along. She was not complying with the rules years ago.
Charlie Rangel is a crook, and yet his people went ahead and supported him for another term. It seems that a lot of O’Donnell’s people are doing the same thing.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Truth is new polls came out today and she is 15 down. It is not impossible that the red wave of Republicans running ahead this fall will sweep her into office, but it is unlikely.
WWS:
I am not talking about establishment Republicans when I talk about people running ahead, I am talking about people like Joe Miller in Alaska…who btw has managed to avoid the kinds of problems that O’Donnell is facing right now in spite of the fact that he is a conservative.
The point is if we want more ethical and transparent government we need to elect ethical and transparent people…just blindly supporting someone because he or she latched onto a larger movement will not bring us the kind of government that people want.
crosspatch:
I agree. Castle was far from perfect, but he actually was representative of the people of the state. Now we see too many people who seem to think that all these candidates are not supposed to be anything like the people they are running to represent.
I heard Joe Miller say something that I thought was interesting…he said he was not running for the Senate to represent some national agenda, he was running to represent the people of Alaska who will vote to elect him.
That goes for states like Delaware too.
The Tea Party has made a mistake.
They just gave themselves a Senate candidate with a Charlie Rangel problem. And rather than focus on a Joe Miller, a Marco Rubio, or other brilliant candidates, they will make O’Donnell the face of the tea party, with her past issues.
Will it help Obama deal with his track record of failure? Not much, but it will be used by the media.
Hey Harold – good to see you back here again!
Terrye, Right on. If the Tea Party allows O’Donnell to make them just the latest version of corrupt politicians they are doomed, just like the unvetted and untested Obama.
I see a lot of people rationalizing their conclusions but I haven’t seen a single argument with any merit as to how O’Donnell can be elected by an electorate that Democrat by a huge margin.
Sure, if Democrats and Republicans were about evenly divided in DE, then she would have a chance. But when you are taking about a state that is basically only 15 percent Republican and nearly 40% Democrat, those rationalizations just seem like fanciful thinking.
This is just a hunch, but I wondered why Karl Rove spoke so forcefully against O’Donnell. I’m thinking that he knew her history and knew she couldn’t pass scrutiny in the most minor sense. He usually does do his homework and would have known her background. He walked back his negative comments pretty fast, I think that he was loth to be the person who outed her, but he’s worried. All this stuff that he is just establishment and can’t think out of the box doesn’t fit for me.
kathie:
I don’t think Karl really outed O’Donnell, I was reading stuff about her bogus law suit and her problems with the campaign finance law long before Rove ever talked about it…the thing is he might have been the only person on the right who would discuss it..but the people of Delaware know O’Donnell, back in 2008 she got beat by the departing Biden 65-35.
I stopped paying a lot of attention to people like Hannity and Rush and Mark Levin because of this particular race. They did their best to destroy Castle’s chances while saying some questionable stuff about his record, while at the same time they glossed over a lot of stuff about Christine O’Donnell that was common knowledge in a lot of Delaware.
Good thoughts Terrye……..I’m not very good in judging politicians (spin, innuendo, and all the crap) is a bit much for me to figure out.
George Soros is making trouble, don’t know exactly what kind or how, but he funds lots of people, who are happy to lie about others.