The GOP’s Greatest 2010 Defeat… Courtesy of the Tea Party?

 

UPDATE: Christine O’Donnell defeated Rep. Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican primary. Read more about the upset here.

Could the tea party’s greatest triumph mark the biggest Republican loss this election cycle? Throughout the primary campaign season, the movement’s tussles with the GOP have resulted in the rise of Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Joe Miller—all tea party-backed candidates who upset the establishment Republican favorites in their respective Senate GOP primaries. And despite this internal squabble, the GOP seemed to be increasing its chances of taking over the Senate, as all had a good shot at winning in the general election. That was until tea partier Christine O’Donnell suddenly surged in the Delaware Republican primary against Rep. Mike Castle.

Castle, one of the few remaining moderate Republicans in Congress, has long been a favorite target of the grassroots right, but the going assumption was that he had a clear path to the Senate. Having developed a reputation for breaking from his party, the long-time Congressman was well liked in the small, Democratic-leaning state, making him the early favorite in the race for Vice-President Biden’s old seat. But last month, Miller’s surprise upset of Lisa Murkowski in Alaska created in a massive boost of support for O’Donnell—including endorsements from Sarah Palin, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), the National Rifle Association, and the major national tea party groups. And this right-wing campaign seems to have paid off, with the latest poll from Public Policy Polling showing O’Donnell with a three points lead over Castle, 47-44, in Tuesday’s primary.

Ultimately, though, the biggest benefactor of an O’Donnell victory could be the Democratic Party, as she has a significantly weaker shot against the likely Democratic contender, lawyer and county executive Chris Coons. According to PPP, Coons, the likely Democratic contender, “would start out with a large advantage over O’Donnell in a general election match up, and is polling closer to Castle than he was when PPP polled Delaware last month.” If the GOP loses Delaware, it could completely blow its chance at getting enough seats for a Senate majority.

 Why might the GOP be doomed? Though tea party candidates are notorious for embracing extreme positions, O’Donnell might just be the queen of the lunatic fringe. “Christine O’Donnell makes Sharron Angle look like Margaret Thatcher,” tweeted Jim Geraghty from the National Review, a conservative standard-bearer. Here’s Daily Intel’s tour of O’Donnell’s greatest hits:

  • She believes that masturbating or looking at pornography is tantamount to adultery.
  • She said of Castle’s campaign: “They’re following me. They follow me home at night. I make sure that I come back to the townhouse and then we have our team come out and check all the bushes and check all the cars to make sure that…They’re hiding in the bushes when I’m at candidate forums.”
  • She claimed that when she ran against Joe Biden in 2008, she won two of Delaware’s three counties. In reality, she hadn’t won any. When this discrepancy was pointed out by a radio host, O’Donnell claimed that she had actually tied Biden in one of them. Still not true.
  • Though she had previously claimed to have graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University, O’Donnell only received her degree 10 days ago. [MoJo: She also falsely implied that she was taking Master’s classes at Princeton.]
  • In 2005 she sued a conservative nonprofit organization for $6.9 million for gender discrimination and wrongful termination. She dropped the lawsuit in 2008.

Rightly fearful of an O’Donnell win, the national GOP has tried to paint her as an unelectable fraud and liar, sparking a massive internal fight. After declaring that the tea party favorite couldn’t “be elected dog catcher,” Delaware state GOP chairman Tom Ross received a death threat over the weekend that said he deserved “a bullet in the head” for backing “political ass-kissing RINO’s” [Republicans In Name Only]. Even if Castle manages to protect his seat, the rift on the right could end up undercutting his candidacy in the general election, as it appears unlikely that O’Donnell supporters will be likely to forgive and forget after this vicious row. In an election cycle that’s so strongly favored the GOP—which remains likely to take over the House—the Democrats may luck out on this one.

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate