Reason’s Mike Moynihan:
At Sunday’s Tea Party rally in Washington, I overheard a few effusive endorsements of Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, the longshot conservative running against the very moderate Republican Congressman Mike Castle for Vice President Joe Biden’s old Senate seat. The race was once considered an easy layup for Delaware Republicans, but with the rise of O’Donnell, a crackpot of the first order, it looks increasingly likely that Democrat Chris Coons will be packing the U-Haul for D.C. in November. As stats wizard Nate Silver points out, if O’Donnell wins today’s primary, the Republicans lose the seat in November: “Whereas Mr. Castle is nearly a 95 percent favorite against the Democratic nominee, Chris Coons, according to last week’s FiveThirtyEight forecasting model, Ms. O’Donnell would have just a 17 percent chance of winning a race against Mr. Coons.”
And the intellectual case against O’Donnell is overwhelming. A précis for those who have avoided the Delaware drama: O’Donnell lied about attending a Master’s degree program at Princeton University; claimed that her political enemies are creeping in the bushes outside her house; is opposed to the sinister habit of masturbation; is a supporter of the “ex-gay” movement, despite the inconvenient revelation that her former staffer Wade Richards “returned” to homosexuality and denounced those peddling “cures” for his sexuality; filed a $6 million lawsuit against the conservative group ISI for “gender discrimination”; was denounced by her former campaign manager as a “fraud” who uses campaign donations to pay rent and utility bills; and has implied that her Republican opponent is gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
As the former head of the clumsily named Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT), O’Donnell was the Tipper Gore of the 1990s, attending lewd and lascivious rock concerts just to tell stoned, Satanist teenagers that they were going to hell. “Walking through the crowd I also noticed more pentagrams than crosses around the teenage necks,” she gasped. At a 1997 music festival in Washington, D.C., the Catholic killjoy “distributed thousands of brochures with information on the failure rate of condoms, on AIDS, on sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, pornography and the movement of former homosexuals.”
Can anyone explain to me how this description of O’Donnell’s views is substantively different from pretty main stream views within the current GOP? They are certainly no different from the insane gibberish you hear and see on t-shirts and signs at tea party events or C-PAC or anywhere on a Focus on the Family flier.
Hell, over half that stuff could be attributed to the Queen Bee herself, Sarah Palin, but you would have to throw in exorcisms and witch doctors and membership in a separatist movement. Paranoia? Palin openly worries about “moles in the crowd,” let alone outside in the bushes, but if you ask Graeme Frost, you can find wingnuts in the bushes, too. Did Moynihan miss the McConnell primary, where they openly whispered that he was gay? Ask Lindsey Graham about that. Making a buck or two and living rent free- has he not heard of the C-Street house where lots of folks lived rent free and used interns as servants? Is he unaware that the last Republican administation spent hundreds of millions fighting porn and funding abstinence only education?
None of the things listed in here that make O’Donnell “crazy” are any different from commonly held beliefs in the current Republican party. Is Moynihan just now realizing that the “limited government advocates” that make up the tea party are the same batshit insane people running the GOP? And that these are the crazies they have been fluffing the last year? There is a “reason” I am exceptionally volatile with the smirking retardation that passes as thought at Reason magazine these days- these are the people you are empowering. O’Donell isn’t an outlier.
Or is it just because O’Donnell is going to lose?
General Stuck
Sounds like a run of the mill Palin grade wingnut to me. But it is Delaware, and I suspect they are pro masturbation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What I can’t figure out, does anyone really think Mike Castle won’t (“wouldn’t”, but I’ll be shocked if O’Donnell beats him, as the internet tradition goes, Jeebus doesn’t love me that much), Castle won’t be a good little filibusterbot, just like the Queens of Maine?
the funniest thing to come out of this race has to be
Linda Featheringill
Yes, she is going to lose. One way or another.
It would be fun if she won the primary, though.
Linda Featheringill
Speaking of primaries:
Where can I go to get updates on the vote counts, etc?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Linda Featheringill: TPM does an updated vote count, but I’m guessing the cables will be covering this one, too. Tweety was hyperventilating about it this afternoon.
Geoduck
As the General said above, I don’t recall the GOP officially coming out against masturbation. That must be where they draw the line.
Dreggas
please, please FSM, let this nut win.
beltane
I wish she would have encountered me at a concert back in the day. Point and laugh, point and laugh.
Excuse me while I go put a pentagram around my neck. That’s just the thing to wear to watch the vote count come in.
wasabi gasp
It’s her Kenyan anti-colonial world-view.
schrodinger's cat
O’Donnell sounds nuttier than a fruit cake. One thing I don’t hear discussed much in the media is how these fruit loops don’t spell trouble for the GOP come November. How does Nate Silver account for this in models?
ETA: Won’t these candidates lose seats where a slightly saner version of a Republican could have easily won. I am thinking of Angle in Nevada for example. How many seats is the GOP going to lose because of the crazy candidates they are fielding.
quaint irene
I love it!
