LMSx wrote:With about 40% of the vote in, Christine O'Donnell is pulling around 35%.
30-35% was also roughly the number of Bush dead-enders still approving his job performance by 2008.
When we're looking at whom is truly bug-eyed crazy in the American voting electorate, "around 1/3" appears to be the fraction that appears consistently.
Too crazy for Delaware, she may be:
Christine O'Donnell Falls Short to Chris Coons in Delaware
David Gibson
Religion Reporter
Posted:
11/2/10
With a fresh-faced exuberance matched only by a talent for putting her foot in her mouth, Christine O'Donnell and her quirky personality captivated the nation and dominated news coverage even in this extraordinary campaign.
But neither her reality show appeal nor blanket publicity were enough to convince Delaware voters to make the Republican candidate and Tea Party favorite their senator.
O'Donnell lost big on Tuesday to the Democrat, the wonkish county executive Chris Coons, in a contest the GOP had once considered a surefire pickup and particularly sweet revenge in that it was Vice President Joe Biden's longtime seat. Yet in September, O'Donnell's victory over the state's popular Republican moderate, Rep. Mike Castle, in the GOP primary completely changed that dynamic.
The media immediately highlighted the 41-year-old O'Donnell's track record of tax problems and financial woes and staff meltdowns. But those were overshadowed by a steady drip of leaks from videotape archives of her many earlier television appearances as a Christian activist, in which she crusaded against masturbation, for example, or admitted she "dabbled into witchcraft" before finding Jesus again.
As the campaign wore on, her gaffes on constitutional matters like the First Amendment's ban on establishing a state religion and her claim that God had called her to run -- and the prayers of her faithful backers would propel her to victory -- did not help her poll numbers, though they did make her a media star.
Research from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that after President Obama, O'Donnell was the top newsmaker in 2010, meaning she was the focus of more stories than any other candidate -- and she performed that feat in just a few weeks, whereas the president has been in the news all year.
Still, none of that could save O'Donnell from herself, or from Delaware's notoriously middle-of-the-road voters, who were favoring Coons by more than 15 points as returns rolled in.
"Nearly half the state's voters describe themselves as moderate," CNN's Rebecca Sinderbrand wrote in an analysis based on exit polls. "Nearly another 1 in 4 call themselves liberal. This is Biden country: 58 percent of Delaware voters say they approve of President Obama's job performance. And 36 percent say they strongly oppose the Tea Party."
One surprise, Sinderbrand noted, is that despite pre-election polls that showing Castle easily beating Coons in a hypothetical matchup, "the voters who turned out today said they would still probably have sent Coons to Washington over Castle, backing him 44-43 percent."
Still, there was a sense that O'Donnell's candidacy represented a lost opportunity for the GOP, and there were other signs on election night that O'Donnell and her tea party fans did her party more harm than good in Delaware.
For example, the same night in September that Delaware's Republican voters chose O'Donnell over Castle, they also nominated real estate developer Glen Urquhart to run for his congressional seat, and he proceeded to make O'Donnell look moderate at times.
As a result, Democrat John Carney, the state's former lieutenant governor, rolled to victory in Castle's once secure old seat, a net pick up for Democrats in a year no candidate with a "D" after their name could feel safe.
Now the interesting question -- and more unpredictable forecast -- surrounds Christine O'Donnell's future.
Could she become another Sarah Palin? They are both attractive, plain-spoken, gaffe-prone conservative women with national profiles who hail from states with tiny populations (700,000 in Palin's Alaska and less than 900,000 in Delaware). True, O'Donnell has an even thinner political resume than Palin's half-term as Alaska's governor. But O'Donnell also has much more television exposure -- to her chagrin, at times -- having appeared regularly on Bill Maher's HBO show, "Politically Incorrect," among other venues.
With much less experience, Palin parlayed her galvanizing personality into a Fox News gig and a reality show, and came back from electoral humiliation to become a political queenmaker whose beneficiaries from Tuesday's vote could set her up for a presidential run in 2012.
O'Donnell likely can't aim that high, but she could be an influence, and Tuesday night signaled she may try to be. "The Republican Party will never be the same, and that's a good thing," she told cheering supporters.
At the very least, O'Donnell could certainly follow in her mentor's media footsteps.
Besides, unlike Palin, O'Donnell is single, instantly making her the Tea Party's most eligible bachelorette and a magnet for more media coverage -- whether that's a good thing or not.
ABC is calling Toomey (R) for Pennsylvania over Sestak (D), but everything else I see says it's too close to call at this point...
), abolishing the income tax and replacing it with a Federal sales tax, roll back any and all health care reform to a completely free-market system, blames illegal immigrants for the current national problems (nice scapegoating - :::puke:::), his plan to create jobs is to cut taxes on businesses and the wealthy, thinks you can balance a budget with "good fiscal policy" alone while eliminating taxes, and is anti-gay marriage.
