DOVER, Delaware — Checkout time is noon at the Fairfield Inn here — headquarters for the Christine O’Donnell campaign — and the lobby is fully of campaign staffers, reporters, producers, etc. Christine’s dad just bummed a smoke from me. He’s supposed to be quit, but on such an occasion, his daughter didn’t object to the old guy having a celebratory smoke.
What a night we had last night, huh? The final night of the primary season, and the Tea Party stuffed a torpedo right up John Cornyn’s tailpipe. Also, I got linked by Michelle Malkin.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em, I say.
Mike Castle is playing sore loser — RINOs never lose gracefully — but I’m far more troubled by reports that Cornyn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee won’t support O’Donnell. Their phone number is 202-675-6000, and I think they might need some friendly persuasion. IYKWIMAITYD.
Up in New York’s 23rd District, last word was that Doug Hoffman — the guy who started this whole year of wild Tea Party action — was losing by less than 500 votes to a rich-boy GOP establishment candidate. That hurts, especially because Hoffman’s former campaign manager Matt Moran was the big winner here with Christine last night.
On the bright side, Charles Lollar won the nomination to take on Steny Hoyer in Maryland’s 5th District. Semper fi, baby.
Everybody’s asking, “What does it mean?” There was a reporter here from the UK Guardian this morning who said that Christine’s victory is the hottest story in Europe now. I don’t yet claim to have obtained Final Wisdom as to the meaning of O’Donnell’s victory, but will remind you of something I said last week:
Do Delaware’s pro-lifers they know that Mike Castle gets only a 10% score from the National Right to Life Committee? Do these pro-life voters know that Mike Castle was one of only 11 Republicans who voted against a law that would have made it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for abortion without parental notification? . . .
One Catholic reporter argues that those pro-life voters made a difference, so don’t believe the media hype that social conservatives don’t matter for Tea Party candidates. From my column today for The American Spectator:
Christine O’Donnell did not merely defeat Mike Castle in Tuesday’s Senate primary. She beat the Republican establishment, both nationally and in Delaware, and she beat a veritable army of naysayers who said she couldn’t do it.
O’Donnell also beat a vicious negative attack campaign into which her Republican opponents dumped every bit of trash they could find. Yet this had no apparent effect on the Tea Party-backed, Sarah Palin-endorsed candidate, who won with 53 percent of the vote to Castle’s 47 percent. Her little-known Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, can’t possibly hit O’Donnell with anything worse than she got from the GOP establishment. . . .
Read the whole thing. And please hit the tip jar. Checkout time is noon, and I’m going home.
UPDATE: Maximum donation? Wow. That was quick. Blogs get results! But I think they need to give her triple-max, as an apology. Call 202-675-6000 and tell ’em what you think.
