When Christine O'Donnell stunned the pundits of both parties by winning the Republican primary for Senate in Delaware on Tuesday, she had $50,000 in the bank and trailed Democrat Chris Coons by 16-25 percentage points, depending on the poll. A day later, she had received over $1 million in donations, and Coons' lead was 11 points.
As Ed Morrissey pointed out, the "internals" of that poll were interesting. O'Donnell leads among independents. Her biggest problems right now are liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats — both groups would have been much more supportive of primary loser Mike Castle. Delaware is clearly more liberal than the nation — 54% approve of Obama's job performance, significantly higher than the national number of 45%.
But even Delaware voters favor repeal of Obamacare (53-43%), and 62% say the way to create jobs is to cut taxes, not increase government spending. So there's certainly room for a well-run, well-financed O'Donnell campaign to gain support on the issues. Especially if it can move the focus from her "extreme" views to Coons'. After all, this is a hard-core leftist who, some years ago, described himself (with tongue perhaps slightly in cheek) as a "bearded Marxist."
Yeah, O'Donnell has at least one truly flaky view: She urged young people not to masturbate because it necessarily involves "lusting in your heart" and thus violates the 10th Commandment. Oh, my … Well, that's patently incorrect, for one thing. But is this really an important issue?
I went into work late today after a dental appointment, so I got to hear part of the Dennis Miller Show. Dennis is pretty libertarian — or what P.J. O'Rourke called a "Republican Party reptile." He's pro-choice and strongly supports gays in the military — as he puts it, anyone who's willing to put their life on the line defending us and killing jihadis deserves our thanks and support. He acknowledged that O'Donnell's anti-masturbation view is "pretty kooky." But he made a good point: What are the people who fret about this worried about — that she'll try to outlaw masturbation? Come on!
O'Donnell's other "baggage" appears to be entirely financial — she apparently went through a rough patch during which she failed to pay some taxes and mortgage payments, and she fell way behind in paying her student loans. Well, that sounds not all that different from about half of Obama's cabinet and countless members of Congress. If anything, her financial issues sound more innocent and less calculated.
No, she's not an ideal, perfect candidate. But her opponent's extreme leftist/quasi-Marxist views make him less than perfect, too, even to the average centrist. It's not at all obvious that she's unelectable — or should be. She's articulate, personable, and intelligent (judging from an interview I saw), and she is clearly and unequivocally focusing her campaign on fiscal/economic issues, and from my perspective she's 100% on those.
I think I'll help her get to the $2 million mark. I suspect she'll get there pretty quickly, with Rush Limbaugh encouraging contributions to her campaign.
