Last Night I Was Shocked, Today It Makes Sense
Last night I couldn’t believe Christine O’Donnell beat Mike Castle. I walked around stunned. How could this happen? And then I realized what happened. Why wouldn’t she win? For far too many years the entire Republican Party has fed their supporters a steady diet of issue-less tripe. They’ve run on liberty, freedom, real America, family values, Christian nation, etc. Even their claim of “less government” rings hollow due to lack of specifics. But today’s GOP doesn’t do specifics – they simply call their opponent names (commie lib, socialist, etc), question their Americanism, and wrap themselves in their god and the flag.
So why wouldn’t O’Donnell win? Ideology trump issues. That has been the GOP message for years. Last night establishment Republicans lost to their own strategy.
Like your analysis of Delaware primary. Is Palin preparing her for the debates??
Here’s a broader Kiplinger analysis from this morning…
http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/washington/archives/longterm-impact-for-tea-party-wins.html
also, interesting a few days ago in conservative weekly standard:
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/citing-mental-anguish-christine-odonnell-sought-69-million-gender-discrimination-lawsuit-again
What scares me is this win is a microcosm of voter manipulation proven in a small state, for testing ground to the larger masses. These outside cottage industries of political prowess set up shop, flagrantly trashing, lying, and burning years of proven constituent service, and political compass to forward a new radical idealogy that has short-lived pop appeal, and no real meat and grit for success or ideas for implementation. Some may think this is great, and a chance to clean house. Me, I’d rather clean house the old-fashioned way, and not bring in a wrecking crew for demolition. Watch out other states and races. This new age of political arson is coming to a house near you. And the only ones who will probably gain are the arson companies employed. A sad day for the Delaware GOP.
Exactly. I kept saying last night that they did it to themselves.
I think O’Donnell won largely because of who she is and less because of what she believes (which is nothing)
Sure, she lives in a rental, took forever to graduate, has money, employment (and men?) problems and ….on ….and on.
Compare Christine to a childless 72-year old white guy with 2 government pensions and father’s trust fund who talks about stem cells.
Ask yourself who would a 32 year old Kent County bank teller with a kid and a couple student loans more likely identify with?
Well, if that’s her actual secret, Chris Coons could be in real trouble.
a few lessons/observations
this started in large part by W’s administration, where up is down, and with the orwellian language. remember their put down of Dems as living in some wacky ‘real world’ (I think that Ron Suskind spoke of it during a talk at Wilmington Friends about one of his books)? the electorate became accustomed to being lied to, and liked it! Sheep being prepared …
the tea baggerz (leaders) are loving this, they are throwing dollars at disenfranchised folks, giving them the illusion of control and power. Most of these folks are angry, and would be without the tea baggerz leaders, but are only acting together because someone else is footing the bill, and they are oblivious to the agenda of the bankrollers.
a large portion of the blame goes to the media. as a finance guy, I remind clients regularly that the media is not trying to educate their viewers/readers about investments, they are trying to keep their viewers/readers reading. The media feels no responsibility for uncovering the wackiness of COD–that could reduce readership. Rather, they put her mug on every cover, and sell more copies.
Faux News excels at this, especially blurring the line between reporters and opinion talking heads. It reminds me of James Carville’s comment that people (including his wife Mary Matalin) look to Faux News as a drunk looks to a light pole–‘more for support than for illumination.’
You’ve got to know someone’s agenda before you let them sway you.
to a grassroots guy like me, this provides a lesson for ‘the party establishment’, that they shouldn’t sit too long in their own echo chamber, lest they miss the revolution. This partially occurred in 2008 with Carney/Markell, and occurred in 2010 with Castle/O’Donnell.
No, I do not mean that Markell has anything in common with O’Donnell, other than both were candidates who were not endorsed by their party, and yet who received more votes in the subsequent primary.
Excellent analysis, pandora. I agree Venus, it’s scary what big money outside groups can do that’s why we were so concerned with the Citizens United decision. It used to be “all politics is local” – is this still true?
Maybe less of a surprise in the lower two counties. I’d be interested to see this broken down by county. Is this out yet?
Anyway, I hope the Coons folks have a strategy for moderate GOP that remain. I am afraid these folks won’t vote at all. Whereas, the teabaggies have lots of motivation, now.
What’s scary, is we will now have global politics joining the whole “world is flat” movement. So much for our regional flair or idiosyncracies. I’m not sure I’m ready for ubiquitous politics, and being reduced to drone citizenship. Talk about crushing the spirit. These pre-fab political packages will turn our system into the Walmart of democracy. I am very worried.
peacepansy, it’s on the Delaware elections website broken down by RD
Thanks, UI!!!
CASTLE MICHAEL N. NCC 16,891 Kent 3,518 Sussex 6,612 Total 27,021
O’DONNELL CHRISTINE NCC 12,369 Kent 6,151 Sussex 12,041 Total 30,561
Office Total NCC 29,260 Kent 9,669 Sussex 18,653 Grand Total 57,582
Not to advertise, but please see my blog…
http://www.wdel.com/blog/post.php?postid=2416
I believe I flush out points not fully made elsewhere. And I play devil’s advocate on several points.
On county totals… Castle carried New Castle County, 58 to 42%, but that was insufficient to compensate for O’Donnell’s margins in the lower two-thirds of Delaware. She took Sussex County, 64 to 36%; Kent County, 65 to 35%.
Allan Loudell
WDEL Radio
CHRISSIE you REALLY won 2 counties! 🙂
I guess Castle showing up in Kent Co every 5 months with a big check for some fire company didn’t pay off like it used to.
Great post Allan.
Interesting that Christine’s baggage didn’t have a noticeable impact, as the GOP went hard negative and focused on it, including Jud Bennett’s Coastal Conservative Network. Didn’t seem to matter!
Even the polls up to a few days ago were way off on this race.
This means to me that in DE we are still underestimating the power of this TEA Party movement, and of Christine’s political prowess.
In hindsight, I think Mike Castle made a mistake not to debate Christine. Chris Coons ought not to make the same mistake.
With Progressives and Dems not particularly motivated this election cycle, and the opposition highly motivated (60k Repub turnout for Christine), I wonder how many Conservative Dems will vote for Christine, and how many of the rest of us will stay home?
Christine and the TEA Partiers have demonstrated their mastery at stirring up fear and anger, which will hit home to many voters in these tough economic times.
Chris Coons will win if he can motivate his base. Does he have what it takes to do this, while at the same time fending off the the fear and anger tactics of the opposition?
I’m having a hard time feeling comfortable with Chris Coons’ chances.
We must not send this mad extremist Christine O’Donnell to represent us in Washington, sent there because we neglected our duties to campaign hard for Chris Coons!
Good points, Allan.
“We must not send this mad extremist Christine O’Donnell to represent us in Washington, sent there because we neglected our duties to campaign hard for Chris Coons!”
Ask what Chris Coons must do to earn our vote.
(60k Repub turnout for Christine)
Uh, wrong. It was 30K turnout for her, 27K for Castle. Don’t merge the two.