Michael Gaynor
Stop whining and start fighting, Christine O'Donnell
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By Michael Gaynor
October 16, 2010

I don't want a candidate who avoids personal responsibility and blames others. I've already got a President who does that.

Hot Air commenters:

"I'm sick of her liberal victimhood crap. She needs to start acting like the strong conservative women that the people voted for."

"I'm about done with her. You got your moolah, and if there's so much to attack him on, then DO IT and quit your freakin' whining.

She is Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's conservative Republican Senate candidate.

Him is Christopher Coons, Delaware's radical Democrat Senate candidate.

Christine O'Donnell isn't a witch, but she is a whiner.

She'd be a much better Senator than her priggish opponent, but it's obvious that (1) she's a whiner and (2) she needs to stop it.

It's unacceptable, especially for a conservative candidate.

When asked what she meant when she said during debate that she was fighting her party, O'Donnell responded: "The Democratic senatorial committee is running ads against me. The Democratic Party is running ads against me. The Republican Party on the state level, or on the national level, neither have come in to help me close the gap in the polls. And my opponent, there's so much to attack him on, yet the NRSC refuses to play, and that, that baffles me. Because he's a — he's a sitting duck. There's a lot to go after him [on]." Translation: she's fighting for party money to put her in the United States Senate.

O'Donnell ran an effective campaign to win the Republican primary last month, but her campaign has been inept since, with O'Donnell suddenly canceling interviews even with Fox News, announcing that she would run a local campaign, then not being available even to Delaware's biggest newspaper, reintroducing herself, dressed in black, but hat and broomless, in a television commercial as "not a witch" and like viewers — imperfect.

It seemed unlikely that she would bungle quickly again, but she did. In her follow up television commercial (and again during a debate that she actually won, because he's really radical AND arrogant and she's conservative and fesity), O'Donnell whined that Coons, but not she, had gone to Yale and inherited millions of dollars.

The problem with Coons is not his parentage or alma mater, the Ten Commandments frown on covetousness and conservatives aren't supposed to whine or promote class warfare. (That's what 'liberals" do.)

After the debate, O'Donnell whined about how the Republican Party spends its money (and personal money management is not her strong suit).

Let's look at the record.

O'Donnell been focused on becoming a United States Senator from Delaware for years and there may be a Stassenesque quality to her effort. (Harold Stassen is best known for being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President, seeking it twelve times between 1944 and 2000, never winning it or, after 1952, even coming close.)

In 2006 O'Donnell lost the Republican nomination, taking 17% of the vote, but she stayed in the race as a write-in candidate, taking 4% of the vote.

So much for her party loyalty. Who does she think she is — Lisa Murkowski?

In 2008, no one contested with her for the futile Republican nomination to run against now Vice President Joe Biden and she lost to Biden by about 30%.

This year O'Donnell won the Republican primary against Mike Castle, Delaware's nine term Congressman and former two-term governor, to her delight and the delight of Tea Partiers and RINO critics.

Castle hasn't endorsed O'Donnell, but O'Donnell didn't endorse the winner of the Republican Senate primary in 2006, so her whining about sore loser Castle would be hypocritical as well as futile. (At least he's not a write-in candidate, campaigning against her.)

Polls show O'Donnell fell farther behind Coons after winning the Republican primary.

That suggests that she hasn't been running the kind of campaign into which the Republican Party should be pouring its money, especially when it has plenty of more viable candidates in need of more money.

And O'Donnell did not put herself in position to complain by staying in as a write-in candidate after losing in a Republican primary in 2006.

In "O'Donnell: Why isn't the NRSC doing more to help me?" (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/14/odonnell-why-isnt-the-nrsc-doing-more-to-help-me/), Allahpundit offered this "presumptive answer" — "Because she's down by 20 points and resources aren't infinite?" and this speculation — "is it a case of setting up the establishment as a scapegoat if she loses? If only the NRSC and Karl Rove had bought her a few extra ads..."

I don't want a candidate who avoids personal responsibility and blames others. I've already got a President who does that.

The good news is that O'Donnell made up most (but not all) of the ground she had lost since the primary by winning the debate.

Rasmussen Reports (www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/delaware/election_2010_delaware_senate): "Democrat Chris Coons holds an 11-point lead over Republican Christine O'Donnell in Delaware's U.S. Senate race following the candidates' debate Wednesday night."

That's not great news, because Coons' lead three weeks earlier was 9 points(www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/delaware/delaware_senate_possible_castle_write_in_drops_coons_d_below_50_against_o_donnell_r), Coons is over 50%, O'Donnell seems to be looking for scapegoats and the election is less than three weeks away.

Unless O'Donnell makes the race a referendum on Coons and explains why he is unfit to serve, she will lose...and the millions of dollars contributed to her campaign since she won the primary will have been wasted.

Since the race is winnable, that would be tragic.

Now, in addition to the moxie that Coons acknowledged she has, O'Donnell needs some magic (perhaps from Glinda, the good Witch of the North in "The Wizard of Oz") to make it to the United States Senate as a Senator this year (and it may be now or never for O'Donnell).

© Michael Gaynor

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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Michael Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member... (more)

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