Don’t Pay the Ransom, I Escaped!

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LAS VEGAS — Excuse the long blog silence, but I spent most of the Right Online conference shadowing the Christine O’Donnell campaign team. They’re trying to raise awareness among conservative activists of the crucial opportunity in the Delaware GOP Senate primary, which I wrote about last week at The American Spectator, and Friday here on the blog.

Anway, as longtime readers know, my idea it that there’s only one way to do campaign coverage: Go all-in. So for the past three days, I spent a lot of time with Team O’Donnell, sitting in on meetings that were “totally off-the-record,” according to sources close to the campaign.

That’s a phrase that’s become kind of a running joke with me. “Sources close to the campaign” are, as often as not, guys I’ve hung out — even guys whose sofas I’ve crashed on. The O’Donnell campaign just recently hired Yates Walker, whom you may remember from the Doug Hoffman campaign in NY-23. O’Donnell’s campaign manager is Matt Moran, who filled the same role for Hoffman, and their e-campaign team is Eric Odom and Steve Foley, whom I’m sure you remember from their 73Wire coverage of Hoffman.

In other words, “We’re getting the band back together,” to borrow a line from The Blues Brothers. The O’Donnell campaign is benefitting from lessons learned in the wild NY-23 campaign, which turned into a national conservative crusade in the last three weeks before the election. (See “Battle Cry in the North Country,” in the December/January American Spectator.) With seven weeks remaining until the Sept. 10 primary, O’Donnell seems to be very near a point of breaking through at the national level that Hoffman didn’t reach until there was less than a month to go before the election.

Anyway, so it’s a pretty exciting time, but this kind of close-range coverage means I spend a good deal of time having conversations I can’t report. The fact that I just shlepped my luggage from the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel halfway across town to Odom and Foley’s condo, via a Las Vegas transit bus, is also an experience that doesn’t necessarily make for great blog fodder.

I’m about to get a long-overdue nap, but not before I give a special shout-out to those of you who have hit the tip jar. Also, Eric Telford and the crew at Americans for Prosperity for putting together a great conference, even if I still wasn’t invited to be on any of the panel discussions. I’ll have some more photos and videos from Right Online later, but for now I’ll leave you with this “man-on-the-street” interview:

Yes, that’s Christine O’Donnell beside the pool at the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel. And, no, she wasn’t wearing a bikini. She did, however, agree to wear the famous fedora I borrowed from Da Tech Guy.

BTWT, dibs on the “Christine O’Donnell bikini” Google-bomb. Today is, after all, Rule 5 Sunday.

25 comments

  1. Love, Love Love, @ChristineOD but was so hoping for a RINO hunting trip through Fairbanks Alaska first! Primary is August 24th…Think about it:)

    OTOH, It’s great to see the old gang back together… I will be on deck;)

  2. Love, Love Love, @ChristineOD but was so hoping for a RINO hunting trip through Fairbanks Alaska first! Primary is August 24th…Think about it:)

    OTOH, It’s great to see the old gang back together… I will be on deck;)

  3. Don’t forget to mention the semi silent army of local volunteers in Delaware. We’re building our clans and preparing for an all out assault across the state in the final month. Coming to a door near you…volunteers by the dozens.

  4. Don’t forget to mention the semi silent army of local volunteers in Delaware. We’re building our clans and preparing for an all out assault across the state in the final month. Coming to a door near you…volunteers by the dozens.

  12. [quote] Why do I hear the “Mission: Impossible” theme in the background?[/quote]

    Heh that and a lot of explosions and repeated loud heavy cracks.

  13. [quote] Why do I hear the “Mission: Impossible” theme in the background?[/quote]

    Heh that and a lot of explosions and repeated loud heavy cracks.

  14. I remember the time we had to stage a covert extraction of Stacy from the Burbank Hooters when he was out here.

    Well, covert in the sense that it took three of us to pry his fingers off the bannister while he kept sceaming “NO NO NO…!:

  15. I remember the time we had to stage a covert extraction of Stacy from the Burbank Hooters when he was out here.

    Well, covert in the sense that it took three of us to pry his fingers off the bannister while he kept sceaming “NO NO NO…!:

  17. I remember the time we had to stage a covert extraction of Stacy from the Burbank Hooters when he was out here.

    Careful there, you may be endangering operational security on future such missions. What do you think this is, WikiLeaks?

  18. I remember the time we had to stage a covert extraction of Stacy from the Burbank Hooters when he was out here.

    Careful there, you may be endangering operational security on future such missions. What do you think this is, WikiLeaks?

  21. Yes, Christine O’Donnell is a beautiful woman, but lest there be any doubt, she is a serious person ready to confront serious times for our country. When you meet Christine, you soon find out that she is a committed “love-thy-neighbor” Christian and a conservative dedicated to constitutional government, personality responsibility, self-reliance, and liberty. She will not be one of those “conservatives” who goes to DC to “get along.” She will go there to get our country back on track.

  22. Yes, Christine O’Donnell is a beautiful woman, but lest there be any doubt, she is a serious person ready to confront serious times for our country. When you meet Christine, you soon find out that she is a committed “love-thy-neighbor” Christian and a conservative dedicated to constitutional government, personality responsibility, self-reliance, and liberty. She will not be one of those “conservatives” who goes to DC to “get along.” She will go there to get our country back on track.

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