Christine O'Donnell

Matthews Mourns 'Death' of the Republican Moderate
By Geoffrey Dickens | November 2, 2010 | 8:45 PM EDT

  Chris Matthews, during MSNBC's live election night coverage, was distressed at what he saw was the "death of the moderate wing of the Republican Party." After his colleague Keith Olbermann ran down the latest results of Republicans leading or winning in specific races Matthews bemoaned how such moderates like Charlie Crist and Arlen Specter were run out of their own party and even bellowed: "Mike Castle getting knocked out by the woman who said she's not a witch...is a joke, it's a joke for the Republican Party to lose people like Mike Castle."

The following November 2, outburst by Matthews was aired during MSNBC's live election night coverage:

 (video after the jump)

Huffington Post Video Mocking GOP Women Contains Sexually Explicit Lyrics
By Erin R. Brown | November 2, 2010 | 4:46 PM EDT

There is a fine line between tasteful political comedy and crossing-the-line crudeness, and the Huffington Post’s new song “My Girl's A Republican” just leaped over that line. With lyrics such as “Dick Nixon sucking lips” and “she made her oil money last, and now I’m tapping it,” even the most liberal among us could agree that the attack on Republican women is downright revolting.

Hailed as an “ode to right-wing ladies,” the three and a half minute song and video by Rap duo “It’s The Real” (and proudly displayed on the Huffington Post Web site) does nothing but smear conservative women like Christine O’Donnell, Michele Bachmann, and of course, Sarah Palin. The HuffPo write up on the “tribute to conservative women” song claims “it does a pretty solid job of both mocking and admiring right-wing conservatives.”

(Video below the fold)

Did Delaware TV Station ‘Forget’ to Air Christine O’Donnell Ad?
By Rusty Weiss | November 2, 2010 | 1:21 PM EDT

Perhaps there is a bit of witchcraft to be found amongst the Christine O’Donnell camp after all.  Problem is, it appears to have generated from an independent television station in Delaware, who somehow managed to make the Republican Senate candidate’s 30-minute television advertisement disappear.

The Washington Post reports that O’Donnell, running short on time to have her ad aired on networks in the Philadelphia and Delaware markets, turned to public television as an outlet.  She urged supporters at a Tea Party Express rally to tune in to her ad on Sunday night.  Just prior to the airing, O’Donnell excitedly tweeted to her followers, “1 minute until the premiere of our 30 minute feature. Tune in to meet all the heartwarming people I've met on the campaign trail. Ch. 28.”

But alas, it was not to be. 

On Monday, the O’Donnell camp issued a press release stating the ad would appear again that morning.  It did not.

Tim Qualls, Executive Producer at Delaware Channel 28, claims that the ad did not air because O’Donnell’s campaign failed to deliver the video by an agreed upon deadline.  But at least one source at the station claimed that they simply “forgot to air it.”

Maher: GOP Voters a 'Fringe Group;' Fox News Spreading 'Misinformation'
By Matthew Balan | November 2, 2010 | 9:18 AM EDT

HBO's Bill Maher spouted his usual anti-conservative and anti-Fox News rhetoric on Monday's Situation Room on CNN, attacking the Tea Party movement as "teabaggers [who] are all carrying the banner...of corporatist America" and accusing CNN's competitor of "filling people with misinformation." Maher also labeled Republican voters "far right" and a "fringe group of people who are very forceful."

The left-wing HBO host appeared for two segments starting at the bottom of the 5 pm Eastern hour. Anchor Wolf Blitzer began with an election-related question: "Let's talk a little bit about what's going to happen tomorrow. A lot of Democrats are worried. They're sitting on a potential political disaster tomorrow. Here's the question to you: why? What happened?"

Maher actually first blamed the Democrats: "Well- I mean, partly, it is the Democrats' fault. They don't do very good at bragging about their achievements. This Congress, which I'm sure is going to be tarred as a do-nothing Congress, actually was one of the more successful congresses in recent memory, probably not since Lyndon Johnson in 1965 has a Congress achieved so much." The guest predictably cited health care "reform" and financial reforms as his examples.

Blitzer followed-up by asking, "So is it just a matter of communications?" Maher launched his attack on Fox News in his reply:

CNN Leads Tea Party Special With Racism Charge; Castle a 'Conservative'
By Matthew Balan | November 1, 2010 | 3:51 PM EDT

CNN led their hour-long documentary "Boiling Point: Inside the Tea Party," which aired on Saturday and Sunday, with the regular accusation from liberals that racism is "running rampant" in the Tea Party movement. Host Shannon Travis highlighted the NAACP's resolution, disgraced former Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams's self-described "foolish satire," and played up two racially-charged signs.

Before raising the racism charge, Travis raised another liberal stereotype perpetuated by the mainstream media: the angry Tea Party: "This is what you know about the Tea Party Movement: rallies like these, angry protesters demanding that lawmakers spend less of your money and spend more time adhering to the Constitution." After stating that "rallies like these across the country, don't tell the full picture" and that "there's a lot you don't know about the Tea Party movement," the CNN host stopped briefly to give some poll numbers on the partisan breakdown of the movement before proceeding to the race issue:

America Is Not Losing Its Religion
By Kathryn Jean Lopez | November 1, 2010 | 3:41 PM EDT

Christine O'Donnell may have had to deny being a witch, but she wasn't the only election-year Halloween bogeyman for Democrats to trick voters with this year. Did you hear the one about how Republican candidate fill-in-the-blank, fill-in-the-district, wants to privatize Social Security? Even former president George W. Bush got thrown into that mix, for regretting his inability to get his Social Security plan passed -- which would not have privatized Social Security. But being serious is not what Halloween (or, sometimes, an election) tends to be about.

