In answering a question at her Delaware Senate debate tonight with Democrat Chris Coons Tea Party movement favorite Christine O’Donnell stumbled badly:
This won’t help her in her race with Coons — who is some 19 points ahead of her. She had some other problems in the debate, too:
O’Donnell said her controversial past statements, including that she had “dabbled in witchcraft” when she was younger, were not relevant in a campaign that should be focused on the economy.
“This election cycle should not be about comments I made on a comedy show over a decade and a half ago,” she said.
Fair enough..But…
But one of those past statements came back to haunt O’Donnell during the debate: Her claim that evolution is a “myth,” which she refused to repudiate or reaffirm despite being pressed repeatedly.
O’Donnell told a skeptical Wolf Blitzer, one of the debate’s moderators, that she had chosen to open her first ad by saying “I am not a witch” in an effort “to put it to rest, to put it behind me.”
Down 19 points to Coons according to a CNN/Time poll released on the day of the debate, O’Donnell went on the offensive, at one point calling Coons a Marxist. She based the claim in part on a reference Coons made to himself when he was a student.
“I would argue there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist belief,” she said, arguing that Coons had acknowledged that he learned his beliefs from a Marxist professor.
Coons responded that his characterization of himself in college as a “bearded Marxist” had been a joke, adding: “I am not now nor have I been anything but a clean-shaven capitalist.”
Calling someone a Marxist and having the allegation just sit there is a lot easier to do on a radio talk show, Fox News show with Republican public relations man host Sean Hannity or in a campaign speech than it is when they’re sitting right in front of you with a non-Fox News moderator asking serious, not-PR questions.
O’Donnell has become a kind of media, comedians’ and (I admit it!) blog fascination due to her comments about being a witch and various other assertions that have made her her (at the very least) quirky.
She’s not a kind of ominous force, seemingly channeling and expressing the basest sentiments as is the case with New York’s Carl Paladino — arguably the most reprehensible candidate of this election cycle.
Paladino is making the legendarily hard-nosed and hard-ball playing Andrew Cuomo look as lofty and gentle as Mahatma Gandhi.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza argues that O’Donnell needs to be put in perspective:
It’s also not unique to this election cycle that long-shot candidates — hello Ron Paul! — draw attention that outruns their actual chances.
But, it is important to keep O’Donnell in context. She is a decided long shot to even come close to being competitive in Delaware, and there are at least 15 Senate races that are closer, according to public polling, at the moment.
Covering her is one thing. Covering her as though her race will decide the fate of the Senate is quite another.
Regardless, she’s now a multi-platform media star. For all of the wrong reasons.
UPDATE: She also seemed to confused Iraq and Afghanistan:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.