O’Donnell: Shaking up the status quo (Local paper providing nice profile)

Cape Gazette ^ | Oct 25, 2010 | Rob Kunzig

[facedodge]

If months of fighting uphill have worn on Christine O’Donnell, it doesn’t show: the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate recently waded into a crowd of supporters at Fisherman’s Wharf in Lewes all smiles, bright and effervescent.

The people waiting for her are more than supporters – they’re fans, nearly every one clad in the powder-blue campaign T-shirt. They lean in close when they talk, speaking in hushed, reverent tones. One presents a copy of Peter Lillback’s “George Washington’s Sacred Fire,” a 1,200-page doorstop about Washington’s Christian faith.

O’Donnell is a political outsider, she said, and her supporters are outsiders, too, people disillusioned with party politics.

“What my campaign represents is putting political power back in the hands of the people,” she said. “And that’s why we’ve earned the support of grassroots folks all across the state – people outside of the political system.”

O’Donnell was catapulted to national fame after upsetting party favorite Mike Castle in the primary. Since then, support from the Delaware GOP has been tepid; Castle refuses to endorse her candidacy.

“The state party has chosen to sit this one out,” she said. “Same thing on the national level.” Which is not to say she’s hurting for financial support – as of Sept. 30, O’Donnell’s campaign had raised $4 million. O’Donnell said her supporters include a number of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary.

While her populist message taps into the sentiment espoused by California-based political action committee Tea Party Express, she shied from calling herself a tea party candidate. Her constituency, she said, is anyone fed up with the status quo.

[JohnnyP]

Is Laura Ingraham on board with COD?

Just heard her talking about the Tea Party candidates and how “they might not all be the best candidates, but that’s ok,” blah blah.