Former GOP Tea Party Sarah Palin favorite candidate for Senate Christine O’Donnell has responded to news that the FBI is investigating her by suggesting it’s part of a plot by political thugs such as Vice President Joe Biden to bring her down. But the Frum Forum’s Noah Kristula Green suggests that O’Donnell brought down the otherwise healthy Delaware GOP. Some highlights:
The FBI is investigating whether Christine O’Donnell misused campaign funds during her Senate run. While we wait to find out whether she’s guilty on that count, we already know that she is guilty in another way: for destroying and cannibalizing the Republican Party in Delaware. Despite the media’s continuing fascination with O’Donnell (to the point where even Chris Coons is still asked about her) less attention has been paid to O’Donnell’s negative effect on the down-ticket races in Delaware, or to the fact that the damage she did will last for several election cycles. There has also been no attempt to hold accountable the conservative media figures who endorsed O’Donnell.
O’Donnell had a consistently negative effect on the close down-ticket races in Delaware. Republican Party officials in the state who spoke to FrumForum on and off the record expressed great frustration with the damage she caused. O’Donnell did this in several different ways. She cost the GOP several candidates in the Delaware State House, giving the Democrats a super-majority. She hurt the campaign for the Republican nominee for State Treasurer. She boosted a Democratic party which has been growing stronger in the state, and solidified in the minds of many voters the view that the Republican party was an atavistic and unserious party, which the mainstream had rejected. In a year when Republicans had a wave to take advantage of and the opportunity to grow across the entire country, O’Donnell failed her party and brought it down.
The election results show several close Delaware State House races where Democrats won by incredibly small margins. Not only were the percentages that separated these races very small, they were also small in absolute terms. The closeness of these races speaks to the success of the Democrats’ get out the vote efforts, which were driven largely by motivating voters against O’Donnell.
AND:
Many of the candidates who were recruited to run in this cycle did so with the expectation that Mike Castle would be on the top of the ticket. Not only did the Republicans have a weak candidate on the top of the ticket, Democrats (and independents) were given more motivation to vote against O’Donnell and the entire GOP ticket. Neither Chris Coons nor any of the other Democrats on the ticket were considered exceptionally inspiring among the Democrats. One Republican told FrumForum: “There really was no motivation for Democrats to vote in this election until the O’Donnell thing happened.”
But didn’t strategists talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity prefer O’Donnell?
And the damage she inflicted could be long term: it was a perfect situation for the Dems to ingratiate themselves with independent voters (those voters who are dumb when they vote for the side a partisan doesn’t want, wishy washy when they won’t support someone just because they have a party label in front of their name, and brilliant and thoughtful when they vote for the partisan’s candidate):
In addition to the lost opportunities in 2010, O’Donnell’s run caused damage that will last beyond the midterms. The Republican brand within Delaware has gone from just being unpopular to being toxic. Republicans who spoke to FrumForum described the Republican party meetings that are attended mainly by senior citizens, as well as Tea Partiers who view college degree holders with disdain. In this environment, professionals and businessmen in Delaware are finding the Democrats to be the more appealing option. One person bluntly stated that the Democrats figured out how to win in Delaware simply by nominating candidates “who are not crazy left-wingers.”
The Republicans who spoke to FrumForum noted that this election allowed Democrats to build on their efforts to attract independents and even Republicans to support Democratic candidates. The 2008 Democratic primary for governor was very close. In that race, voting in the primary (and registering as a Democrat) became the real way to influence the result since it was apparent the eventual Democratic nominee would win the general election. (This is a dilemma that Republicans who live in Washington D.C. should be intimately familiar with.)
With the Delaware GOP’s voting base now down to its most radical elements, and with fewer qualified candidates being cultivated to run for higher office, it is difficult to imagine a mainstream candidate winning the GOP primary — let alone a general election — in future election cycles. The fact that Joe Biden will be on the presidential ticket in 2012 will not help.
This carries real consequences at the national level. Incumbency is always hard to overcome and Delaware’s incumbents gain an additional advantage.
He concludes:
The FBI will determine if O’Donnell was guilty of misusing campaign funds, but it is already clear and she and a large segment of the conservative media are guilty of causing significant harm and pain to the Republican party of Delaware.
O’Donnell’s appearances on various Sunday talk shows to talk about the FBI inquiry and paint it as a political hit operation had the ineffable aroma of a pre-emptive political strike, particularly when she hinted there could be other things said about her.
In the end, she proved to be less of a political symbol than a talk show symbol: indicative of a talk show host who doesn’t want to aggregate interests but saws off a specific demographic and appeal to it and deliver it to advertisers. In her case, she sawed off a narrow part of the electorate and appealed to it and scared other key parts of the electorate away from her and her party. And it didn’t help when it came out that in a flippant comment on Bill Maher’s cable show she once said she was a witch (which inspired lots of ridicule inspiring links to songs such as THIS).
The bottom line: even if O’Donnell twitched her nose and charged it’s all a witch hunt, she did short and long term damage to her party. No wonder Karl Rove was so cranky.
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.