Posted on 12/03/2010 1:11:03 PM PST by jaguar21
Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell criticized the national GOP for not spending money on her campaign, but the long-shot Senate nominee was sitting on a mountain of cash.
O’Donnell reported having $924,800 in the bank after the election was over, according to her post-general election campaign fundraising report, filed Thursday.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45933.html#ixzz175HeoFyS
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I am referring to the personal attacks. There is a big difference. You know this.
My sense that you would accept no one other than a super hero as a Senator seems to be correct. I've known a LOT of people in all walks of life and I've known very few, even those thought to be "extra ordinary" to actually be extraordinary other than in limited, narrow ways.
I'd much prefer my Senator to be honest and logical, with common sense. Those are the traits lacking right now with our extraordinary cabal of progressives, marxists and RINOs ruining the country.
That's why I support electing good, ordinary people to all levels of government. So that's why I'm concerned that they wouldn't want anything to do with people who have attitudes like yours.
What a piker Miss O’Donnell is!
Castle had twice as much left over, and no pending legal cases.
She is just not avarivious enough to make it in politics.
My "approach to conservatism" is based on creating and promoting a solid intellectual foundation for conservatism; and on finding solid candidates at all levels who understand and can effectively act on that intellectual foundation. Ronald Reagan was that sort of conservative.
If that's really what you want to reject ... well, you're beyond hope in that case.
I agree with this, I perhaps wasn't clear, being too brief.
But we need appropriate new blood at all political levels. This is absolutely crucial
I'm not here to relive the O'Donnell battle either. That's over. We're discussing what I'm concerned about so that's A-OK.
Those ads were scheduled to run just a couple of days before the election. She may not have had time to spend it if that's the case.
I see no evidence for what you claim in the posts you make, as I can make exactly the same claim as you and we see things 180 degrees opposite it seems...
No, I don't know this. One person's informed critical opinion of a candidate's CV, is another person's "personal attack".
It's politics. In the US, it's a blood sport. That's not my preference, but that's the political reality. Under the scrutiny of a statewide election, O'Donnell withered like a cut flower in the hot sun. And, it was plainly predictable it would happen to anyone who gave her credentials an unbiased once-over.
If you want to be Senator, you have to have more than a winning smile, a firm handshake and a few throwaway lines. You have to have a resume that will hold up to scrutiny. She didn't.
Sorry, but that comes as no surprise to me.
I can make exactly the same claim as you and we see things 180 degrees opposite it seems
I can accept some of the blame for that. But not all of it. A number of your comments on this thread are just not very compelling, and many of them still seem to be motivated by that inexplicable devotion that some folks have toward Ms. O'Donnell.
In one sentence you say it's not an attack, in the next you admit it's a blood sport. I can handle blood sports, FRiend.
Part of what animates me is that Free Republic is, as Jim Rob is reminding us more and more often, a place where we are people on the SAME TEAM discussing how to further the Constitutional conservative movement. Now, there is plenty of room for disagreement there, but it sure would help if you could distinguish between disagreements among team members on strategy and arguments - especially personal attacks - between antagonists. Remember that we always have an audience here.
The lurkers matter. This is something I've learned well in my (relatively) short time here.
Yeah, well excuse me but you clearly don't get it then. I couldn't vote for Miss O'Donnell (not from that state.) I heard some negatives about her background, and I am not here to call her a saint. But I can CLEARLY tell the difference between a post-game political analysis and a personal trashing of someone with "delusions of grandeur" as someone put it.
My concern is to put my $.02 in about calming down some of the friendly-fire conservative bashing that is going on here. We're already at war with the left and the RINOs. Now it is getting hard to tell the FReepers from the trolls. Several of us have discussed it. It is depressing. We're hoping people will notice and ratchet it down a bit.
“But aren't’t you sick of all of the garbage that comes out about politicians. Just once wouldn't’t you like to have one be honest and do the right thing.”
All the accusations about her during the campaign were Bogus. She is honest and did the right thing. Now, if you are talking about the left over money, you are convicting her before she even spends the money. I am quite sure she will spend the money legally.
I hope she has great success in whatever she does. I'll buy her book. She is exactly what we need in government. I hope she runs again.
Paragraphs exist for a reason. That's why those sentences were in separate paragraphs.
To O'Donnell supporters, any criticism of her was immediately labeled an "attack" irrespective of how deeply rooted in truth and logic that criticism may have been. Put another way, any critical comment was an attack. That's wholly unhealthy to any political movement, the conservative movement included.
The reference to "blood sport" was with respect to the scrutiny ANY candidate faces in a general statewide race. It's brutal. And, to people who were more than just casual political observers - like Rove - it was plainly self-evident that O'Donnell was going to disintegrate in a general election. He was right.
"Now, there is plenty of room for disagreement there, "
If that's true, we can't be afraid to criticize conservative celebrities, even though those celebrities say the right things. Saying the right thing is only part of the political equation that leads to victory.
I can accept that. ;0) As long as the personal hostility is toned down I see great value in everybody's viewpoint (well, most everybody anyway.) Thanks for your input.
Let her payoff her debtors with the money and give herself a little nest egg and donate the rest to worthy Republicans over the next two cycles.
