More on the Castle defeat and O’Donnell victory
Fred Barnes gives a credible account of why Castle lost. Sounds as though he ran an elitist, entitled, ultimately stupid campaign. Why was a smart guy so dumb?
And not a class act, either. Castle appears to be refusing to back O’Donnell.
In other news, the National Republican Senatorial Committee reverses itself and cuts O’Donnell a check. Interesting.
[NOTE: See my earlier post today on the Delaware Republican primary results.]
I can only imagine how seductive being a member of congress or other high officeholder must be. You find your self thinking that Castle, Crist, Murkowski are like Gollum muttering about “my preciousssss”.
Slowly your goals turn from the good of the republic and your district to the ease of getting reelected and the esteem which your colleagues hold you. When you see a guy like Castle, Biden or Gore who has been in the US congress for 20-30 years you must think how remote they are from day to day life.
I can’t imagine why you would say Castle was smart, but acted dumb.
How about he is dumb, and a scoundrel, and not worthy of the office he ran for – and now he’s gone and that’s good?
The man is 70. What, was he going to ‘retire’ into the Senate? He thought that seat belonged to him by virtue of the fact that he had successfully plundered State and nation for 20 years. Guess what? He found out otherwise.
Let him retire the old fashioned way = by going away and shutting up.
And his support is worthless anyway at this point. O’Donnell is going to win or lose on her own. Looks like a loss. But at least we won’t have to suffer the septuagenarian slow walk off the short pier.
The elites, and that includes the Republican RINOS, just don’t get the level of anger in the electorate. They really don’t believe the Tea Partiers when they say they are non-partisan. “Throw the scoundrels out!”, is what I hear around my town.
For the RNC to cut off funds to O’Donnell is both childish, and extremely short-sighted. And all the more reason to throw more of the scoundrels out, no matter what party.
Sorry, just saw the link that they have reversed themselves on funding O’Donnell. But, as of last night they certainly already made fools of themselves.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if all the attacks from the Republican establishment and professional punditocracy end up making O’Donnell more attractive to middle-of-the-road Democrat voters?
O’Donnell is not a Democrat and not a liberal. That’s plenty for most Americans. It may not be enough in Delaware, but at least she pushed out another RINO. One assumes the esteemed senators from Maine have noticed.
I saw Charles Krauthammer invoke the Buckley rule the other evening. I commented to my wife that unfortunately when you scratch below the surface, Krauthammer (whom she adores) looks a lot like all of the other “inside the beltway” conservatives. They enjoy debating with liberals of appropriate status over cocktails in the best Georgetown drawing rooms; but have little regard for us “bitter clingers” who actually want the country to adhere to the principles they espouse. Nor are they interested in getting into the fray on behalf of candidates who aren’t like them.
If the GOP insiders really want a majority in the Congress, I strongly suggest that they support the candidates that people are voting for. Looks like a few are getting the message. I have been telling NRC and NRSC callers for some time that my money will go to individual candidates of my choosing. It will not go to them to dish out to the Arlen Specters, Castles, et al..
i will kindly disagree with your sentiments, neo. i think it’s about time this happened and feel like the israelites in the desert for 40 yrs. it’s time we started electing people who actually stand for something rather than being the wishy-washy middle road. you’re either for something or you’re against it.
the rnc and the northeasterners have always had the lame excuse of “yeah, they may be liberal/mods but that’s the kind of republican that can be elected up here.” i call bs. it’s about time we actually paid attention to who/what people are. i think if we would’ve paid attention in the past 40 yrs or so then we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in now. if people would’ve paid attention 2-3 yrs ago then we wouldn’t have a knucklehead in the white house.
and, no, i don’t care about skeletons in the closet, or whatever odonnell has. what’s the fascination with hers when over half the cabinet have financial discrepancies (tax cheats, etc), charlie rangel gets renominated, etc and no one cares about them but, omg!, it took her years to pay off college, or she did this or she did that. theyre all upset cos they’re boat is being rocked.
love your site
rickl,
Then the Dems will say it was part of a vast right wing conspiracy.
