Frank Rich is kind of off-the-mark. Most of what he says about Christine O’Donnell is actually more true of Sarah Palin. O’Donnell is just a mini-Palin. But her usefulness isn’t that she gives the Republicans some anti-elite cred. Palin has that covered. O’Donnell’s usefulness is that she draws attention away from the radical ideas of more viable candidates like Pat Toomey. While everyone’s focused on a non-competitive race in Delaware, Russ Feingold goes down to a global-warming denier.
Oh, wait! Their entire slate of candidates denies that climate change is happening. But, look! Over there. A witch!! She lied about her Ivy League education. She’s a woman of the people!
Okay, so maybe Frank Rich has a point after all. But I still think the usefulness of O’Donnell (as opposed to Palin) is less about her authentically middle class background than about saying stupider shit that the nutcases who are actually tied or ahead iin the polls. She draws attention to herself, letting Rand Paul’s statements sink down the memory hole. Sharron Angle doesn’t seem so nutty by comparison.
It’s a model for the future. John McCain is such a genius.
I’m going to disagree with you on this one. I think with all elections being local, people in Nevada don’t care or have a clue as to what O’Donnell is most recently lying about. Yes, she dominates the national news but that’s like saying even though the Yankees and Boston dominate ESPN every year, that fans don’t turn out for their local teams.
Here in Chicago, Gianoullias is finally getting it close (too bad Rahm isn’t running for Senate!) and with Obama coming here on Thursday to campaign for him, it might put him and Quinn in front in the next set of polls. We hope.
Mayor, not Senate.
I guess I wasn’t clear what I meant – I was saying I was wishing Rahm was running for Senate instead of Giannolias.
God sometimes Frank Rich is an idiot.
O’Donnell isn’t useful at all to anyone except for Jim DeMint. Any attempt to use her as anything more than a placeholder in this election with the hope a long-odds shot at winning is nothing more than a “making lemonade out of a lemon” move on the part of the GOP. They have to make it work or repudiate and was their hands of her. But since Jim DeMint’s faction of the GOP has embraced her, they’re stuck with her (as Karl Rove quickly found out). So they have to find an angle to spin it with.
The only purpose Christine O’Donnell serves is to knock one of Mitch McConnell’s game pieces off the board in the Senate. Mike Castle coming into the Senate would have been a net +1 for McConnell over DeMint – he would have gotten a stauch conservative who had to play the “I’m not really a conservative, I’m a moderate” game and so that would have guaranteed his support of McConnell over DeMint. By having the Tea Partiers shove Castle out of the way, DeMint has screwed McConnell out of a supporter – if Coons wins, it’s a net zero for McConnell. If O’Donnell manages to win it’s a +1 for DeMint. Either way, DeMint wins.
This isn’t brain surgery, and I don’t know if it’s just considered “impolite” among DC punditry to talk about it or if they’re just more stupid than I’ve ever been willing to credit them. This is GOP faction war territory – all of this is fallout from a political gambit by Jim DeMint in the Senate combined with actions by the rich ideologues like the Koch brothers to expand and consolidate their power over the GOP. The GOP losing elections this cycle is better for their personal power bases than if the GOP wins elections with moderates. Hell at this point the GOP could not gain a single seat in the Senate and McConnell would still lose out because of the Tea Partying in Alaska and Florida.
Excellent point. I don’t understand the WI situation at all. Very surprised that an ag state would go for a global warming denier. How accurate are the polls? are they setting up for the impact of the vote caging?
I think (somewhat hopefully) that the election is going to surprise a lot of people. The false idea that Dems will not turn out is driving much of the polling. Johnson is currently being strongly battered by his history of supporting the perverts in the Catholic Church and the pedophilia support that he has delivered. I think that this will hurt him.
Precisely!!! WI of all places, with it’s horrible history of RC pedophile coddling. Pathetic is my word for all the R candidates this year, they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel
Going as far back as I can remember (which is 1962 or 1964), Wisconsin has only elected one Republican senator, Bob Kasten, who was elected in the swing election of 1980 and then re-elected in 1986 (and was defeated by Feingold in 1992). In 1980, Gaylord Nelson was not regarded as vulnerable. But it was a “kick the Democrats out” sort of election year, and Nelson lost his seat.
I see the same thing happening this year, although it feels considerably stronger than in 1980. I don’t think voters know much about Ron Johnson or care to know much about him. They are voting against the Democrats, and the Democrats are represented on the ballot this year by Feingold. Tough luck for Russ.
Imagine, the last time someone this right-wing was elected senator in Wisconsin, his name was Joe McCarthy,
She has moved the Overton window of “crazy”. Now, instead of Angle, Miller, Johnson, and McMahon being considered insane, they are considered “reasonable”. We need to stop talking about her, and start talking about the rest of this insane clown posse.
I’d say you’re on to something, Boo.
And instead of doing something similar on the Democratic side, they chase after former Republicans and convince them to run as Democrats.
Did you catch this little number?:
Sen. Jim DeMint: Gays And Unmarried, Pregnant Women Should Not Teach Public School
Can’t help but wonder—with Cons, usually the louder their squalling about morals, the bigger the skeleton in the closet.
Wonder what skeletons DeMint is hiding?
Interesting! Any ideas? Paging Tarheel Dem! and now DeMented has a credible write-in opponent.
Trust me. As someone who has to suffer through endless Angle and Reid campaign commercials, nothing is scarier than that crazy woman in a position with any kind of power over other people’s lives.