Exit Polls: the surprise in Delaware (Sorry, trolls: Mike Castle probably would've lost to Coons)

CNN ^ | 11/2/2010 | Rebecca Sinderbrand

[Qbert]

(CNN) – The thing about Delaware is: it's no Kentucky. The Tea Party's first Senate loss of the night may be no big surprise - the only question heading into tonight's been how big a victory margin Chris Coons would capture over Christine O'Donnell. But the exit polls lay out the political and demographic roadblocks facing any Tea Party favorite here.

[Snip]

If GOP voters are feeling any buyer's remorse, they may take some solace in one surprising stat: despite pre-election polls that showed longtime Republican Rep. Mike Castle handily beating Coons in a hypothetical matchup, the voters who turned out today said they would still probably have sent Coons to Washington over Castle, backing him 44-43 percent.

[Vigilanteman]

It could be that. Or it could be a simple grudging respect of conservatives. They know they cannot bamboozle them and get them to play along with them no matter what.

RINO's, on the other hand, can be bamboozled frequently. Then, when the RINO's occasionally draw the line, the libtards erupt with anger because that wasn't the outcome they were expecting.

It is sort of like an adolescent brat-- they will show grudging respect to a strict, but consistent parent. But they absolutely go ballistic when they cannot get a normally permissive parent to go along with them.

[ari-freedom]

Fortunately he won and she lost. The one thing worst than a RINO is a real conservative that makes everyone other decent conservative look bad by association.

[kevao]

Experience? Do tea party conservatives still believe in that anymore?

Well, as a Tea Party conservative, I would say, ideally yes. At the same time, however, I would choose a completely inexperienced conservative over an experienced Pelosi or Reid. In a heartbeat.

[SaraJohnson]

Experience in Washington can mean different things and most of the time it is not good experience for the American people and the constitution. New blood is essential for freedom because it curtail the elitism that has just about killed the GOP. I hope we take out a batch of “experienced” Rinos next election, too!

[ari-freedom]

“We should all learn as much from the wins as losses and move ahead. “

The GOP needs to understand that we’ve had enough of RINO’s but the tea party also needs to understand that we need representatives with real experience and resumes that can be taken seriously.
I do give christine credit for trying. Hopefully a serious conservative will conclude that there is still an opportunity in DE.

[skeeter]

one thing worst than a RINO is a real conservative that makes everyone other decent conservative look bad by association.

Most other odonnell critics are louder than normal today because she lost.

But youre glad she lost because you believe because of her loss decent conservatives(meaning you, presumably) stand to look better.

I'll have to give that one some more thought.

[Callahan]

But I don’t want to see more Mike Castle’s to replace the Christine O’Donnell’s!!! I want to see more Pat Toomey’s and Chris Christie’s. We can win blue states with real conservatives but only if they are on the ball.

Exactly. I'm sick of having to defend un-vetted candidates on issues of basic competence. It was so disappointing when Palin made it easy for the media to turn her into a punchline.

[truthfreedom]

I think that Christine is called “tea party” because she got the tea party express endorse and the tea party express money before the primary. That tea party express activity was completely essential for Christine at that time, and when Palin jumped in, it was clear that Christine was a tea party brand candidate.

The truth is though, Christine is a Social Conservative. Her background is 100% Christian. There’s really nothing on her resume involving fighting for small government. In 2010, there’s really no “religious right” or “Christian Coalition” candidates running. The outsider candidates where the tea party brand. And so Christine was tea party brand.

I personally feel that the tea party should not be either Libertarian or Conservative Christian, but should include both. Christine is the perfect example of both tea party and Conservative Christian. She lost in a state with fewer conservatives than any state than Hawaii or Rhode Island.
That really shouldn’t be a shocker.

Another thing to consider off topic a bit, is that Delaware is not Pro Life at all. Not even close. And Christine is 100% Pro Life. It wasn’t explicitly an issue, but on almost every social conservative issue, Delaware is about 60/40, and Christine took the 40.