What I hope happens from all this is that more and more competent people step up to challenge the local and state party leaders. That is where the people have their hands out for pork and that is where the thinking has to be changed. We need a broader base of people who know how to present conservative positions and have experience in implementing policies in real life. It’s much harder for dems to smear someone with a label if he or she is known in the community. If such people form local bases, then the Beltway crowd will be less likely to ignore them. Look at all the Dems who are afraid to talk about their healthcare vote.
If the Republican Senators want to handpick their colleagues, they need to figure out what the heck their base wants instead of just what the Republican “Leadership” wants. This is all their fault for not picking a more palatable candidate to the base. If they want to run things, they need to do a better job of it. If they don’t, the People will.
Cash is now pouring into the O’Donnell camp..
her website is crashing from it…
# ELEM Says:
September 15th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
If the Republican Senators want to handpick their colleagues, they need to figure out what the heck their base wants instead of just what the Republican “Leadership” wants. This is all their fault for not picking a more palatable candidate to the base. If they want to run things, they need to do a better job of it. If they don’t, the People will.
Excellent comment, ELEM.
O’Donnell passes first test in Stephanopoulis interview. My opinion anyway. See for yourself:
http://www.therightscoop.com/christine-odonnell-rips-into-karl-rove
O’D initially set a goal to raise $50K in a “moneybomb”. She raised $100K in the moneybomb last night after her win, another $100K by noon today, and she has now increased her initial target by 700% hoping to raise $350K by the end of the day. A whole bunch of $5, $10 and $20 donations suddenly add up. She’s got some serious momentum with the grass roots. If she hits her goal, together with the $42K of NRSC money, she’s suddenly got a very competitive ad budget to work with.
I just hope she doesn’t peak too early and the momentum fades before November 2.
This year is so far outside the norm, that anybody who tells you O’D can’t win in November is deluding himself. I’m not saying she will win, and I know the polls show her as a huge underdog, but it is far from certain she will be defeated as so many of the talking heads and elites are currently predicting.
Mark me down as being in the camp that thinks the snub the NRSC handed out yesterday is going to work in O’Donnell’s favor.
This is an election more than any I can remember wherein claiming to be an “outsider” carried more real weight than a good many other factors.
Candidates have routinely claimed outsider status for years – even if they’ve been in office for decades.
When you have a candidate who is being trashed by elitists in the very party she’s a member of…well, that’s saying a lot about whether she’s an insider or an outsider.
O’Donnell should probably be thanking the NRSC for their insulting behavior, as it paints her as the definitive outsider now.
The voters in Delaware will have a choice in November, between a democrat who supports Obonga, and an outsider that had to claw her way through the “insider” types to reach the position she’s in now.
I wonder which candidate will be more appealing in the Delaware voting booths?
the website is now shooting for 500,000
NOTHING succeeds like Success…
Maddow Diggs Up Christine O’Donnell Video On MTV (1996) Promoting Masturbation Abstenence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT0lln4SoXE
The pretext for sexualizing O’Donnell was a 1996 video in which O’Donnell was interviewed about her conservative Christian views on sex.
Before Maddow’s post, the subject mostly was the subject of left-wing bloggers, but Maddow took it mainstream on MSNBC’s primetime coverage.
An almost 15-year old video was all the excuse Maddow needed to take the story national. Because the fate of the nation turns on whether O’Donnell masturbates, at least to Maddow.
and she is a trotskyite… 🙂
As someone who works in DE and lives over the border just want to say don’t get your hopes up too high that she can pull off a victory. my very Republican De residing mother,for ex.,is so angry that CAstle lost. She went on and on about how O’Donnell doesn’t have a job and has debts etc. She now thinks that Coons is a fine man.Delaware is very,very Democrat.How do you think Biden’s son got in as AG.he is doing as wonderful a job as one might expect and we have a really big case involving a pedophile pediatrician.Lots of us wonder why this case doesn’t seem to make the national news much,but we think that MSM has Biden’s back.
I copy my response to Neo’s earlier O’Donnell post:
Neo, you disappoint, seriously disappoint.
