In a rather unusual column, the News Journal‘s Harry Themal endorses Chris Coons. Themal barely mentions Chris Coons in his column, but expresses his absolute contempt for Christine O’Donnell.
I usually make my own decision of what to do in the voting booth on Election Day to make sure I have seen and judged the value of each candidacy. I am registered as an independent because that’s what I really am, always splitting my vote between candidates for both parties.
The 41-year-old O’Donnell has made so many outrageous statements and told so many half-truths while avoiding being questioned by the Delaware media that I couldn’t in good conscience not write about O’Donnell as the Phantom Candidate nobody really knows.
Her primary triumph over a veteran legislator, Mike Castle, who has served the country and particularly Delaware so well, is one of the disgraces Republicans will have to live with.
The fact that one of the editors of the Wilmington Mike Castle News Journal doesn’t like Christine O’Donnell is not a great surprise. The surprising part is how Themal doesn’t pull his punches.
In part, O’Donnell has gotten under my skin the way she has made Delaware the laughingstock of not just comedians but national columnists as well.
I’m ready to forget her saying she dabbled in witchcraft (David Letterman almost nightly calls her the Witch of Delaware); or that she identifies with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis characters; or that her résumé listed three colleges, at two of which she took but a single short adjunct course; or that she thinks she was being spied on from the bushes or had her phone tapped during a campaign; or that she has had her share of financial problems, although paying personal expenses out of campaign funds is now being investigated.
What must be considered whether to vote for the Phantom Candidate are many of the positions she has voiced over the years, some of which are frighteningly inane or even insane.
Please, Harry, stop holding back. Tell us how you really feel.