Political Quote of the Day

From failed Tea Party Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, talking about Mitt Romney as she endorsed him:

"He's been consistent since he changed his mind."

Well, that gives me all kinds of confidence.

Obama to....Delaware...Three Days Before the Election?

Despite the best efforts of Saturday Night Live, it appears the Christine O'Donnell campaign still has life in Delaware.  Obama's going there to campaign tomorrow.  If she was really a dozen points down he'd be somewhere else trying to shore up a different race.

Her opponent, former self-described bearded Marxist Chris Coons, has chickened bailed out on the last two scheduled debates.  Why?  She was cleaning his clock every time they got together.  The more the people saw this guy the less they liked him.  The internal polling the Dems have must show him in trouble if his campaign is rating a POTUS visit...again...three days before the election.

And the latest attempted slander against O'Donnell is clearly backfiring on Coons.  I won't go into details here - it's all over the web elsewhere - but needless to say if you can get NOW to defend a Republican as they did in this case, the slander failed.

This race can still be won.

Bearded Marxist Chris Coons In the News

Coons, who is running against Christine O'Donnell for Senate in Delaware, has been relatively free of scrutiny from the same press that dissects everything O'Donnell says or does. however, others not in the mainstream media have been doing a little background checking:

NEWS: Chris Coons Was Sued Three Times In 2007 For Retaliating Against Public Employees For Their Political Views

Funny, I don’t remember hearing about this even once in “the news.”

The media is too busy hyperventilating about every word ever uttered by Delaware Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell to do any real investigative reporting on the Democrat candidate Chris Coons.

Coons did not have a particularly good day yesterday. In a debate with O'Donnell he was asked to name the five freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment. The only thing he could come up with was "separation of church and state", something which isn't even in the Constitution. When asked to explain his tortured explanation didn't come close to constitutional standards (see Ann Althouse's post on the issue). He couldn't come up with freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, and freedom to petition the government.

I guess Marxists don't really believe in that stuff, now that I think of it.

The Bearded Marxist and His Fellow Travelers

Democrat Chris Coons, the former "bearded Marxist" who is running for Senate in Delaware, has a rather shady group of friends:

Talk about an inconvenient truth.

After all the furor over alleged racist signs or words at Tea Party rallies, the media is ignoring the shocking fact that 12 of the 25 groups endorsing Delaware Democrat Chris Coons for the United States Senate over Republican Christine O'Donnell have turned up on the quite official list of the "One Nation Working Together" rally -- as formal co-sponsors with supporters of the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. And, no kidding, the Communist Party.

Did I mention the Coons 12 are also holding hands with the International Socialist Organization? Plus the Democratic Socialists of America?

You read that right.

And the media wants to you believe that Christine O'Donnell is crazy.

Political Ad of the Day

From Christine O'Donnell:

"I'm you" is not a bad slogan in this year's election, and "I'm not a witch" is not a slogan I ever expected to hear outside a Hillary Clinton campaign.

GOP + Tea Party = Obama Defeat

That's the message coming from Haley Barbour, former RNC chairman, current governor of Mississippi, and possible 2012 presidential candidate:

Christine O'Donnell's upset victory in last week's Delaware GOP Senate primary has generated a lot of talk in the media about where the tea party and the GOP are headed.

Tea party voters have been incited to political action by the policies of the Obama administration and the Pelosi-Reid Congress. These include a heretofore unimaginable federal spending spree, a failed package of stimulus programs, a government takeover of our health-care system, and the Democrats' insistence on raising taxes, particularly on job creators, even though job creation is our country's greatest need.

Tea party voters are not only motivated by the effect these terrible policies are having on them—they are worried about America's future. They fear that their children and grandchildren won't inherit the same country they inherited from their parents and grandparents. What they know with certainty is that future generations will be saddled with paying back the trillions in debt that the Obama administration and Congress are running up with so little positive result.

Replace "tea party" with "Republican" in every instance above, and each description would remain totally accurate. On the issues foremost in voters' minds—the economy, jobs, spending, taxes, debt and deficits—the overwhelming majority of tea party voters and Republican voters are in strong agreement.