Media pundits are fond of describing political races as “neck and neck”, and other horseracing metaphors. But overlooked is that racehorses all run in the same direction. The media has also tried its best to make us all think like pollsters and political scientists (a title I despise): who is electable? So for the neck-and-neck, we get RINOs, who are deemed “electable”, against Dems, who we abhor: “Don’t waste your vote; vote for the schmoe, he’s electable.” And get a bunch of Castles, McCains, and other aisle-crossers, generally liars to boot.
The Buckley Rule is still invoked, though long inoperative because it irrationally requires voters to predict outcomes instead of voting for their preferred candidates who allegedy cannot win because the Ruling Class has so decreed.
A final shot against your calling O’Donnell flawed: The obscenely flawed Rangel came in first. I accept her alleged flaws, if true, like I do Vitter’s mini-flaw. I do not require perfection; I require dutiful respect for truth in campaigning and execution of elected office.
Start thinking outside the box, Neo. It is liberating. Difficult, hard-fought, lots of defeats, but liberating and wholly American.
***********************************
Castle is simply another worm, another lying RINO. I have made a contribution to O’Donnell today to join against the naysayers. Turns out I am one of many. It is a contribution, not an “investment”.
Dem Strategist Chris Kofinis: “The Tea Party is Flesh Eating Bacteria For The Republican Party”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v37no5I2Gxw&feature=player_embedded
when you listen its like they are reporting about alien creatures they have never met
Not defending Castle but didn’t O’Donnell create a commercial implying Castle was a closet homosexual? It just suggests that Tea Partiers might need better candidates in the future if they want to win, especially in liberal states like Delaware. Of course the movement is young: let this be a lesson.
Why was a smart guy so dumb?
Castle is seventy.
It takes one kind of smart to successfully apply established methods to the game you’re playing. It takes another kind to recognize that the nature of the game has fundamentally changed.
I worked on Capital Hill for 25 years, and was in a position to observe, first hand, some of the often unearned deference, the bowing and scraping to members of Congress that routinely went on (and, truth be told, even had to do a bit of this myself) and I agree, to constantly be on the receiving end has got to be an extraordinarily seductive thing. Then, there are the other perks and benefits for members of Congress, which are a far cry from the situation that obtained in the early days of the Republic, when members of Congress were most likely capable average citizens–part timers–usually farmers, or lawyers, or businessmen, who did their patriotic, “civic duty” (when we still had such a concept and honored it, and when it wasn’t just a fraudulent pose) by making the often day’s long, sometimes dangerous, arduous and uncomfortable trek to the malarial swamp that was Washington, stayed in overcrowded and uncomfortable rooming houses, did the minimum they needed to do, and then headed home to their farms or businesses or small towns and villages, where their real lives were.
For some time now, instead of part timers, we have had full-time, “professional politicians,” who not only get an allowance for living expenses in the D.C. metro area–where they often live full time (and can get into untold mischief), but who also get, among other things, high pay that routinely edges upward (pay raises arranged in such a way, by Congress, that unless members vote specifically to forgo such periodic increases, they automatically get them), generous allowances to maintain their primary residence in the State they represent, travel allowances, large staff allowances, a franking (free postage) allowance, a telephone and office supplies allowance, and have for their use, on Capitol Hill, price-subsidized cafeterias and two restaurants (with usually quite good food), a recording studio, free, 24/7, on call medical care, barber and beauty shops, a gym, an army of guards and policemen, free use of the research capabilities of the Library of Congress and its unparalleled collections, free parking, and medical insurance and retirement benefits second to none, etc., etc. Then, of course, there is the general adulation outside Congress, and invitations to swanky events and parties and conferences, and their being courted by all sorts of special interests and powerful individuals.
It seems to me that–as illustrated by the accumulating statements and attitudes we see on our TV almost daily–members of Congress generally have decided that they are not our representatives, but are now, rather, our masters and rulers, and certainly our bettors, who are much smarter and well informed than we could ever possibly be, (who have the purest and most altruistic of motives) and who know what is best for us, even if we are intransigent, and as Marx diagnosed, we have “false consciousness,” and we don’t know “where our best interests really lie” and what is really good for us. As we have seen with legislation like the Stimulus, the Health Care Reform Bill, and attempts to pass Cap and Trade, and, alternatively, to use regulation–if legislation would not work–to force things like “Net Neutrality” upon us, they have apparently convinced themselves that it as their role to supply, as a kind of “ noblesse oblige,” that “nudge,” and if that doesn’t work, that coercion, so that we will do what is best for us, as unfortunately necessary “tough love” needed by us ungrateful, uncomprehending, bovine, dopes, racists, and “Homer Simpsons,” cementing their power and lining their pockets all the while, and no backtalk allowed.
