This isn't new news. But it is important news. It's been ramping up for quite a while now as we move through the Primary season. It started with Sharron Angle. It continued with Joe Miller's defeat of Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. And now, we're looking at Carl Paladino and Christine O'Donnell. Those are the highlights, but you can bet that there are others out there who are a little less wackadoodle but no less unelectable. The Tea Party may yet play Ralph Nader to the Republican Party's Al Gore. Weird analogy, I know. To be sure, as a liberal commentator one of the things I'm going to do is try to be optimistic about Democratic chances in ANY upcoming election. Check out Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight for the statistics. He still gives the Republicans a 2 to 1 shot at winning the House. Get ready for Speaker Boehner, but cross your fingers you won't ever see it.
The Senate looked much better last week. But, in a rare bright spot, in the last week, Democratic chances of holding at least 51 seats there have gone up. Again, Nate hits the nail on the head when checking out the statistics in this article about the primaries in Deleware the other evening. But in short, we can thank Christine O'Donnell. For those of you who haven't gotten the memo about her yet, here's the short version. She just defeated nine time Congressman Mike Castle for the Republican nomination in Deleware. She now faces Chris Coons. Coons is a strong pick. There are only three counties in Delaware (I know, right?) and as a leader in one of them he has made tough choices to balance their budget and pay back their debt. The have a AAA financial rating. He's honest and upstanding and really about as squeeky clean as you can ask a candidate to be. That said, he had been written off as having little chance while everyone assumed he'd be challenging Mike Castle. But he's not. His challenger is Christine O'Donnell. She has run for several times before, with the most recent instance in 2008 when she tried to upset VP Joe Biden. Even while spending almost all of his energy helping the President with that race, Biden defeated Mrs. O'Donnell soundly. Her 2008 Campaign manager ran robocalls against her candidacy before the primary on tuesday, and though they did not work, to me that says something about how badly the Republican Party doesn't want to have to deal with her. Among other things, this Campaign manager has accused Mrs. O'Donnell of using campaign money to pay personal expenses including rent. She has touted herself as a college graduate for a long time, but only recently received her degree after having finally paid her school what she owed them. And this is one of the people the Tea Party wants to send to the Senate to fix our financial troubles?
Mrs. O'Donnell has spent most of her pre-campaign days as the founder and organizer of SALT, or Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth. A creepy name for an organization if there ever was one, it gives you no idea what the organization's main goal is. Video exists of Mrs. O'Donnell explaining this so it's not just me making things up.
Yes, that was the theme song from Joan of Arcadia, and yes, aside from the 90s hair we all had, that is Christine O'Donnell really telling you you can't masturbate because of the bible. Really. And now she wants to be the senator from Delaware.
In short, many of these candidates including Mrs. O'Donnell and Mrs. Angle may prove to be short lived victories. Yes, the Tea Party got them nominated. But can they actually put them into Congress, or will they do poorly in the general election because of the far right wing values they espouse? I imagine the latter is the answer and Chris Coons and Harry Reid are all to glad for that to be the case.
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