That is why it was tremendously important for Republican prospects in the 2010 elections that tea partiers did not run as independents or third-party candidates. To do so would have split the votes of those who know the Obama-Pelosi-Reid policies don't work and are hurting our economy.

Every Republican should be pleased that these tea party candidates chose to run in our primaries. In the vast majority of cases, their participation was welcomed, even cultivated, by GOP leaders—and rightly so.

Read the rest of his analysis here.

Barbour knows a thing or two about building a party. He was a very successful RNC Chairman and could be a good guy to build the relationship between the Tea Party independents and the GOP.

Some of the GOP insiders really burned bridges over the Christine O'Donnell race in Delaware, and that damage needs to be fixed before the Tea Party crowd will be comfortable working with the Republicans.

This is How You Respond to Attacks

I mentioned this story briefly yesterday, but it deserves a little more attention, not so much because of the facts but because the way Christine O'Donnell is handling the attacks from all sides:

Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is making light of comments she made more than a decade ago when she was in high school about having dabbled in witchcraft.

"How many of you didn't hang out with questionable folks in high school?" she asked fellow Republicans at a GOP picnic in southern Delaware on Sunday.

"There's been no witchcraft since. If there was, Karl Rove would be a supporter now," O'Donnell jokingly assured the crowd.

Rove would be a supporter...or a frog, as I mentioned yesterday.

What I like about this response is it's exactly what I've been preaching for a long time - don't respond with anger, respond with humor, sarcasm and ridicule. It's amazingly effecting at combating attacks.  The attacker is trying to get an angry, hurt reaction and when they're greeted with a witty comeback they simply don't know what to do.  The attack falls apart.

Sarah Palin is probably one of the best at this, as was Ronald Reagan.  Palin has been the subject of innumerable assaults on her character, intelligence, her family, etc., and yet has managed to deftly deflect those attacks with humor.  Rather than get in a shouting match in the newspapers or TV talking heads shows, she posts something on Facebook and the next thing you know everybody is reporting it.  She's been incredibly effective at knocking back the opposition.

There are a number of conservative bloggers who could use a dose of this as well.  Several of the big conservative blog sites are cannibalizing each other over either their support for Mike Castle or support for Christine O'Donnell.  I really don't want to have a Rodney King moment, but c-c-c-can't we all just get along and instead of trying to prove how smart we are just band together and try to get a Republican elected in Delaware?  Like her or not, O'Donnell is the nominee and the conservative infighting needs to stop.

Political Headline of the Day

From Fox News:

O'Donnell: No Witchcraft Since High School -- If so, Rove Would be a Supporter

Or a frog.

O'Donnell Down 11 in First Poll

As expected Christine O'Donnell is trailing the "bearded Marxist" in Delaware in the first Rasmussen Poll:

Democrat Chris Coons holds a double-digit lead over Republican hopeful Christine O’Donnell in the first Rasmussen Reports post-primary survey of the U.S. Senate race in Delaware.

Coons earns 53% of the vote to O’Donnell’s 42%, with leaners included. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

The poll also shows that independents prefer O'Donnell by eight points.  Independents will play a big role in the November elections nationwide.

Let's not forget that two weeks before the Massachusetts special election Scott Brown was down 9 points. He's now SENATOR Scott Brown.  Delaware is still very winnable.

Chris Coons: I Did Not Have Pet Relations With That Majority Leader, Harry Reid

Yesterday Harry Reid declared that the former bearded Marxist Chris Coons, who is running for Joe Biden's old Senate seat, was "his pet".  In fact, he said it twice.

Today the official Coons spokeshole is denying Reid's assertions:

"We're hoping the Majority Leader will apologize to Chris' wife, because she's the only one who gets to call him that," McElhatton responded with a laugh. It's the campaign's official line, but I then asked about how the "pet" remark might play in the race against O'Donnell. It's well known that Republicans are going to hit Coons hard for raising taxes as New Castle County executive. Won't Reid's enthusiastic embrace feed the narrative that Coons will go along with every big-spending, tax-raising Democratic initiative in Washington? "Chris is not anyone's pet and will not be a rubber stamp for anyone," McElhatton answered.

