Delaware Republican Christine O'Donnell says her Senate race is a "perfect example" of what can go right and wrong with Tea Party campaigns. Ms. O'Donnell spoke this week to the Northern Virginia Tea Party -- a portion of the speech is excerpted on Delaware News Center.
She opens by saying that her opponent in the primary was "really a liberal" who needed to be challenged. That would be Rep. Mike Castle, who she spent months insinuating was gay and in need of "man pants." She won the primary of course, but gained little support among Delaware Republicans and lost by a mile to Democrat Chris Coons.
The moral of that story?
Learn a lesson from my campaign, in that after the primary, whoever your candidates end up being, make sure you unite. Make sure you unite. Because right now, in this battle of pundits right now, they're trying to discredit the Tea Party movement. They're trying to say that your mistake was that you got behind flawed candidates like me and Sharron Angle. The reason why they're putting this out there is because they don't want you to see what really happened. You spoke. You said enough is enough. The only thing we got out of my race is that incumbents are going to know you cannot compromise on constitutional principles or the people will have their way -- and that's a great thing. They're trying to say we as Republicans sacrificed that seat because you got behind flawed candidates. . . .
In my race, or those races, whether it's Rand Paul and Rubio, or me and Sharron Angle, the common denominator is whether or not the establishment embraced them after the [primary], whether or not the establishment got behind the candidate that people chose. They're trying to say Sharron and I weren't experienced, or whatever, well, Mitch McConnell was saying don't vote for Rand, but the very next day he put his arm around him and said, "This is our guy." If you can do that, if you can make sure that happens with the candidate that the people choose, we can win.
There's enough passive-aggressive in there for everybody.
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An article on today's HuffPo had an analysis of the Reid-Angle race, and it concludes that Reid got very significant support from.....wait for it.....REPUBS! In other words, even repubs saw that Angle was more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal, and I'm betting that a similar analysis of O'Donnell's loss would reveal the same thing. I'd be more likely to forgive some of her worst gaffes if she were 20 years younger, but she and Palin are about the same age, and show the same kind of belligerent, arrogant ignorance. What the heck happened to the US education system around the time those two went to school? Whatever it was, I'm incredibly grateful I was out of school before it happened.
The Reid-Angle analysis you mention.
Thanks Laura. It certainly provides some food for thought, especially on polling deficiencies before the election that showed it a lot closer than it was, but in line with what Reid's internal polling was showing.
You know, even if Christine O'Donnell came out and announced that she actually is a witch and that Sarah Palin is the high priestess of her coven . . . I still wouldn't care and I'd hope the media wouldn't cover it. O'Donnell can go away now.
Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this (pretty face) from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
(The teaparty) is but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets (its) hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Teaparty Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28 (w adaptation)
*** Three Gold Stars!
Dear Ms. O'Donnell
You seem to confuse two words "envisionarie" and "zealot". You are the second. You were interviewed by the elecrorate. You didn't get the job. Go look for another. Sorry, you're doing that now (Sarah Palen's understudy).
I repeat my last plea, "No more Christine O'Donnell". It's a given that anything she says is idiotic and or self serving.
I agree with Chris Randall. Drop it already.
Right...please stop tracking... :o)
I agree with the last few posts - the press needs to PLEASE put this idiot on "ignore." She's had her 15 minutes of fame - enough already!
Christine O'Donnell (and many others who can't differentiate fact from fiction) suffers from the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which suggests that, "our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence. When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”
I think many conservatives (and certainly many liberals too) actually don't know what they don't know, and so blindly follow everything their leaders say, whether it is true or not. They don't have the capacity to understand or differentiate truth from non-truth and just wander about aimlessly preaching their party mantras.
Kruger, J. and Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, vol. 77, no. 6.
Mike, interesting about the Dunning-Kruger Effect. That explains the often incomprehensible mind-set of so many politicians on the far right, and their electorate, and possibly even some people associated with Foo News. Too bad every person who runs for an office can't be tested by Psychologists before announcing their candidacy.
Meanwhile, I have had it up to here with O'Donnell, and just wish she would go sing her song "Far, Far Away".
Actually she does have a point "the Tea-Potty" backed "flawed and ignorant of the Constitution and real life" candidates!
The 'Peter Principle' is the principle that "In A Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to Their Level of Incompetence".
Christine, you've found YOUR 'Level of Incompetence' in American Politics - As a Candidate.
You're Correct, The Voter of Delaware Spoke - they said "Not Christine O'Donnell!"
Please Listen to Them, they're pretty smart sometimes,
The saddest thing is that she has gained no real wisdom from her run. Most people in the retrospect are able to see what went well and what went wrong and often why. Christine O'Donnell is that rare exception .....perhaps that is why she is a perpetual candiddate!
What's hilarious is that the tea party's insistence on NOT doing that is what led to them losing NY-23 last year.