The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Endless Delaware Post-Mortem

Posted on | November 30, 2010 | 11 Comments

The day after the Delaware primary, I asked, “Is this really about 2012?” It seemed to me that many ruling-class Republicans — especially those aboard the Mitt Romney 2012 bandwagon — were attacking Christine O’Donnell as a proxy for Sarah Palin.

Given the extraordinarily good news on the House side, with the GOP gaining 63 seats, it seems absurd that some conservatives continue to cry over spilled milk, endlessly rehashing the failure of Republicans to capture a Senate majority, and especially bemoaning the outcome in Delaware.

Even if this is not merely a proxy for arguments between pro-Palin and anti-Palin camps within the GOP, it has certainly turned into one of those Dougherty’s Law situations: “If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It’s failing because it’s like you.”

In other words, the elitist attacks on O’Donnell are a veiled way of attacking the supposedly unenlightened hicks who supported O’Donnell. Longtime O’Donnell supporter Jerry Wilson at Goldfish and Clowns is sick and tired of this argument:

[T]here was a ton of ammo used in the debate over the choice between Mike Castle and Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware senatorial primary. The division was sharp, with one side stating that no matter how liberal Castle’s voting record was, he was at least a Republican and apparently electable unlike krazee Christine, while the other insisted Castle was a no-go and O’Donnell was indeed a viable candidate. Neither side was inclined to give the other much credence, and the discussion became extremely toxic.
A seldom commented on element of this was how the Castle supporters had zero personal investment in him, while O’Donnell boosters often had a strong connection with her. . . .

You should go read the whole thing.

On a related topic: Who is Ned Ryun, and why is he attacking Tea Party candidates?

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Category: Delaware, Election, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin

Comments

  • Peregrine John

    “Veiled”? Judging by how it was discussed a month ago, it’s a pretty transparent veil.

  • http://ak4mc.us/cms/ McGehee

    It’s a “veil” like the Emperor’s New Clothes were… clothes.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    I’m no elitist, but I could see O’Donnell was a sure loser. It didn’t take much, just taking off the blinders. She was certainly no “proxy for Palin” – any more than the far superior (and victorious) Nikki Haley was. She was just an endorsement for Palin, one of the few that didn’t work out.

    Now, I certainly understand all the folks who pushed O’Donnell and insisted she was a viable candidate wanting to “move on” and “let bygones be bygones,” and that’s fine – IF they learned anything from their foolish waste of money and emotion on that proven loser. But it doesn’t seem they have, so it needs to stay in their face until they do.

    That’s how we learn.

    For instance, take all the terrible things said about Murky for running as a write-in after losing the GOP primary. You’d have thought she gave the Iranians the atomic secrets, she was such a traitor to America, democracy, and human decency – at least according to some. YET – Christine O’Donnell had done EXACTLY the same thing after LOSING the Republican Senate primary in 2008, but apparently that was somehow different and forgivable?

    It’s only “endless” as long as the O’Donnell crowd refuses to acknowledge error. Perhaps that is too much to ask of followers of the likes of Levin and Riehl, but if they expect it just to go away, they are quite mistaken – just as they were in Delaware.

  • http://waxingerratic.wordpress.com/ ECM

    The “bygones” part would work better if the Castle side would have stopped fighting the Civil War after he lost the primary. In the state of DE. Judged wanting by the people of DE.

    Yes, I’m really sick and tired of the insinuation (and, yes, you are insinuating it) that anyone outside of DE had any say in the matter. The fact is, if Team Castle had sit down, shut up and just not said *anything*, rather than actively helping burn her down, the people on OD’s side would probably be more circumspect. But since people like yourself insist on going on and on about a man that would have continued dragging the party left, why should anyone listen?

    At the end of the day, you’re either a conservative or you’re perfectly happy with an ever-expanding fedgov* (which is what electing the Castles and Murks of the world gets you, which is supposed to be the purview of the left which RSM has repeated, at length, for months now, which far too many, ostensibly on the right, refuse to acknowledge)–you can’t be both.

    *Just becuse it expands at a more laconic pace under Republicans should not make it acceptable to anyone wering the mantle of conservative.

    (And spare me the nitwittery of purity tests: a conservative believes xyz and if you don’t believe xyz you are not a conservative, i.e. you can say you’re a duck, but if you don’t have a bill, wings and flippers, you aren’t a duck, and no quantity of screaming about how the real ducks are freezing you out because they only want actual ducks (not people in ducksuits) in their club is going to change that.)

  • Pingback: Can We Get Back To Today? « Goldfish and Clowns. Where God's not dead and neither are we.

  • http://twitter.com/RightKlik RightKlik

    Ned Ryun and his friends at American Majority have had a complicated relationship with the Tea Party:

    http://www.rightklik.net/2010/04/attack-on-tea-parties-from-right.html

  • John Hitchcock

    (And spare me the nitwittery of purity tests: a conservative believes xyz and if you don’t believe xyz you are not a conservative, i.e. you can say you’re a duck, but if you don’t have a bill, wings and flippers, you aren’t a duck, and no quantity of screaming about how the real ducks are freezing you out because they only want actual ducks (not people in ducksuits) in their club is going to change that.)

    I can’t say it any better. As far as the rest of your comment goes, I agree with that as well.

  • John Hitchcock

    (And spare me the nitwittery of purity tests: a conservative believes xyz and if you don’t believe xyz you are not a conservative, i.e. you can say you’re a duck, but if you don’t have a bill, wings and flippers, you aren’t a duck, and no quantity of screaming about how the real ducks are freezing you out because they only want actual ducks (not people in ducksuits) in their club is going to change that.)

    I can’t say it any better. As far as the rest of your comment goes, I agree with that as well.

  • Dave

    “(Yes, I’m really sick and tired of the insinuation (and, yes, you are insinuating it) that anyone outside of DE had any say in the matter.) ”

    I live in Delaware and if you don’t think outside forces (TPE, Palin, DeMint, NRA) had an outsized impact on the results of our primary, I’d like to inform you that you are incorrect. People assumed that someone like Palin or DeMint would vet anyone they endorsed. The TPE spent a ton of money in a state where it doesn’t take a ton of money to have an impact. 95%+ of O’Donnell’s money came from out of state. So there was an extreme outside impact.

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    On the other hand, you had Karl Rove bad mouthing her the night of her primary win.. The NRSC spending the better part of that next day trying to get out in front of rumors that they weren’t going to support her.. And the drama with Mike Castle and the Delaware GOP.

    Any wonder where she might get the feeling that they were out to get her?

  • Dave

    She would never have won the primary without outside help. (By the way, where were Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint during the general? About as far from DE as possible.)

    And all of the sympathy for Christine O’Donnell will evaporate when people read the Politico report that she had almost million dollars left over after the election. How can she criticize anyone else for their lack of support when she didn’t even try as hard as she could?

    Fraud.

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