In 2006, the powers that be in the Delaware GOP recruited some unknown clueless RINO to be their sacrificial lamb against powerful Democrat Tom Carper. Ting is a professor who teaches classes about immigration law at the Temple University School of Law, and no prior political involvement. Nevertheless, the Delaware GOP insisted he was the only “credible” GOP candidate, and dismissed the other two Republicans (Mike Protack and Christine O’Donnell, both of whom were far more passionate and would have pushed hard in the general election) as “not serious candidates”. Ting had no clue how to run a campaign, so the state party wasted a ton of money and resources to primary to promote him, and forced him down the throats of GOP primary voters by marginalizing the other candidates. After winning the primary, Ting provided to be a complete dud in the general election, providing only token “opposition” to Castle. He had absolutely no platform to campaign on, no stance on any issue besides immigration, and basically phoned-in his campaign with a completely unappealing message of “I’m not Tom Carper” Carper steamrolled the guy and Ting finished with under 30%. Because state Republicans had wasted so much time on the worthless RINO Senate candidate, they did not pay attention to other races down the ticket and Republicans got killed down the ballot. Ting later showed his true colors and endorsed Obama in 2008, campaigning for him.
The exact same scenario played out in Illinois during the 2008 primary, only this time it was a unknown family medical doctor , Steve Sauerberg, who the state party proclaimed was the “only credible candidate”, and threw the other Republicans (who were much more vigorous choices) under the bus. Sauerberg, a political newcomer, was clueless about every issue aside from medical issues. The IL GOP likewise wasted all their time and money to get the inept Sauerberg through the primary, who went on to crash and burn in the general election against Dick Durbin, and also ran an issue-less “I’m not Dick Durbin” campaign message. And just like Ting, also finished with less than 30% of the statewide vote. A truly pathetic choice. And just like Delaware, all the lower races suffered from wasting time propping up the RINO Senate candidate.
A parallel between O’Donnell’s 2008 Senate race can also be drawn to Illinois, in this case our 2002 Senate race. At the time, the state party was pre-occupied with other stuff (in Illinois case, running Jim Ryan for Governor), so they sat on their hands in the Senate primary. As a result, a decent conservative candidate (O’Donnell in Delaware 2008, Jim Durkin in Illinois 2002), emerged as the party’s nominee. The state party was perfectly fine with that person as their nominee (and said so at the time), but provided them with zero help during the general election. Nevertheless they made a decent showing with money, and actually ran far better than the “credible” RINO the state party had insisted on in a different election cycle.
Now fast forward to 2010…the RINOs in the state party see an open seat and want to run a well-known socialist DIABLO Congressman who is completed wedded to Obama’s agenda (Castle in DE, Kirk in IL). The decent conservative who had previously been the party’s nominee says the DIABLO sucks and floats the possibility of running against the DIABLO.
Immediately, the state party savagely attacks their OWN prior nominee, claiming so-and-so is too right-wing and will scare away the voters and dredging up all kinds of lies about them. In Illinois, they succeed to beating the decent conservative into submission because they have the combine to silence him. In Delaware, the decent conservative persists and ends up on the primary ballot. In both cases, the state party uses every tool possible to assist the DIABLO in the primary campaign, and flat out hides his treasonous record and tells conservative voters that he’s a good guy at heart. They profess that we MUST elect this DIABLO to be the “41st vote” and claim that only the DIABLO can stop a “disastrous” lame duck session, etc., etc.
You can figure out the rest. Had Castle been elected, he would be right there with Mark Kirk to sit down with Dick Durbin and decide what socialist policies they want to enact together.
So while there’s no combine in Delaware, the powers-that-be at the Delaware GOP seem every bit as slimy as their IL GOP counterparts. It’s time to take out the trash there.
That’s right...keep the money.
Do NOT SHARE it with the GOP who threw you under the bus, Christine. That was for you, and you only.
Says who? In retrospect, it wasn't going to happen anyway. And the way the Senate works, 47 is a whole lot better than 41. There now won't be enough RINOs to ever break a filibuster, so some things won't even come up that would have before. Besides that, a fragile majority of 51 that would include scum like castle is worthless, because all it would do is make him a Spector like attention whore. RINOs become the most powerful members in the body with a slim majority. Screw them and anybody foolish enough to support them on the basis of bean counting. Doing what it takes to get your party to a magic numerical position , without concern for the quality of the people themselves, is the road to political ruin.
And How'd those moderates do in WA and CA again? So if a Tea Partier gets blown out in DE and a establishment moderate with worlds of credentials and hundreds of millions to spend gets blown out against a contemptible hag like Boxer in CA, has anything about the relative merits of conservatives vs. RINOs been proven in blue states?
And you're missing the best reasons to toss RINOs out in primaries: to keep future wanna be RINOs on the reservation. Do you think what happened to Castle, Bennet, Murkowski, and a few RINO congressmen might cross the minds of the Maine sisters and those like them in the coming two years when tough votes come up?
The Senate is no place for an ordinary idiot, or shouldn't be at least. The upper chamber, as envisioned by Washington, Madison, Monroe and Hamilton would be filled with extraordinary men of great learning, discernment, judgment, character and accomplishment. Many would be from quite ordinary backgrounds but their capabilities would be far from that station.
The conservative movement needs no leaders of the caliber of Christine O'Donnell. Let us all hope that we show better judgment with our support than we did in this instance.
BTW, she will not spend her remaining campaign funds on herself. Rather, she will use them to pay the rent on her “headquarters” apartment, undoubtedly nicer than the one she is living in currently, and to meet payroll to her various close relatives who will provide her permanent campaign with media and strategic consulting services.
If it is any consolation, she is very grateful to you all for your generosity.
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