What a lot of us assumed was that her hardcore positions would get awesome turnout with Conservatives. I think that’s true. And then we looked at generic numbers (+15, +19) and then said “well, we’re so hardcore Conservative, our Conservatives will all be voting for us.” And then we said “look at that tidal wave”. Combine huge turnout with Conservatives with apathetic Democrats who weren’t voting, and we win.

There were a lot of anti Christines here. None of them made a convincing argument, or really any argument at all, that what did happen was going to happen. And what did happen (I think, haven’t seen data), was that the Democrat turnout was high in Delaware, not like in other states, but high, and they weren’t apathetic, but they were voting against Christine and Social Conservativism.

A lot of the “jokes” were really the left’s way of saying “oh, no, we know exactly what you mean when you say that separation of church and state isn’t in the Constitution. We don’t really feel like arguing that point. We don’t have to. We liberals all know that we put it there in 1947, and we know that it isn’t there, it doesn’t belong there, but we want it there. We’re going to tell moderates that you’re stupid, and it’ll work with some. But what is actually going to happen is that every single liberal in DE is as scared of you as the conservatives are excited, and those liberals most certainly do have a reason to vote against you.”

What we didn’t realize was that the jokes weren’t for them. They were scared about Christine, and they did vote against her.

Something very similar happened in Maine, but the Conservative tea party Governor LePage did win. Polls less than a week ago had LePage up 40 to 21 to 21. He ended up winning by 1.5 points. The liberal Democrats who were supporting the liberal Democrat Mitchell decided that “stop LePage” was necessary, and they all decided in the last week to support the Independent Cutler. Republican LePage got 38.33%, Independent Cutler got 36.49%, and the Democrat Mitchell got 19.12%. Hooray for early voting in Maine, because the big, rapid swing from Mitchell to Cutler took place in the last week, after a lot of early votes had been cast for Mitchell instead of Cutler.

[mrsmith]

Now you’re saying he wasn’t even a good enough candidate to raise more money for the primary after all his years in the House?????????????

The FEC pre-primary reports show him with 12 times the money of “the flawed candidate” that beat him.

If I can get one remark to the point out of you- why did he lose the primary?

[SaraJohnson]

She was that bad, huh, that you would rather than a bearded marxist than her?

[Tribune7]

Yeah, but if Castle won, we would have had Castle.

[CharlesWayneCT]

17 points. It’s the candidate. I love how people who obviously have lived a life on this planet can somehow postulate a different reality where the difference between losing and winning an election is how strongly supportive Carl Rove or the “Delaware Republican Party” is for their nominee.

If it was that easy, we’d elect 100 senators. Unfortunately, in the real world we actually have to find candidates that can get a majority of the VOTERS to support them, not the political party or an over-hyped pundit.

O’Donnell is a kind of flaky individual with what seems to be a good heart, but who doesn’t seem very good at managing finances, doing simple math (like telling the difference between winning and losing the vote in a county), or even being able to project a good conservative image.

Nor was she able to pull together a winning campaign team; some would say she was hampered by not paying her previous team and turning them against her, but in any case neither she nor her team seemed to understand how horribly wrong her first campaign commercial was, or how easily it could have been fixed.

In fact, it might well be that the democrats, by emphasising the delaware race, sending their top hitters there and getting it on national news, were able to kill several other of our candidates by association. Toomey definitely spoke as it O’Donnell made HIS life a lot harder, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the “average voter” took O’Donnell as the “face of the tea party” and were turned against Buck, Angle, and Miller.

[CharlesWayneCT]

No, Castle would have won easily. He would have not only done much better with the people who ended up showing up than O’Donnell did, but would have likely turned out a lot more moderates who decided to stay home or not vote for either of the candidates.

[wideawake]

Now you’re saying he wasn’t even a good enough candidate to raise more money for the primary after all his years in the House?????????????