This autocratic, dismissive, superior attitude, most evident in Democratic members on the Left, and often far Left, but also evidenced by some Republican members as well, is what has got to be eradicated, by turning out virtually all current incumbents in Washington–as the British might say, they need to be “sent down” i.e. kicked out of school and sent packing, to slink, disgraced, back to their homes and families–and we need to replace them with new members, who at least initially might know and really acknowledge who they are representing, and who–under our very watchful eyes–might actually have some principles they can hold onto and fight for-at least for a term or two.
Here is a Palin intrview on the subject:
http://www.therightscoop.com/sarah-palin-on-odonnells-big-win
She has really grown in her political abilities and interview savvy in the past two years. Those who think she could never be elected President have the burden of proof on them at this point. She is quite simply better at this than anyone else on either side at this point.
O’Donnell is a nut and has some major character and ethical problems:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/christine-odonnell-wont-rule-out-third-party-run
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/odonnell-08-campaign-manager-odonnell-not-concerned-about-conser…vative-causes-just-wanted-make
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/245653/odonnell-would-be-better-served-defense-besides-stuff-doesnt-matter
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/245488/trainwreck-radio-interview-delaware-must-be-amtrak-i-suppose
Note that The Weekly Standard and National Review are conservative publications, so you can’t just blow this stuff off. Read the articles. There is something seriously wrong with Christine O’Donnell.
Interesting. Perhaps we need to implement annually for Congressmen something like the Muslims’ requiring non-Muslims, when they paid the jizya, to submit to a ritual slap, to indicate their subservience.
(I’ve got a baseball bat right here that would be perfect… Kidding!)
But seriously, we need some annual ritual that disabuses Congressmen of any impression that they are superior to us. Elections alone clearly aren’t enough.
Tom,
Why don’t you tell us in your own words what is “seriously wrong with O’Donnell.
You said it. Defend your position with more than ‘read this conservative article on her’.
That’s lame.
O’Donnell just went past $500K contributions today and is shooting for $750K now.
Think she can’t win?
A HUGE wave is underway in American politics…a politician who doesn’t see that misses it at his or her (Olympia Snowe?) own peril.
“”There is something seriously wrong with Christine O’Donnell.””
Yea. But you could add 5 years in crack rehab and a sex tape with her and 14 midgets and it wouldn’t come close to the seriousness of what’s wrong with a politician who approves of cap and trade.
It seems as though the mailman brings an almost daily solicitation from the RNC or the NRSCC. They are wasting their paper and postage and my time.
I will contribute only to those candidates who are worthy of my support and respect. RINOs need not apply.
I just sent $50 to Christine.
And just in closing; Karl Rove can kiss my arse!
Tom,
Say it with you fingers.
Why is O’Donnell unelectable and deserving of this scorn.
You can do it !!!
Tom,
I agree with Mike Mc. State your argument. Or are you implying that the Weekly Standard is THE touchstone? I like reading the WS, too, but there are many shades of conservatism out there and an appeal to authority is not a convincing way to sort them out in my view. That’s much too reminiscent to the way Dems do business.
Out with the RINOs. Give the regular Joes a shot.
All who are for Castle.
Here’s something to consider…
Getting a 51 / 49 margin in the Senate means nothing.
Between the numbers of 41 and 60 there really is no difference.
If O’Donnell loses in the general and it is 52, 51, 50, or 49 – the filibuster is in tact. Either way it is in tact until the Republicans get 60.
Have the Republicans ever had 60? And even then with Snowe and Collins we have 58 if we have 60.