And then there is religion. The fear of God takes on a whole new meaning this time of year. Folks on the right of the political spectrum want to create a religious state, you know. We want to tear down the wall between church and state. Her blunder happened weeks before the election, but we'll be talking about Delaware senatorial candidate O'Donnell's supposed mistakes on the First Amendment for a while to come. I expect to see it in year-end wrap-ups. I expect Republican primary candidates will be asked about it in Iowa.

NBC Sees ‘Conservative’ Toomey, But No Label for Sestak; Gearing Up to Blame Tea Party if No GOP Senate Majority
By Brad Wilmouth | October 31, 2010 | 11:50 PM EDT

 On Sunday’s NBC Nightly News, during a roundup of several reporters covering a number of high-profile Senate races, correspondent Ron Allen was upfront in labeling Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey as a "conservative," but an ideological label for liberal Democratic nominee Joe Sestak was absent: "Conservative Pat Toomey, a former Congressman and businessman, has been consistently leading in the polls ahead of Joe Sestak, a Democratic Congressman."

And correspondent Natalie Morales played up the possibility that "a lot of people are going to be blaming the Tea Party" if Republicans land one vote short of a Senate majority and Delaware Republican nominee Christine O’Donnell also loses: "If they're somehow able to get to nine and then Christine O'Donnell loses, a lot of people are going to be blaming the Tea Party."

AP's Woodward Commits His Own Gaffes While Chronicling 2010 Campaign Gaffes
By Tom Blumer | October 30, 2010 | 9:39 AM EDT

Per MerriamWebster.com -- Gaffe: 1) a social or diplomatic blunder; 2) a noticeable mistake.

The Associated Press's Calvin Woodward has had a few shining analytical moments during the first two years of the Obama administration (examples here and here).

The AP reporter's dispatch on "gaffes and gotchas" Friday morning, which attempted to communicate a sense of bemusement tinged with condescension, both aimed mostly at first-time candidates, is not one of them, and contained its own gaffes:

Christine O’Donnell Campaign Responds to Kiss-and-Tell Post About Her
By Matthew Sheffield | October 29, 2010 | 10:51 AM EDT

Sleazy gossip site Gawker got the traffic it wanted by publishing a tale from an anonymous man who detailed an alleged one-night encounter with Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell but it’s come in for a lot of criticism as a result.

First, the response from the O’Donnell campaign, posted to her Facebook profile by communications director Doug Sachtleben:

Christine O'Donnell Theme Song: 'I Want to Be Evil'?
By Tim Graham | October 28, 2010 | 7:16 AM EDT

The front of Thursday's Washington Post shows Nancy Pelosi and Christine O'Donnell as witches with green faces, with the headline “A very scary midterm exam.” (To which we ask: Scary midterm for whom??) The Post wrote "Maybe it's no coincidence that Halloween and Election Day are only days apart. Maybe that explains all the campaign props -- axes! smoking guns! pointy witch hats!"  "" The whimsical quiz which followed was not so fair and balanced as the dueling-witches picture. In the first question, Christine O'Donnell was cast as evil, and in the second, the Post mocked the Republican opponent of Pelosi, not the Speaker:

Olbermann Warns Voters Against 'Cataclysm' of Tea Party, 'Would Destroy America from Within'
By Brad Wilmouth | October 28, 2010 | 2:56 AM EDT

 On Wednesday’s Countdown show, during a 21-minute "Special Comment," MSNBC host Keith Olbermann warned American voters against electing Tea Party Republicans to power, whom he suggested are "unqualified, unstable individuals" who will take America "backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the ‘30s, or backward to hanging union organizers." He then made a play off MSNBC’s "Lean Forward" slogan to disparage the Tea Party movement as he declared: "Vote backward, vote Tea Party."

After reading a list of controversial quotes and policy positions he disagreed with that have been spoken by a list of Tea Party-backed Republican candidates, whom he referred to as "cranks, menaces, mercenaries and authoritarians," he went on to suggest that the Tea Party movement is a greater threat than America’s foreign enemies, and preemptively blamed those who would vote for these candidates as having "enabled" a "cataclysm": "If you sit there next Tuesday, if you sit there tomorrow, and the rest of this week, and you let this cataclysm unfold, you have enabled this. It is one thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from without. It is a worse thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from within."

MRC Study: 'News' Media Aid Democrats' Tea Party Trashing
By Rich Noyes | October 27, 2010 | 9:45 AM EDT

The Democrats’ strategy to salvage the 2010 campaign was to distract voters from their record over the past two years and paint their opponents as wacky extremists. Win or lose, the Democrats got a lot of help from their friends in the supposedly objective “news” media. MRC analysts reviewed the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from September 1 through October 25. Key findings:  

■ Only conservative/Tea Party candidates cast as “extreme.” Congressional Democrats and President Obama are facing voters’ wrath because of their extreme agenda over the past two years: government-run health care; massive unsupportable spending; a proposed “cap-and-trade” tax on energy, higher income taxes, etc. But MRC analysts found 35 evening news stories which conveyed the Democratic spin point that conservative and Tea Party candidates are “extreme,” “fringe,” or “out of the mainstream,” vs. ZERO stories conveying the charge that left-wing Democrats are “out of the mainstream.”