Saturday, September 18, 2010

Christine O’Donnell — 'I Dabbled in Witchcraft'

Here's how Maureen Dowd describes Christine O'Donnell:
This anti-abortion, anti-masturbation, anti-premarital-sex, anti-stem-cells, anti-gay-marriage, dubious-about-evolution Christian conservative has rocked politics by snatching the Delaware Republican nomination for the Senate away from the seemingly sure-thing moderate Mike Castle.
Interestingly, Dowd goes on to say "We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O’Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy," and that O'Donnell "might have gone a broom too far, though, when she once told Bill Maher that she had 'dabbled into witchcraft” and went on a date with a witch that included “a midnight picnic on a satanic altar'."

Last week's
NYT editorial page echoed Dowd's "Ruling Class Elites" sensibilities:
Republican leaders have to decide if they want the tiny fraction of furious voters who have showed up at the primary polls to steer them into the swamp for years ahead. They have a chance to repudiate the worst of the Tea Party crowd and show that they can govern without appealing to the basest political instincts.
So now that Bill Maher is sewing the Scarlett Letter on O'Donnell, the editorial elites at the Times will no doubt soon look to issue their coup d'grâce. I seriously doubt that revelations of Christine O'Donnell's growing pains will have much impact on her electoral chances, especially in this political environment. She's already eccentric. She's already iconoclastic. And she's already scaring the holy guacamole out of the "Ruling Class Elites."

What's especially interesting is how the Wicca Tapes are further exposing the fault lines among right-wing bloggers after the blogosphere blowout before the primary. Both
Patterico and Power Line are calling this the end of O'Donnell's career. Meanwhile, Dan Riehl and Jeff Goldstein are taking the long perspective. As Jeff notes:
O’Donnell may turn out to be a total loon. That’s not what I’m concerned about. Nor do I believe she is beyond criticism. What bothers me is the attitude about who is supporting these grass roots conservative candidates that is being made manifest by putative conservatives.
I'd underline that point about "putative conservatives." Patterico and Power Line are over in Think Progress territory on this one, which means George Soros territory. I get a baby barf in my throat just thinking about that.


12 comments:

Patterico said...

"What bothers me is the attitude about who is supporting these grass roots conservative candidates that is being made manifest by putative conservatives."

That is not my argument. As I said earlier today:

"UPDATE x4: Jeff Goldstein claims that I am saying O’Donnell will lose because Tea Partiers will be turned off by this. Of course, that’s not what I’m saying at all — as I thought was perfectly clear from my post. I doubt Tea Partiers will care about this. As I say in the post, I think they will defend her to the nth degree. But Tea Partiers aren’t a majority in Delaware. I think voters in the middle will think it is plain weird, and laugh at her. And not want to vote for her.


I hope I’m wrong. I don’t think I am. We’ll see."

My point is not that fiscal conservatives will be alienated by the witchcraft business. I made it clear they won't. The people who will be, are the other voters -- many of whom she needs to win.

I also said -- just so we're clear -- that she could be a witch NOW and I would still vote for her over Coons. We need the votes.

AmPowerBlog said...

Patterico: Thanks for stopping by. I'm not invested in your battles. I'd rather fight it out with leftists. You do have a canny ability to wind up on the other side of some issues, and O'Donnell's win in the first place simply demonstrates it.

richard mcenroe said...

O'Donnell 2010

RightKlik said...

People who think Christine O'Donnell is nothing more than a big pile of embarrassing baggage are certainly entitled to their opinion, but if that's really what they believe, and if they want Republicans to win in November, I see a few options. Which ones make sense?

a) Attack Christine O'Donnell, and play "I told you so" games.
b) Support Christine O'Donnell, warts and all.
c) Shrug off Christine O'Donnell and attack Chris Coons.
d) Write Delaware off and support Conservatives/Republicans elsewhere.
e) Write Delaware off and attack Liberals/Democrats elsewhere.

For the life of me, I cannot understand the wisdom of pursuing the first option.

Minicapt said...

The fun bit is when one notices that some of the 'friendly' commentariat are beginning to sound like T. Coddington van Voorhis VII.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Wow. To think that people of integrity, virtue and character weren’t just born that way and that they haven’t been transformed by the amazing power of God to do just that... It’s amazing to me that such narrow minded people could try to pass themselves off as liberal thinkers having never considered such things. But, that of course is the place where they are found out for the real bigots that they are.