***************
Veering a bit, just wanted to comment on that whole ‘failure rate of condoms,’ This argument always baffles me. Whether it comes from a political or a religious mouthpiece, it’s just plain stupid. It’s as if someone says that since seat belts can’t prevent 100% of injuries in a car accident, it automatically follows that nobody should ever bother wearing a seat belt.
beltane
Does anyone else get the sense that Christine O’Donnell and Ross Douthat would make a perfect couple? They could sleep on a bed of nails and practice a little mortification of the flesh together. It would make baby Jesus weep with joy.
Davis X. Machina
@quaint irene: They don’t want you, ahem, ‘driving the car’ in the first place, so to speak….
MikeJ
Yes. If a solid, do as you’re told republican vote was going to win, Reason(sic) wouldn’t be cheerleading for a different solid, do as you’re told republican.
Republicans all vote they way they’re ordered to. There’s no difference between them, except electability.
Adam Lang
No, the argument is, since seat belts can’t prevent 100% of injuries in a car accident, the only morally acceptable thing to do is to refrain from driving.
Except that I actually agree that refraining from driving is a good idea. Sex, on the other hand…
Villago Delenda Est
No can do.
The GOP has gone batshit insane.
jl
I pick number two.
Please tell me what have I won, John.
A case of teabags for a fully paid deluxe holiday Trip to Australia?
MikeJ
@Adam Lang: You should always pull over to the side, stop the car, and apply the parking brake before having sex.
SiubhanDuinne
@Linda Featheringill:
::sings:: One way or another, I’m gonna lose ya, I’m gonna lose ya lose ya lose ya lose ya . . . ”
/trying to be hip
Omnes Omnibus
@Linda Featheringill: Try this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Linda Featheringill: Try this.
Zam
@quaint irene: I’ve been told seatbelts cause the deaths and injuries, so I just assume latex is made of aids with syphilis for lube.
Silver
I think the difference with O’Donnell (and some of the GOP newcomers) is that she actually believes her own bullshit.
Mark S.
Is O’Donnell married? Five minutes of googling and even going to her goddamned campaign website revealed nothing.
I did learn that she claimed to the IRS to have only made $5,000 last year. She’s a pretty fishy character.
calling all toasters
Shorter Moynihan: fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap… WHO THE HELL SAID TO STOP?!
General Stuck
@Mark S.: Nope, never married nor touched herself.
Svensker
@Davis X. Machina:
LOL
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: I call both BS and shenanigans.
ruemara
She may be crazy, but she’s not their brand o’ crazy. Plus, you know the GOP is the party of repressed sex freaks; this chick wants to ba masturbation? What’s next, unnecessary taxation of double layered wetsuits and dildos? teh horrors.
whetstone
They’re sincere?
O’Donnell isn’t housetrained. I think Sharron Angle and Rand Paul are at the current line in the sand for too crazy for primetime.
SoulCatcher
If she wins, I wonder how many of her supporters will “rub one out” in celebration of her victory?
Blotto von Bismarck
Masturbation: the one thing the invisible hand isn’t allowed to guide.
Silver
@Blotto von Bismarck:
I find it’s best when I sit on the invisible hand for 20 minutes first.
It’s called a “Stranger” and it’s wonderful.
clone12
Didn’t realize she was the crazy lady that used to show up on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect….
ppcli
“Can anyone explain to me how this description of O’Donnell’s views is substantively different from pretty main stream views within the current GOP? ”
a) She sued someone for gender discrimination.
b) She claimed to have gone to Princeton. The fact that she was lying isn’t enough to redeem her for this sin.
Poison in the Tea Party’s eyes. I’m half – joking about the second, but the first really was used as a cudgel to bash her by (I believe it was) the Weekly Standard.
I suspect that the “no masturbation” view is one that a lot of Christian conservatives would be happy with, but it’s one of those issues that they like to soft-pedal, because they are (at least currently) political losers. Compare: restricting birth control, or imposing criminal penalties on the women who have abortions as well as any doctors that perform them. These are patient people, who have learned to prepare the ground before they spring the trap.
Blotto von Bismarck
@Silver: Typical treefrog, wanting to cut off circulation to the invisible hand.
celticdragonchick
AP just called it for the barking moonbat O’Donnell.
Some anecdotes that hard attacks from Mike Castle on her extreme views actually backfired.
Damn.
Uloborus
@celticdragonchick:
That is why the GOP is in trouble. Their hard-core base, the people that decide their primaries, are the fruit loop tribalists. Attacking one of their own for being too crazy brings them out in force.
bob in sj
Peak Wingnut? The great Republican crack up?
Brachiator
But here is the thing that I don’t get. Why are Republicans voting for such obvious goofballs? Why is the GOP allowing this takeover of their party? And if the nuttier candidates ultimately lose, what will tea baggers do for an encore?
I don’t think I’ve seen a political party go crazy in public before. It is quite a sight to see.
asiangrrlMN
@wasabi gasp: Win!
@jl: Man, you’re funny.
She’s a bit priggish. That just won’t do for a Republican woman. She can talk about abstinence, whatnot, but she must be fairly bursting with fertility herself.
brantl
They’re only real bitch is that she can’t win. That’s all.