When pets go bad. Looks like Reid will have to bring the Dog Whisperer in to straight Coons out.

GOP Establishment Can't Control Tea Party Energy

And it drives them nuts.  That explains, better than anything, the outburst by Karl Rove on Fox News when Christine O'Donnell won the nomination in Delaware, and the groanings from people like David Frum who just want us all to get along with Democrats.  People like Rove and Frum were upset when Tea Party candidates won the nominations in Delaware and Nevada because they saw those as easily won seats with the "right" Republican.  However, without the Tea Party many other seats might not have been possible at all:

If the GOP picks up eight Senate seats and loses Delaware and Nevada, the establishment will blame the Tea Party for losing the majority. But that ignores the fact that the Tea Party -- and not John Boehner or Mitch McConnell -- has provided nearly all the energy for the GOP takeover.

Were Republican voters as well behaved as Frum would like, Senate seats in Washington, Wisconsin, California, and West Virginia would not be within reach. Without the enthusiasm ginned up by the rowdy conservative populists, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina would not look as good for Republicans as they do now.

Had conservative leaders somehow tamped down -- rather than stoking -- the Tea Party flames, the GOP would be looking at a three- to five-seat gain including Delaware and probably Nevada. Instead, Republicans will gain six to 10 seats this fall -- with a much more conservative caucus.

In other words, the Tea Party may mean we get Sen. Coons instead of Castle, but it also probably means Marco Rubio instead of Charlie Crist, Joe Miller instead of Lisa Murkowski, Mike Lee instead of Bob Bennett, Rand Paul instead of Trey Grayson, Ken Buck instead of Jane Norton, and maybe even Ron Johnson instead of Russ Feingold -- just to name a few.

Rove and Frum would somehow like the energy of the Tea Party without the willfulness. They want the force of the flood, but they want it to go in a direction of their choosing.

Rove and Frum are smart people, but they don't understand the conservative rage in the electorate. They'd still like to be able to pull the strings and move voters in the direction they wish them to go, but conservatives are tired of being told what to do by people who don't always share their values.  Rove hurt himself with conservatives with his rant on Fox and he'll have a hard time getting them to listen to him again.

Harry Reid Gives Christine O'Donnell Her Campaign Slogan

This is what Harry Reid had to say about Chris Coons, the socialist who is running as a Democrat for the Senate seat in Delaware:

"I'm going to be very honest with you — Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He's my pet. He's my favorite candidate," Reid said.

"Let me tell you about him: A graduate of Yale Divinity School. Yale Law School. A two-time national debate champion. He represents two-thirds of the state now, in an elected capacity. I don't know if you've ever seen him or heard him speak, but he is a dynamic speaker. I don't mean loud or long; he's a communicator. So that's how I feel about Delaware. I've always thought Chris Coons is going to win. I told him that and I tried to get him to run. I'm glad he's running. I just think the world of him. He's my pet."

The next O'Donnell campaign ad should end with this tagline:

Christine O'Donnell for Senate, the only candidate who is not Harry Reid's pet.

By the way, don't miss this piece on Chris Coons, the "bearded Marxist" running against O'Donnell. He apparently had his political conversion in, of all places, Kenya.

Some folks think O'Donnell is too right-wing for Delaware. Well, it's very possible that Coons is too left-wing for that state so everything just might even out.

Donations to the O'Donnell campaign can be made here.

RIIW - Republic If I Win

I'm getting more than a little sick of Republican candidates who refuse to endorse the party nominee after they lose an election to which they felt they were entitled.  No one is entitled to a nomination regardless of what position they hold in the party, even if they currently hold the office for which they are running.

This morning defeated candidate Mike Castle joins the list of sore loser Republicans:

A Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) campaign source confirmed to The Hill late Tuesday that the longtime congressman will not be endorsing Christine O'Donnell.

The Tea Party-backed O'Donnell defeated Castle for Delaware's Republican Senate nomination.

Castle is a RINO. It won't surprise me if he comes out later and endorses the Democrat/Socialist.

Elsewhere, Lisa Murkowski in Alaska will decide by Friday whether to run a write-in candidacy for her current job in the Senate after being knocked out by Joe Miller. She's already been turned down by the Libertarians.  She'll lose if she runs and the only purpose for getting in is to spoil Miller's chances.

In California it took Steve Poizner months to finally endorse Meg Whitman. In Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, realizing he'd lose to Marco Rubio, withdrew from the GOP to run as an independent. He'll get crushed in November.

Perhaps all this is good. We need to rid the party of people who are RIIWs - Republican If I Win.

The Revolt Continues

Two top pollsters, Scott Rasmussen and Doug Shoen, have a piece in the Washington Examiner on how the Tea Party movement is reshaping politics in America:

The Tea Party movement has become one of the most powerful and extraordinary movements in recent American political history.

It is as popular as both the Democratic and Republican parties. It is potentially strong enough to elect senators, governors and congressmen. It may even be strong enough to elect the next president of the United States -- time will tell.

But the Tea Party movement has been one of the most derided and minimized and, frankly, most disrespected movements in American history. Yet, despite being systematically ignored, belittled, marginalized, and ostracized by political, academic, and media elites, the Tea Party movement has grown stronger and stronger.

Read the rest of it here.

The GOP establishment is reeling a bit today. Several Tea Party backed candidates, most notably Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, won big upsets last night, more or less telling the GOP establishment to shove it. And the establishment isn't taking it well. Karl Rove had a meltdown on Fox News that really angered conservatives all over the country as he lambasted Christine O'Donnell's win. She fired back at him in this piece.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, and political body which is responsible for helping get Republicans elected to the Senate, announced they would not help O'Donnell in her race. They have effectively killed themselves among conservatives on the web and will see a dramatic drop in their contributions. Why waste money on that organization when you can donate directly to the candidates you like?  (UPDATE:  NRSC backs down and announces support for O'Donnell.)

The GOP establishment can no longer control who their party's candidates are gong to be, and that angers them.  They want the GOP voters to be loyal to the choices the party's leaders set before us and the Tea Party insurrection is shaking them to the core.

Rush Limbaugh said something interesting yesterday.  He said if the Tea Party movement results in a third party, it won't be the Tea Party that ends up with the smallest percentage of voters.  It will be the establishment Republicans.

I'm not in favor of a third party movement, however if the establishment Republicans refuse to listen to the voters, they're not only going to lose elections, they'll lose all their power to influence future elections.

Conservatives Win...and Lose in Delaware

In the most watched race of the evening Tea Party-backed conservative Christine O'Donnell defeated Rep. Mike Castle for the GOP Senate nomination.  Castle was favored by the GOP establishment and polls far better (to this point) than O'Donnell against the Dem opponent.

Conventional wisdom says O'Donnell gets badly beaten in November, thus allowing the Dems to keep a seat they should have lost.  However, this is proving to be anything but a conventional year, so who knows?

This first sentence from Mark Tapscott's report tells you why conservatives were anxious to find someone else:

Tea Party insurgent Christine O'Donnell delivered a knock-out blow tonight to one of President Obama's favorite congressional Republicans...

Anybody described as "Obama's favorite Republican" isn't going to get far with the Tea Party crowd.

And then there's this:

“The National Republican Senatorial Campaign announced tonight that they will not support conservative Christine O’Donnell in her campaign for US Senator in Delaware.”

And conservatives will not support the NRSC, treating their funding solicitations like pleas from lepers.

Unity?

Jim Geraghty has some thoughts on how the Delaware GOP Senate race will end tonight:

This evening, in the state of Delaware somebody will win the GOP primary, and declare something like, “And now, I ask for all Republicans to unite behind my candidacy.” At that moment, across the state, across the blogosphere, and across the country you will hear supporters of the other candidate wholeheartedly and loudly respond, “[your favorite expletive here]!”

