I got a chance to watch the televised debate between Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons. Based on the media records one would think that Ms. O’Donnell tanked. But after watching the actual debate, I am no so sure that is the case. The truth is that she did not need to win the debate; she just needed to show that she is capable of handling herself. That, she did very well. In fact the pressure was on Coons, who was widely expected to wipe the floor with this dimwitted lightweight. That is far from what happened. She more than held her own and actually scored some serious blows.
Obviously the Lying was Chris Coons. He tried to pass himself off as a mainstream conservative, which is ridiculous. The Witch, of course was the infamous Ms. O’Donnell. The Warthog was the ubiquitous Wolf Blitzer. For example, Mr. Blitzer asked her if she believed in evolution, with is effete sneer as if anyone who didn’t believe in evolution was intellectually incapable of running for public office. I wish she had responded with a very sharp retort: Why are you asking me that question. Do you feel that believing in evolution is a requirement for political office? But she still gave a good answer. She said that her personal views on that subject were irrelevant, what was relevant is that she thought local schools should have the right to decide what is taught in their schools. If they want to teach intelligent design as well as evolution they should have the right to decide that for themselves. Then she turned around and said that her catholic views were more in line with the majority of the American people than Coons Marxists views. She then asked why the media asked her about the “witch” comments when they ignored his essay on why he was a bearded Marxist. He tried to deflect that by saying it was written as a joke he wrote about while in college. She then pointed out that regardless of whether or not that was really written as a joke, his political philosophy was consistent with Marxism and gave several good examples.
She also hammered him on Afghanistan. She pointed out that he can’t say he supports the troops and then want a specific withdraw date that hurts the mission. She also scored good points on the teacher payment issue. She said: of course he supports the teacher’s union’s position, since they are paying for his campaign. She was surprised when they asked her which Supreme Court justice she would not have supported and she didn’t have a quick answer. But she did respond that the real issue with Roe vs Wade was that she felt it took away the right of States to decide on that issue for themselves.
She was poised and appeared competent. That alone may have a major impact on this race, because the media wanted to expose her as incompetent. She at least held her own, if not better. The bias in the questions by the moderators was disgusting. One question was whether she supported the constitution as it was originally written or as it is being interpreted now. Clearly this was asked to allow Coons to give his standard pro-choice speech. All in all it was entertaining and she did much better than I expected.
The polls show her down by 19 points and a lot of people have written her off as a lost cause. But, President Obama scheduled a trip to Delaware to campaign for Coons. First, any candidate who campaigns with Obama tends to lose. Second, it is hard to imagine Obama making this trip if they thought this race was over. I suspect it is much closer than the main stream media is admitting. Third, she has a ton of money and she obviously has some brilliant people running her campaign. Her latest ad referring to Coons as the tax man is very effective.
No predictions on this one, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she came back to make this competitive and possible pull off a dark horse win. She was way behind Mike Castle until the tea party express stepped in at the last minute with some hard hitting ads. They have now done this on several occasions with spectacular results. Joe Miller was down by double digits the week before the Alaska primary. The tea party express moved in with some heavy media buys and some great ads and Miller won easily. Delaware is a lot like Alaska in that it is a small state and it is easier to buy a lot of effective local media. This is a weird election cycle and all the momentum nationwide is at the Republicans backs. I think O’Donnell proved she is far from the dingbat portrayed in the media and when you combine that with a lot of money and some really good ads, anything could happen.
One thing is certain, if she does pull it off, Democrats hope for control the Senate are probably close to zero.
TDM