There seems to be a growing sense of buyer's remorse among both members of the Tea Party Movement and Republican Party regulars surrounding the primary win of Christine O'Donnell. Buyer's remorse is a condition that arises after people have bought something or bought into something with a feeling of personal comfort that then disappears after the purchase. The buyer is then left with a sense of remorse over having made the purchase in the first place. Questions surrounding O'Donnell's ability to get elected and her past personal history have caught the attention of prominent Republicans like the head of the Delaware GOP, Tom Ross, Karl Rove, or Congressman Mike Pence, (R-IN). Pence recently said that while a verdict on O'Donnell's political future is up to the voters in Delaware, he also said that she has an obligation to explain past public statements. One should not be too surprised by the fact that more and more Republicans are uncomfortable with O'Donnell considering the controversy stirred up within the G.O.P. regarding how to accommodate the Tea Party Movement. Republicans officer holders and the G.O.P. leadership may pay lip service to the fact that is up to the Delaware voters to decide who will be their next Senator, but don't fool yourself in thinking they would not have preferred Mike Castle and along with him a chance at retaking the Senate.
Likewise her election has given rise to anxiety within the organization of the Tea Party Movement. The discomfort within the movement is evident in the commentary of heavy weights like Dick Armey right down to the level of rank and file operatives. While it's not surprising that established Republican office holders and operatives would be dismayed and at odds with the Tea Party movement, what is interesting to note is the degree of controversy that Ms. O'Donnell has created within the movement itself. Tea Party money man, Dick Armey, former House Minority Leader and head of FreedomWorks, the powerhouse advocacy group which has poured millions into the campaigns of Tea Party candidates declined to back O'Donnell and has yet to endorse her. Armey was reluctant to support O'Donnell in the primary, "largely because of concerns over her electability. Armey has been leery of social conservatives like O'Donnell, who is far more Christian Coalition than tea party. In fact, he has spent the past few years bashing social conservatives for trying to use government to impose their moral agenda on the rest of the country." according to Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones.The remorse over O'Donnell's election is more than evident among many of the movement's foot soldiers as well as the following representative quote shows: "Andrew Ian Dodge is the Maine state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest tea party umbrella groups. TPP doesn't endorse candidates, but that hasn't stopped Dodge from expressing his own opinion about O'Donnell. He thinks she's a bit of a nutter. "Everything I've seen about her has made me laugh my ass off," he says. "What the hell do you say? First you have Alvin Green, and now you have her." His concern is that if she loses in the general election to Democrat Chris Coons, the defeat will be widely regarded as a reflection on the tea party movement-and he doesn't want that....Dodge also takes issue with O'Donnell's status as an "outsider." He explains: "Alvin Green is an outsider. Carl Paladino, who has never run for anything, is an outsider." O'Donnell has run four times for national office and lost. "She's not an outsider," he says. "She's a loser." Dodge notes that while it hasn't made national headlines, there is a reasonable and healthy discussion inside the tea party movement about whether O'Donnell deserves national support...There's video of her saying masturbation leads to AIDS. O'Donnell is on record attacking masturbation as sinful, decrying the costs of AIDS prevention and research, and criticizing the "lifestyle which brings about this disease." Further examples of rank and file discontent with the O'Donnell election can be found in the sources below.
Much is made about the fact that the Tea Party Movement is so decentralized, that it is a truly grass roots "peoples movement", this being the explanation given for the wide variations in the quality of the candidates that the movement produces. Whether or not the movement is truly "grass roots is debatable, but herein rests an essential question: If the Tea Party Movement is to morph into a viable component of, or a replacement for the GOP, can it do so given its current diffuse method of organization, operation and candidate selection? To what extent is the movement undermining its own credibility and emerging "brand name" by allowing candidates of dubious and questionable quality to represent it in high profile races such as the ones in Delaware and Nevada. If its candidates are seen as too extreme, to bizarre or just plain farcical, who will take the movement seriously outside of its own rank and file? And based on the polling from the conservative Rasmussen Reports; the number of voters who identify as Tea Party members is still relatively small. Rasmussen's August poll showed: "national telephone survey finds that 13% of voters say they themselves are Tea Party members. Thirteen percent (13%) more say they have close friends or family members who are part of the Tea Party movement... Sixty percent (60%) say they have no ties to the movement, but that's down nine points from late May." Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure. Prior polling by Rasmussen had shown identification with the Tea Party to be higher at 24%. That said the real challenge for the Tea Party Movement is to convince the independent voters that their candidates are worth voting for. There is more than ample polling to show that independents view the Tea Party in a less than negative light, but I suspect that most of that polling represents the proverbial generic and generalized type of question, one in which the respondent does not have to voice an opinion about a particular candidate that holds specific positions that the respondent may or may not endorse. And therein lays the root of all of the consternation surrounding the primary win for Ms. O'Donnell. She is the product of a system that has no apparent quality control and that lack of control has produced a candidate that raises more questions than answers as to whether or not she is fit for the office of U.S. Senator. The byproduct of this controversy is a host of questions as to the inherent logic, or lack thereof, of the present form of organization of the Tea Party Movement and its overall staying power on the American political scene. Is it as Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said: "a fad" or is it an emergent political force to be reckoned with? Only time will tell. In the interest of full disclosure I have twelve members of my own extended family who are active in the Tea Party Movement.
