Even if Castle manages to squeak by in tomorrow’s primary, this primary election has to be seen as a huge loss for Mike Castle. Castle is a 30-year officeholder in Delaware with a clean record. How did he get brought so low by a marginal candidate like Christine O’Donnell? Mike Castle talked to The Hill about how Lisa Murkowski warned him:
Castle said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) phoned him after her stunning primary loss at the hands of Tea Party-backed Joe Miller with a warning.
“She told me to be careful, because [The Tea Party Express] will come at me with everything they’ve got,” Castle recounted. “They’re certainly not above misrepresentation.”
Castle said while he took Murkowski’s warning to heart, he was already taking the primary challenge from O’Donnell seriously.
“We understand what we’re up against and we’re not taking this lightly,” Castle said, bemoaning the involvement of the Tea Party Express. “This is the first election I can remember in Delaware where a campaign is being funded almost entirely by out of state interests.”
Mike Castle did respond to O’Donnell’s threat. In the last few weeks, the Delaware GOP has aggressively attacked O’Donnell, but this doesn’t seem to be working. Castle’s unfavorables have gone down more than O’Donnell’s.
It’s a mystery to me why Mike Castle didn’t recognize the Tea Party threat. He’s one of the first people to have had a confrontation with them (the famous “Crazy Eileen” episode). I wonder why Mike Castle hasn’t emphasized his rightwing record in the current Congress, to fight allegations that he’s liberal. Castle basically ignored O’Donnell until it was too late.
Is there anything Castle could have done to change things or is this just a really weird year and Castle’s facing forces beyond his control?