Could Mattie Fein Become California’s Christine O’Donnell?
Posted on | September 20, 2010 | 26 Comments
I don’t know if Mattie Fein ever dabbled in witchcraft, but she is certainly tired of being dissed by the same Republican establishment types who are running down the Delaware GOP Senate candidate:
Karl Rove’s now-infamous disparagement of Christine O’Donnell has provoked one Republican congressional candidate to go public with her criticisms of GOP leadership.
Mattie Fein, who won a three-way primary and is challenging Democrat Rep. Jane Harman in California’s 36th District, says she has been “snubbed” by National Republican Congressional Committee staff. . . .
As she explained in her guest editorial column last week, the attitude Mattie Fein has encountered among the GOP elite in California is a microcosm of what O’Donnell is facing in Delaware: A go-along-to-get-along idea among GOP leaders who refuse to challenge liberal Democrats head-on. When they can’t hand-pick their favorite “respectable” RINOs, the elite refuse to lift a finger for a Tea Party-backed conservative who actually wins the primary.
Like O’Donnell, Mattie beat the establishment favorite in the CA-36 primary and, now that she’s in the general election campaign, the Republican leadership is AWOL — or maybe even working to protect the Democrat incumbent!
Call the NRCC at 202-479-7000 and tell them to start fighting to win in November!
UPDATE: Dan Riehl has an important related thought:
Let’s face it, Castle’s years of government service made him a multi-millionaire. There’s no real sign that O’Donnell ever rode that gravy train . . . Is she some lunatic, going from witch to devout Christian? Or, is she mostly just your average American with the same noble qualities and some of the faults that the majority of us have?
That is exactly what Mattie Fein has been trying to get across to the GOP establishment types who don’t think she’s got a chance of beating Jane Harman.
Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer and other establishment-oriented pundits have seriously underestimated the intensity of the wave of populist sentiment that’s going to come crashing ashore in six weeks. This isn’t just about the GOP conservative base. It’s about independent voters who are sick and tired of the Washington elite in both parties.
That’s why a supposedly “flawed” candidate like Christine O’Donnell could beat a 74-year-old lifetime politician like Mike Castle in Delaware and why she’s got a very real chance to beat Chris Coons on Nov. 2. People in the Rove-Krauthammer axis are thinking in terms politics as usual, and they don’t take seriously the voices of Ordinary Americans who for the past 18 months have been saying the same thing over and over to anyone who asks: “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!”
That’s why they’re willing to overlook whatever “nutty” stuff that Christine O’Donnell may have said or don in her past. She’s taking them seriously and giving voice to their resentments of the elite, and every time some snooty pundit puts her down, it just makes those people all the more resolved to fight.
This also explains why the GOP establishment doesn’t understand that Mattie Fein coud actually beat Jane Harman. The Republican establishment types are sitting around talking to each other’s analyses of the poll numbers instead of listening to what the people are actually saying.
Just like O’Donnell, Mattie Fein doesn’t “fit the mold” of the type of candidate the GOP establishment prefers and they might be right in any other year.
But 2010 is not any other year. It’s a year when the extremist Pelosi/Reid/Obama agenda has wrecked the economy in an attempt to radically alter the American system of government.
This is a year when all bets are off, when there are no “safe” incumbents, and when scrappy underdog “outsider” candidates could win stunning upsets — if only the big-money bastards at GOP HQ would wake up and seize the opportunity.
Six weeks until Election Day and Republicans are 10 points ahead on the generic ballot – and you want to tell me Jane Harman can’t be beat?
I repeat: Call the NRCC at 202-479-7000 and tell them to start fighting to win — and win big — in November!

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