Steve Gulitti
9/24/10
Sources:
Christine O'Donnell's Victory in Delaware Shifts Senate Expectations; http://politics.usnews.com/new...
Christine O'Donnell's Candidacy Leaving Some Tea Party Members With Buyer's Remorse?
Rasmussen Reports August / 2010: 26% Say They're Part of Tea Party Movement Or Know Someone Who Ishttp://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2010/26_say_they_re_part_of_tea_party_movement_or_know_someone_who_is
Rasmussen Reports June / 2010 :46% Say Tea Party Good for America, 31% Disagreehttp://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/may_2010/46_say_tea_party_good_for_america_31_disagree
Christine O'Donnell, one of the Tea Party's newly minted stars has revealed that she will forgo any further national media coverage so as to" focus on Delaware." Her last-minute cancellation of two Sunday show appearances two days ago garnered her widespread criticism, see the sources below. O'Donnell said her decision was motivated by advice that she received from Sarah Palin, but we can only assume that in addition to that advice, Ms. O'Donnell hopes to get out from under the media scrutiny that has thus far revealed a history of financial missteps, dishonesty and tales from the world of witchcraft. The real question is does she have the conviction of her beliefs or not? Does she think that she can effectively serve in the office of U.S. Senator from Delaware? A further, compelling question is why forgo free national exposure in the big leagues of the political talk show circuit if you truly feel you are up for the task of being a United States Senator? Don't the voters in Delaware watch television? Would not the news of her appearance on shows like Meet the Press cause the voting public to tune in to those debates so as to see what she has to say? As the days pass, the questions surrounding Christine O'Donnell and her fitness to be the a United States Senator only continue to mount and no amount of limiting her exposure to the media will help allay or deflect these very real concerns.
I can understand that Ms. O'Donnell might not relish the "meat grinder" of the political talk show circuit or that of the 24/7 cable network merry-go-round. However, if she can't stand up to challenges related to her ideas and beliefs, all legitimate questions in an election season, then how will she stand up to a crisis of national or even worldwide scope that she might face as a Senator? If confronted with another 9/11, an invasion of South Korea by the North Koreans or an Iranian missile crisis what would she do? Would she step up to the challenge or would she take the path of her newly found political mentor, Ms. Palin, and conjure up some reason to resign put pledge to continue to work for the people of Delaware by traveling around the country on the lecture circuit or on the talk shows that she had previously avoided?
O'Donnell Tells Hannity She Won't Do Anymore 'National Media' Interviewshttp://www.theblaze.com/stories/odonnell-tells-hannity-she-wont-do-anymore-national-media-interviews/
CNN: No more national media interviews, O'Donnell says http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/201...
Proponents of so-called school reform would have us believe that the demand for their agenda - charter schools, increased emphasis on standardized testing, etc. - is widespread. The reality is quite a bit different.
This was apparent most recently and prominently last week in the form of a number of high-profile elections where education policy was central to the contests.
In Washington DC's mayoral primary, which is tantamount to a general election, voters gave Mayor Adrien Fenty - and quite likely his handpicked reformists acolyte School Chancellor Michelle Rhee - the heave-ho in favor of Council Chairman Vincent Gray. Rhee immediately dubbed the voters' verdict as "devastating" to the future of "reform."