No, I'm saying that if he had been the nominee, he would not have been able to raise $5 million from all over the country the way O'Donnell did.

He was well-known and liked in Delaware, but had zero appeal for the more conservative national party and would not be able to rely on outside moneyThe FEC pre-primary reports show him with 12 times the money of “the flawed candidate” that beat him.

As I was saying, he was husbanding his resources because he believed that he needed to keep his powder dry for the general election.

If I can get one remark to the point out of you- why did he lose the primary?

GOP primary voters tend to be the most conservative voters in their state or district.

Castle is too liberal for most Republicans - against a vocal conservative opponent, he put up a tough fight but he lost.

[truthfreedom]

Well, the Democrats chose to make anti Christine their primary message. They won what they won with that message and lost what they lost.

We won some, we lost some. I think most Republicans would say that the results were good ones.

“Made it closer than it had to be” Right. So? He still won.
If the Democrats didn’t have Christine to talk about, they would’ve had to come up with something else. That other thing might’ve worked in PA. What they did talk about did not work. We got the PA seat.

[Tribune7]

We need accomplished regular Americans who have jobs, who work, who have homes and families and aren't interested in talking about masturbation and witchcraft

What we have to learn is that just as Dems bend over backward to defend their people when they rape and wave their wing-wangs at women they've just met and snort a little blow, we have to defend our people when things are thrown at them out of context from unserious interviews from a decade ago.

Frankly, unless we had a really aggressive, tough-minded, take-no-prisoner senate leadership which we don't, not getting the senate is probably a blessing.

And I'm very convinced that it is better to have Coons outside our camp than Castle in it. We don't need to give Lindsey Graham a stronger hand for the compromises he wants to cook up.

Christine O'Donnell didn't do anything wrong.

[wideawake]

Yeah, but if Castle won, we would have had Castle.

That would have been a definite negative, but it could have been outweighed by the positive of having McConnell as the majority leader instead of Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer.

[truthfreedom]

We should run people like Christine O’Donnell all over the place. The media will freak out. They’ll attack those candidates. Many of those candidates will lose. I want conservative sports stars, rock stars, actors. All conservative. Run them in places that we can’t win unless we run a RINO. We don’t want RINOs NO MORE RINOS. In places where a conservative can win, has won, like PA, they win.

We had 6 seats that had races with boring candidates who lost - NY, NY, MD, HI, VT, OR. If a Christine O’Donnell type was there, maybe Christine herself wouldn’t have been taking the hits she was taking.

Exciting young inexperienced attractive conservatives in states we’re supposed to lose. Attracting fire from the national media.

How much did the National Democrat Party have to spend to defeat Wargotz in MD? Nothing. If it was Christine O’Donnell in MD? They would’ve spent a lot more than nothing.

There are a lot more Conservatives than Liberals in this country. Push it hard.

[Darkwolf377]

Frankly, unless we had a really aggressive, tough-minded, take-no-prisoner senate leadership which we don't, not getting the senate is probably a blessing.

Christine O'Donnell didn't do anything wrong.

You had me until that last line.

Christine O'Donnell is incompatible with the kind of aggressive, tough-minded representation you want. I've heard her speak in debate situations and friendly FOX ones, and she doesn't have the intellectual heft for the job. Not just to be a senator, but the KIND of senator you correctly describe.

We can't be wishy-washy if we want our leadership (and the rank-and-file) to be warriors, not little maidens who talk about witches and "I'm you."

[mrsmith]

"Christine! Christine! Christine!"

No. the Delaware Republican Party was sick. That's why Castle lost an election he had the money and influence to breeze through.
He couldn't bring 'moderates' to the polls in the primary. Where were they? Voting in Coons' cakewalk?

O'Donnell was the candidate that would emerge from the wreckage- and it was a wreck: Castle WAS the Delaware Republican Party and he was gone.

No, to get a winning candidate there has to be a healthy system. You two are confusing the effect with the cause.