All of this hand wringing doesn’t matter if we have less than 60, Collins, Snowe and Castle voting for these things…
Tom the Red:
I read 3 of your 4 links. They are critical of what is at worst pretty petty stuff. Just because TWS and NRO superciliously sniff a bit, she’s a “nut”? Because she’s concerned for her personal safety, she’s a nut? Look at her enemies, which include the DE Repub hierarchy and has-beens like Rove. We don’t need more of the huffy puffy circular firing squads. Face the enemy and fire, dammit
“”Out with the RINOs. Give the regular Joes a shot.””
LAG
Amen. I’m ready to add most self proclaimed intellectuals to that list with RINO’s. Seems like 85% are indoctrinated libs and theres serious signs suggesting they may simply be the articulate dysfunctionals.
Baklava: please see the last half of this post.
I just kicked in $25, and also sent a link to this Karl Denninger post: To The Tea Party (And Related Organizations)
I couldn’t find an e-mail link on her website, so I posted it on the Discussion forum. Here is the link to my comment: Campaign Advice
I kicked in to O’Donnell today too. This is the first year I have ever donated to political campaigns. Brown was the first. Then Rennacci. Then Palin. Now O’Donnell.
It’s a whole new ballgame. When she raised nearly $1m in one day, I know I musty be just one of several hundred thousands form all over the country. We, collectively, can do more for her than any Repub State or National Committee can do. The fact is that they are small change, and we are the big bucks.
Period.
I just checked my earlier link again. Looks like the trolls are out in force at her site.
Ok kids, so you can’t follow links. Unlike you I don’t have all day to type on blogs but I’ll humor you this time. Here are a few tidbits
She used campaign funds to pay half her house rent
Her financial disclosure forms only show an earned income of $5,800 last year. Hmmm. A single person living on $5,800 ????? When asked about it she said she actually made more but wouldn’t tell about it – clearly illegal to hide income need I remind everyone.
She claims that her opponents follow her around “They’re following me. They follow me home at night.” and “They’re hiding in the bushes when I’m at candidate forums.” and “In 2008 they broke into my home. They vandalized my home. ” – but hey, she’s got no police report or even a third-party verification! in other words, she’s got paranoid delusions.
When Scott Rasmussen came out with a poll showing her behind, her campaign manager insinuated that Rasmussen had deliberately fudged the poll at the insistence of the RNC and NRSC.
She claimed she won 2 of 3 counties in her last race…. but oops that turns out not to be true.
She accused her opponent, Mike Castle, of being gay. No proof or evidence, of course.
One of her former campaign managers (did I mention that she’s a perennial candidate like Alan Keys?) has come out and said that O’Donnell is a fake conservative and is only in it for the money.
Then there’s that $6.9 million lawsuit for “mental anguish” against the conservative non-profit Intercollegiate Studies Institute. According to the complaint “Miss O’Donnell’s mother and sister both noticed and spontaneously told her at the time, prior to litigation, that she was differently [sic], and urged her to seek medical evaluation,” which she did. She dropped the lawsuit in 2008… odd I think if she really had a case. Or was she just in it for the money?
During her 2008 run for senate (did I mention she is the perennial candidate?) her mortgage company sued her because she couldn’t pay her rent. her house was set to go to foreclosure but at the last minute she sold it to her legal-counsel-boyfriend. Everyone is allowed some financial difficulty, but O’Donnell lied about the whole thing, claiming she wasn’t sued by her mortgage company when in fact she was.
She claims she was accepted into a masters degree program at Princeton… but oops that turned out not to be true.
Guys, this stuff goes on and on and on. I could write more but it’s past my bedtime. If it was only one thing, we could write it off. Everyone is allowed one quirk, and to get a few facts wrong. But this stuff about her goes on and on, and there’s more to come. Worse, it’s not ancient history but all quite recent.
Just because someone is on our side ideologically doesn’t mean we can sweep personal history under the rug, or say “the Democrats do it too” or whatever. I’m not going to support someone with ethical and character problems and I don’t care how allegedly conservative they are.
Finally, if you think I’m tough on her you just wait until the Democrat opposition researchers get their claws into her. More and more and more is going to come out, that much is painfully obvious.
Tom,
Everything you mentioned is ridiculous in a few senses:
1. None if it is necessarily true. You take things at face-value that other people wrote, and then act as if you know they are true. You don’t. An honest person would give O’Donnell’s explanations about the allegations.