In New York's primary contest "all three State Senate candidates supporting education reform - Basil Smikle, Lynn Nunes and Mark H. Pollard - lost by huge margins, with none cracking 30 percent of the total vote in primary contests against union-backed rivals." (h/t Schools Matter)
Even the much more talked-about victory by Tea Party-backed Christine O'Donnell over establishment candidate Mike Castle in Delaware had some connections to rejecting the school deformist agenda.
Updated...
Well, creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the Earth in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that.
She justified this apparently based on a thoroughly refuted claim by an Institution for Creation Research "scientist", whose "disproof" of radioactive ("carbon") dating was based on a method specifically beyond the dating range of the lab he used for his Mt. St. Helens sample.
Much simpler and funnier is the story TPM reports about mice brains:
O'Donnell In 2007: Scientists Have Created Mice With Human Brains!
Eric Kleefeld | September 16, 2010, 5:19PM
Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell has previously sounded the alarm against cloning and stem-cell research -- and what she's described as the current terror of human-mouse hybrids.
We previously noted that O'Donnell had attacked her primary opponent, Congressman Mike Castle, based on his support for stem-cell research. But it turns out that her interest in the subject goes back much further. As Little Green Footballs has spotted, O'Donnell appeared in 2007 on The O'Reilly Factor, to speak out against such research in response to the cloning of some monkeys. Then came her warning on human-mouse hybrids.
"They are -- they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they're already into this experiment."
It's possible that O'Donnell was misremembering this 2005 report on scientists who successfully grew human brain cells within mice -- which is not the same as an actual functioning human brain, but a demonstration that human brain cells can be made from stem cells.
Well, she's a human with a mouse brain, so why not the reverse?
No, seriously, I think this really tells us everything we need to know about her epistemology:
It's possible that O'Donnell was misremembering this 2005 report on scientists who successfully grew human brain cells within mice -- which is not the same as an actual functioning human brain, but a demonstration that human brain cells can be made from stem cells.
So, if you hear something garbled that sorta sounds like it might support something you believe in passionately, just assume that you heard it correctly, no matter how absurd it might be, and then repeat it confidently on national TV.
That's also apparently the same thing she did with her claim that carbon dating had been refudiated. Pattern much?
Oh! Hey, wait a sec! Wasn't that how Cheney convinced us all to invade Iraq?
No wonder Rove was appalled with O'Donnell... and then quickly walked it back.
These people have no internal limits. No checks or balances. Only what can force them to stop from outside. No wonder they are terrified of liberals.
Okay, so I got home late (for me) last night, typed out my 9 AM diary and watched Countdown on DVR, where there was a passing comment about Christine O'Donnell selling her house in 2008 to her campaign manager/boyfriend. Boyfriend? Wait a second. Didn't she say that she was against masturbation because you can't masturbate without lust? And if you lust in your heart, then you're committing adultery?
Well, pardon my French, but how the @(&#! do you have a boyfriend without lusting in your heart? You clearly don't.
So I decided to make sure I had my facts straight, and came up with the following from the [Delaware] News Journal, March 20, 2010 in an article, "Delaware politics: O'Donnell faces campaign debt, back-tax issues":
But a month before the sheriff's auction, O'Donnell sold the house at 518 N. Lincoln Street for $135,000 to Brent Vasher, who was working as legal counsel for her Senate campaign.
O'Donnell said she sold it to Vasher, who was her boyfriend at the time, with the intention of buying it back.
So, campaign legal council, not campaign manager, but BOYFRIEND.
How exactly does that square with O'Donnell's stand against "lusting in your heart"???
Look, the old patriarchal system had it all figured out. You married kids off at an early age, before they were too young to "lust in the heart" (or so they thought), and thus when they did lust, they were already married, so it was cool, unless, of course, you lusted after the wrong person, and you were damned eternally, end of story.
Now, you can relax the old patriarchal standard, and go for abstinence, rather than "no lusting in the heart", even though abstinence-only programs really don't tend to work that well, but at least it's not logically incoherent. But O'Donnell is not down with "abstinence." That's just not good enough, as TPM explained in "Christine O'Donnell's Views On Sex And Porn Take Social Conservatism To The Extreme":
When a married person uses pornography, or is unfaithful, it compromises not just his (or her) purity, but also compromises the spouse's purity. As a church, we need to teach a higher standard than abstinence. We need to preach a righteous lifestyle.
Or it's a turn-off to the younger generation, or something like that, as TPM explained this morning ("Christine O'Donnell's Sexual Evolution"):