It’s hard to begrudge them. If you’re a Christine O’Donnell supporter, you will have just seen a woman who stands for you and your values absolutely trashed, six ways to Sunday by an opposing campaign, a state party, and a lot of voices who you once thought of as reliable allies. And for who? A fossil who voted the right way barely half the time?

If you’re a Mike Castle supporter, you will have just seen a man who’s spent his career serving Delaware – with nary a peep of serious objection from the state’s GOP grassroots – rejected for daring to deviate from conservative orthodoxy and the chances of a GOP majority in the Senate seem to go up in flames. You’ve watched the opposition misrepresent his record. And for who? A freelance publicist who has never held office before?

I’d like to say I see a good chance of reconciliation, but I would be lying. Everybody feels like they’ve been stabbed in the back. O’Donnell supporters feel like the establishment went after their candidate personally, trying to destroy her reputation. Castle supporters feel like they’ve been demonized for accepting a more moderate choice in a heavily Democratic state.

There's more at the link.

Certainly the language that's been thrown around among conservatives lately is going to leave some bad feelings, and I'm sure this won't be the last ideological fight between the purists and the pragmatists. However, I hope we can get through future battles without the name-calling I've seen in this race. I'm used to liberals doing that stuff to their opposition, but I'm not used to conservatives sinking to that level. We don't have to be happy with each other, but we can be civil about it.

However, don't expect the media to be very civil should O'Donnell win.  Just take a look at this item on the website for KFI-640 in Los Angeles:

You can imagine what kind of stuff will be running in Delaware.

The Battle of the Conservatives

Today is primary election day in a number of states, and in Delaware conservatives are battling over Joe Biden's old Senate seat.  It's not just the candidates who are battling, but the pundits.  Only one of the candidates can be considered a true conservative, but there's quite a battle in the blogosphere between various conservative pundits I respect over whether it's smart to support the conservative candidate who probably can't win the general election over the moderate (or RINO) candidate who would surely win in November.

On the side of pragmatism and guaranteeing a win for the GOP even if the candidate, Mike Castle, may be an unreliable vote, are people like Jim Geraghty (Campaign Spot), Paul Mirengoff (Powerline) and Patterico (Patterico's Pontifications).  On the side of conservative purity, even if nominating Christine O'Donnell means a sure loss in November, is Ed Morrissey (Hot Air), Radio host Mark Levin (who frankly has been rather nasty about this whole thing), and Dan Riehl (Riehl World View).

The chance of the GOP taking the Senate this year is not that good.  Even the best estimates of current polls give the GOP only 8 or so seats, short of the 10 needed to take control.  If the Delaware seat meant the difference between taking the Senate or not, maybe I could get more exercised over this race.  In general, I've felt the primary is the place to support the person who most meets your ideological  requirements.  However, you also have to retain a degree of pragmatism because nominating bad candidates is not a recipe for long-term success.

Neither candidate in Delaware is a great choice, however I feel putting this seat in the GOP column at this point in time is preferable to winning the ideological battle in the primary only to lose the war in November.  I will not be terribly disappointed if Mike Castle prevails tonight.

Turning a Gimme GOP Seat Into a Gimme Dem Seat

I hope the Tea Party Movement hasn't overreached in Delaware:

It looks like there’s a real possibility of a major upset in the Delaware Senate primary on Tuesday night, with insurgent conservative Christine O’Donnell leading longtime Congressman and Governor Mike Castle 47-44. That 3 point lead is well within the poll’s margin of error.

If Castle is indeed defeated Tuesday night it will be yet another sign that conservatives have a strangle hold on the Republican Party and moderates may or may not be welcome anymore. Castle has an overwhelming 69-21 lead with moderate voters but they only make up 33% of the likely primary electorate. O’Donnell has a 62-31 lead with conservatives that’s more than enough to propel her to the overall lead.


It’s clear that Castle’s popularity has taken a sharp turn in the wrong direction over the last month. An August PPP poll found his favorability with Delaware Republicans at a 60/25 spread. Now his favorables within the party are negative at 43/47. That’s largely a product of 55% of voters in his party saying they think he’s too liberal compared to 37% who think he’s about right.


...General election Senate numbers we'll release later this week make it clear the biggest beneficiary of this primary becoming so unexpectedly hotly contested is Chris Coons. He would start out with a large advantage over O'Donnell in a general election match up, and is polling closer to Castle than he was when PPP polled Delaware last month.

Mike Castle is a RINO, no doubt. But O'Donnell is a seriously flawed candidate who will immediately trail the Democrat by a large margin in a seat that was considered a gimme for the GOP before the primary.  She's got some major issues, all of which will be broadcast in big bold letters during the general election campaign (like this) and my guess is we'll lose that seat and quite possibly the chance to control the Senate.

I'm all for promoting conservative candidates in primary races, but we've got to make sure they're first and foremost good candidates.

Beware the RINO

There's quite a kerfuffle brewing in the conservative blogosphere over the Senate GOP primary in Delaware.  The two main candidates are Mike Castle, a sitting congressman who has voted time and again with Obama and the Democrats, and Christine O'Donnell, a conservative Tea Party-backed candidate.  The GOP establishment is backing Castle and insists O'Donnell can't win the general election.  Conservatives are backing O'Donnell because a RINO in the office is almost as bad as a Democrat.

Dan Riehl provides some background:

In this, of all years, I don't buy that a Castle can win in Delaware, but not an O'Donnell. Still, I'd rather see the GOP lose and have an identified Democrat, rather than one in Red skin.

Suddenly conservatives want to help a Republican beloved by the SEIU? Where is the principle in that? He frequently votes against his party, always to the Left. He votes against his party toward the Left more often than Kirk, Djou and most other Republicans from Blue states, including New Jersey and New York.

Mike Castle has been funded by labor organizations for a good reason. He champions their causes better than 50% of the time. One of the Labor Unions he has the closest ties to is the SEIU.

We run Obama down for not supporting the surge. Where was Castle? Right there with Obama of course.

He was there for S-CHIP. Have you forgotten that fight? His votes against the party are not insignificant. They include the Disclose Act, Wall Street Reform, he likes to spend money on everything and supports Cap and Tax.

He carries an "F" rating from the NRA. People are saying, well, this O'Donnell, she's far from ideal. But Castle's record is? Hell, I'd take a blank slate over this guy, frankly. We know he is going to undermine us on critical issues time and again and become a poster boy as the "reasonable Republican" we all loath when the Left throws it in our faces.

The argument from the GOP establishment is they'd rather have a RINO in office who will caucus with the GOP and possibly help gain the majority rather than risk electing a Democrat. I'm not convinced that in this GOP wave year someone like Christine O'Donnell can't win. This year I think every Republican has a pretty good chance, and if we have the opportunity to elect someone who will actually vote with us, why shouldn't we?

And for those who are guaranteeing us that Mike Castle will caucus with Republicans and help them gain a majority, let me remind you of two names:

• Arlen Specter
• Jim Jeffords

Specter was promoted by the GOP establishment and President Bush in the 2004 election cycle and we were promised he'd remain a loyal Republican.  When his electoral chances in 2010 started to fade he ran as fast as he could back to the Democrat party from when he'd come decades earlier.

And for those with short memories, I'll take you back to 2001, shortly after President Bush took office and the Republicans held the Senate with the narrowest 1 vote majority.  Senator Jim Jeffords, a RINO from Vermont, got angry with Bush's tax cuts and after getting a sweet deal from the Democrats left the Republican party to become an independent and started caucusing with the Democrats.  His defection handed control of the Senate to the Democrats.

The thing that worries me about nominating someone like Castle is he'll be a primary Democrat target for similar shenanigans.  If he perceives the new GOP Senate as being "too conservative" for his liking he might be open to a deal that could switch control back to the Dems.  There simply aren't any guarantees when it comes to RINOs.