2. They are all very ‘small change’. The freaking current VP is a proven plagiarist – and that is one of his minor offenses. The current Pres probably did not write a book he’s made millions on. Several Dems have real crimes and ethical issues – from scholarships, to land deals, to 100Gs in the refrigerator. Your outrage is therefore exposed as being totally fake.
Can you be honest for a moment? We know the truth about you anyway: You are scared to death of her and what she represents, and especially the people and movement that voted her in. You know your fav pols and party are next.
And you are right. They are next.
Game’s over Tom. It’s a matter of time before the entire liberal agenda is systematically dismantled in record time.
Neo,
I can see that you are conflicted as am I.
What drives our analysis is the same goal of a better future.
Your points are all 100% understood and I am not directing any of my comments in your direction.
I think the key is that nobody knows the future.
The Castle supporters seem to believe that they KNOW that O’Donnell can’t win. That is the majority of their argument.
I want all Castle supporters and Mike himself to throw their support behind O’Donnell and stop with the petty arguments against her.
Let O’Donnell speak for herself.
Let’s get behind her. She won.
And yes. I recognise that your first post said that you would vote for her in the general (if you lived in Delaware of course). Same here.
Why so defensive, Mike? Does it actually make you feel better to dismiss someone just because their views differ from yours (“We know the truth about you anyway…” – are you serious?)
What if the allegations in Tom’s post are revealed to be factual? If so, then I’d hardly call it “small change” that a candidate for major office is at the least a habitual liar and at worst truly delusional.
The more stridently you lash out against those who dare to register any reservations about your latest political crush, the more you remind me of the extreme leftists whom we’ve all grown to despise. Seriously.
“Game’s Over, Tom.” – gee, sounds a little bit like another phrase we’ve had to stomach all too often over the past 18 months – “I won.” Get the picture?
I’ve lashed out time and again on this site against the current pack of jackals in Congress and in the White House, and I’m frustrated that Republican senators such as Snowe can’t be counted on to take a conservative stance. But if Snowe’s votes are representative of the will of the majority of the people of Maine, then she is doing the job she was elected to do. Since I don’t live in Maine, I don’t consider it my personal business.
Kicking the Democrats’ butts as badly as possible this November is important to me. But if those elected are not fit for the job, regardless of whether they belong to the right party or claim to have the right philosophy, then those November gains will be short-lived. Remember that many so-called political observers a couple of years ago were proclaiming the death of conservatism. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that we can’t be just as arrogant – and eventually just as wrong – in proclaiming the end of liberal/progressive clout in D.C.
You are doing what he did. 1) Taking the allegations go be true, when you don’t know – and then 2) taking them to be of a more serious nature relative to what is already going on in Congress when they aren’t even close; and 3) writing a thesis on why everything sinks because of it.
You add the standard lib tactic of calling me defensive (by which you mean to say I am wrong) for stating the obvious and asking the obvious like, ‘How do you know?’
Why O’Donnell will win:
1. She is not nearly as bad as I originally thought.
2. She’s already had the Palin treatment in that she’s been slandered to the max and there is no more slander left in the slander box. But, when people actually look at the charges and actually hear her talk, they will say, ‘That’s what I am supposed to be upset about?? She’s not so bad at all! Why are people saying she is?’
3. She raised close to $1m in one day. She has almost all the money she needs in a small State to get her message out effectively and often in the next 6 weeks. She can hire top people to market her campaign. She got a complete windfall from the negative publicity! The NRSC is going to give her its max- a whoppig 42K. She raised 20x that by the internet yesterday. They are small players. Her own campaign is bigger than them.
4. Her opponent is someone people have heard of and like – but not yet as a Senate candidate in this election. She is down 11 points which means she needs to change 5.5 to vote for her over him. Not a monumental feat given the momentum she has and the name rec and the endorsements now.
5. This year, a vote for any Dem is a vote to keep going on course, but upwards of 60+% say the course is wrong. I don’t care how blue Delaware is supposed to be. If O’Donnell runs a decent campaign she should peel off 5.5-10. She may win going away by Nov. 2nd.