They say that they are open minded, but they are only open to disregarding the traditional wisdom of the ages, namely virtuous behavior. Prudence, synonymous with wisdom, is disdained as a negative term of sexual oppression. Temperance has been transformed into teetotalism, which it is obviously not by definition. Justice has been replaced with the injustices and inequality of so called ‘social justice’ and fortitude is considered extremism, except when leftists engage in it. Wink, wink.

The fact that Ms. O’Donnell has such a checkered past as the rest of us, speaks to the reality that we all have fallen short of God’s glory - the fact that she now has recognized her wrongdoing and righted such a behavior is simply evidence of the reality of her honesty in seeking and submitting to the truth. Only the fool resists the truth and refuses to submit to it. If the fool fails to recognize the reality of the laws of gravity and the truth of physics and insists upon cutting off the branch upon he sits, he will suffer for his foolishness. Ms. O’Donnell simply recognizes the reality of the universe in which she lives.

Of course, if Ms. O’Donnell was a radical homosexual activist (like obama’s little darling safe school czar, kevin jennings) or a current witch involved in the occult (like the wife of united nations string puller, maurice strong), the media would simply condone her and never say a word. Not one word. Shhhh.

Anonymous said...

Such sensationalism is clear evidence of the destructive agenda of the major media lap dogs and their socialist/globalist/marxist controllers. The transformation into attack dogs growling and snapping at those who dare express virtue or affirm the it’s benefits.

It’s pretty clear despite the mud and haze - the smoke and mirrors meant to conceal the controllers pulling the strings in our world today, vying desperately for the perverted one world government and religion they have sought for thousands of years. Just remember that Jesus said of that day, that if the days of that monstrosity had not been shortened, no flesh would survive.

And now what does the Bible, the Word of truth have to say about all this?

"9 Don't you know that wicked people won't inherit the kingdom of God? Stop deceiving yourselves! People who continue to commit sexual sins, who worship false gods, those who commit adultery, homosexuals,

10 or thieves, those who are greedy or drunk, who use abusive language, or who rob people will not inherit the kingdom of God.

11 That's what some of you were! But you have been washed and made holy, and you have received God's approval in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."

1 Corinthians 6:9-20

Patterico said...

I was simply pointing out that the quote you used to characterize my argument was wrong. That is not my argument. You are arguing against a made-up version of my views. Period.

thehawkreturns said...

I just don't get it. How is the GOP being highjacked by these nutjobs?
Sure I understand the need to dump Obama-Islamic-Socialism, but the GOP was going to do that anyway. How come the "Grass roots" Tea Partiers are anti-abortion, anti-Gay, Non-Evolution Medievilists? What happened to just "Capitalists"? How come the nutty element tail is wagging the dog? The Tea Party may take over the GOP but that means 90% of Americans will vote Democrat. Great Revolution then.

Dennis said...

We all do, say and think things when we are young that may seem strange to others. I dabbled in mysticism, psychology, philosophy, Ecnar (SIC), et al. This is nothing to be ashamed. What are the beliefs she holds now and how would that affect her decision making is the question. Not having a horse in the race, I would think she would be far better that a Marxist tax and spend person who thinks the fruits of your labor are his to allocate as he sees fit.
I keep saying or intimating that one has to give the young their chance to explore life and yes make mistakes. Our job as grown ups is to mitigate the damage and correct these youthful indiscretions as best we can until they mature. If this is not true then why would the Left spend so much time trying to get the young to not listen to the more mature individuals in life? Experience is the great leveler of youthful exuberance.
Name me the person who has not said, done or otherwise made a fool of themselves. This is pure childishness and anyone with a modicum of maturity who buys into this should be ashamed.
Sometimes I wonder if I don't live in a world that is populated by children no matter their chronological age. I would advise O'Donnell to not be ashamed of the past, but revel in her future ability to use what she has learned from it. It is a strength that she has that her opponent does not seem to possess.

Amusing Bunni said...

I had ppl stupidly asking me in my FB feeds if she was a loon, and wha wha, what are we going to do, and is she crazy, blah blah. I said, we should support her because she is on the ticket now. The goal now is to elect an R, not a democRAT marxist. They get all indignant about it.

I mean support her as in not parroting the meme that she's unelectable. Even if you don't donate money, don't demonize her ;-)
I'd vote for her too even if she was a witch at this point. We need that seat, period.

ABC nightly news went on at length about this, and showed the maher clip. I think we should just drop this now, or it will be kept alive forever. That is playing into obummer's gatekeepers hands/ cloven hoofs.

The Vegas Art Guy said...

I love how the left's expiration date on gaffes is about .0001 seconds and there is no expiration date on gaffes for the right.

Hypocrisy anyone?

For those on the left who are starting to madly type I have two words for you...

Joe Biden