Posted on 09/15/2010 7:04:36 AM PDT by La Lydia
Byron York at the Examiner: Christine O'Donnell gives GOP establishment a thumpin'. It's not every day you win the Republican Party's nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate and the Republican Party tells you to get lost. But that's exactly what happened to Christine O'Donnell here Tuesday evening. Sore losers, perhaps? Oh, you bet. But I'll focus below on the media angle. Last night, along with Christine O'Donnell and Mike Castle, there were winners and losers in media, as well. If blogs and other new media outlets were winners, I'd argue that our established beltway media were the big losers here.
Many of us, including me, probably didn't really believe Christine O'Donnell could pull it off. But what have we mostly been reading and discussing, if not fighting against, for two weeks? NRO, The Weekly Standard (TWS) and others published every negative bit of information on Christine O'Donnell they could get their hands on. That in turn told us O'Donnell was bound to lose. Only, a funny thing happened on the way to Delaware's election booths. Evidently, no one outside of the Beltway was reading our largest beltway-based, Right-side publications. Stacy McCain has a new item up at the American Spectator - This Changes Everything.
DOVER, Delaware -- Christine O'Donnell did not merely defeat Mike Castle in Tuesday's Senate primary. She beat the Republican establishment, both nationally and in Delaware, and she beat a veritable army of naysayers who said she couldn't do it.
O'Donnell also beat a vicious negative attack campaign into which her Republican opponents dumped every bit of trash they could find. Yet this had no apparent effect on the Tea Party-backed, Sarah Palin-endorsed candidate, who won with 53 percent of the vote to Castle's 47 percent.
As workers cleaned up late Tuesday night at the Elks Lodge here that hosted O'Donnell's victory celebration, longtime state GOP activist Vance Phillips said: "This changes everything."
I spoke to another high-level GOP source myself last night. He said, "I thought it would at least be close. Conventional wisdom is out the door." Until recently, much of our political conventional wisdom was formed within the beltway, was it not? However, with so much new media today, that may no longer the case.
Man, it must really suck to be in the DC-based media today, as they wake up to face their limitations in reaching the men and women of Delaware - and in essence, of America - the very people who make the difference by showing up at election booths....
Add Karl Rove to the loser list. He’s history.
I have been a loyal GOPer my whole life. That ended last night watching the RNC drones trash talk their own nominee.
Byron York and the National Review “establishment” have been out of touch with conservative America since they took over from Buckley a decade ago.
They are dinosaurs who want to be liked in DC and invited to the parties, and “respected” by the rest of the Beltway political media members.
Amen - I changed my self-description 2 years ago to “conservative”, about the same time I started telling the GOP moneyraiser callers that the party left me and I will not contribute a dime to “big GOP”.
The term, “comeuppance” comes to mind...
Colonel, USAFR
But don’t worry - they’ll be sending you letters shortly on how they need your $$$ to support the Senate candidates - dollars which they won’t be sending to Ms. O’Donnell.
And these clowns wonder why we’re fed up with them and sending our money directly to the candidates.
Rush and Levin must be popping some serious champagne corks today!
Christine must be doing something right to threaten those worthless s.o.b.'s so viscerally.
Stupidity should be painful; I mean it should be difficult to breathe and be so incapacitating that walking is impossible.
The RNC is partially responsible for the mess we face; they backed RINO’s (traitorous cowards that they are) and the LOST!! Now, instead of picking the pieces up, perhaps learning a lesson from this mess and moving forwards
This group of low IQ slackers are refusing to back the candidtates that the Republicsn voters of their state selected.
Throw the bums out, let them get a REAL job.
NEVER trash your own parties canadate BEFORE an election. It gives the opposition all the talking points they need. The belt way Republicans know that. They're doing it on purpose.
Best way for the Conservative base to hammer home the message that the moderate tail is not going to wave the dog anymore is to pull out all the stops to make sure O’Donnell wins in Nov.
If the “Moderates” in the GOP want to come along for the ride, fine. From now on they do it on our terms, not theirs.
Indeed, I do believe you nailed it.
Last night ended Karl Rove’s career.
O’Donnell’s win already had it on life support, but Rove’s own petulant rant put the last nail in it.
Republicans had better realize that we the people are not going to take lukewarm conservatives anymore. Rinos are just as vunerable as the liberals. No more money to the rnc until they come to their senses. As to the media, let them eat crow.
1. She is an attractive candidate, young, energetic, good looking.
2. If she beat Castle, she can beat Coon.
3. This is a very small state. She can literally knock on a good percentage of doors in the state. This is real retail politics.
4. The tea party is going to pour lots of money, energy, and volunteers into this one, it is winnable.
5. Deleware sent a complete doofus like Biden to Washington. There is no barrier to election in this state.
Yes, Karl Rove lost big time. Right until last night, I really admired Rove and hoped to see him, just perhaps, in national politics in the future.
I have lost all respect for him.
Rove made me sick!!. I am tired of senators who vote for the likes of sonia and the man look alike.
We've got to help her. The elitists are trying to teach the TEA party a lesson. We listen to them - "or else".
I forgot, this is going to be a wave election like never before. The elites haven’t seen anything like this in two hundred years. How’s that for hype?
The message for Republican leadership is that Americans are tired of being forced to vote for the “lesser of two evils.” Third party candidates are not viable and I’m tired of hearing that a vote for a third party candidate is like a vote for the Democrat. If you want us to vote Republican, then give us a candidate we believe in and can support. Period.
That is exactly why the NRSC is freaking out and vowing not to fund her campaign, which goes both ways because the NRSC is also sending the Dems a signal that they don’t have to spend money in Delaware. I have a feeling O’Donnell is going to get funding from “other sources.”
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