Dangerous Sociopaths Have Taken Over the Republican Party-- I Mean It!

I'm praying that bizarre sociopath Christine O'Donnell wins the GOP Senate nomination in Delaware on Tuesday. We wrote about the race as the weekend began in terms of humor. Now, as the weekend is ending, it looks like O'Donnell is pulling it off. If she does, as the NRSC knows, she will delivering a sure GOP pick up back into the safe column for Democrats. (The latest polls show that although she could win the closed Republican primary, when normal people vote, it will be a pasting and she'll lose by double digits.) PPP, the most accurate polling firm so far this year says the race is too close to call, with O'Donnell leading Castle within the margin of error.

Castle, a mainstream conservative, an at-large congressman (so exact same constituency as the senators) and a former governor, is arguably the most popular politician in the state short of Vice President Joe Biden. But many Republicans, taking their cues from Fox News, Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin, the NRA, Hate Talk Radio and the Tea Party Express, say he's "too liberal."

If Castle is indeed defeated Tuesday night it will be yet another sign that conservatives have a strangle hold on the Republican Party and moderates may or may not be welcome anymore. Castle has an overwhelming 69-21 lead with moderate voters but they only make up 33% of the likely primary electorate. O’Donnell has a 62-31 lead with conservatives that’s more than enough to propel her to the overall lead.

It’s clear that Castle’s popularity has taken a sharp turn in the wrong direction over the last month. An August PPP poll found his favorability with Delaware Republicans at a 60/25 spread. Now his favorables within the party are negative at 43/47. That’s largely a product of 55% of voters in his party saying they think he’s too liberal compared to 37% who think he’s about right.

GOP voters are pretty sharply divided about O’Donnell as well. 45% have a favorable opinion of her with 41% seeing her unfavorably. Only 50% of primary voters think she’s fit to hold public office but she does much better than Castle on the ideology front- 53% think she’s about right.

If O’Donnell pulls it out Tuesday night it will be a major victory for Delaware’s small but united group of Tea Party voters. Just 25% of Republicans in the state consider themselves to be members of that movement but they give her a 79-18 advantage that’s more than enough to overcome her 52-39 deficit with everyone else.

Mainstream Republicans are slitting their wrists over the prospect of an O'Donnell victory Tuesday. This morning the very conservative Weekly Standard tried discrediting her with a major feature about how she launched the kind of fluffy frivolous lawsuit conservatives claim to hate.

O'Donnell's finances, honesty, and stability have been called into question in light of her false and strange claims. The court complaint raises further questions on all fronts. O'Donnell, who made an annual salary of $65,000 at ISI as director of communications and public affairs, sought up to $6,952,477 million in damages, claiming, among other allegations, that ISI had defamed her and had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... O'Donnell claimed that ISI had caused her to suffer "mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, mental and physical pain and anguish"-- and that, according to an amended complaint, she had to "seek treatment for her distress."

All of the above, in Right-wing-Speak, is a serious indictment and a disqualification for public office. They clearly do not want another mentally unbalanced candidate like Rand Paul or Sharron Angle running as a Republican.


UPDATE: Castle Plays The Nut Card

Tomorrow's primary day in Delaware and mainstream conservative Mike Castle is seeing the polls start to favor teabaggy fanatic Christine O'Donnell and he's sweating. Today he said, flatly, that if she wins, the GOP forfeits the seat. And it doesn't look like Castle will be one of those GOP extremist types who will try replacing McConnell with DeMint as Minority Leader. The transcript, in part:

K. O'DONNELL: You’ve tried to disqualify her. Why does she have support?

CASTLE: This is a primary election, where a limited number of people turn out, so the results get skewed for that reason. The second issue, I’ve yet to see a poll that shows her having any chance to win the general election.

Bottom line is if she’s nominated, Republicans lose the election automatically. It’s that simple.

Her appeal is to a hard core base of the Republican Party, but when people go in to vote, they’ve got to make the decision: Do we want to give up the general election by casting this vote? And that’s gonna be hopefully in the minds of a lot of voters which is one of the things we’re trying to appeal to.

K. O'DONNELL: Could you support her if she wins?

CASTLE: Ahhh, I will answer that question -- that’s very hypothetical -- and I’ll answer it at some point in the future, if it were to happen, and it might not even be tomorrow. I would look at that, as you know, this has not been a very pleasant experience for anybody and the concept of supporting one another in this circumstance is gonna be difficult for anyone.

K. O'DONNELL: There were reports of a death threat against state GOP party chair and infighting.

CASTLE: There has been some unpleasantness between state party officials and the O’Donnell campaign and manifested itself in whatever this threat is perhaps in other…

K. O'DONNELL: Have you ever felt this kind of pressure?

CASTLE: I would say this primary is different than any. First of all, it’s only the second primary I’ve ever had. I’ve never seen so much outside influence in any election in Delaware. This election is totally outside of Delaware, the Christine O’Donnell election on the other side. There is a lot of misinformation about what I’ve done and my record, and there’s a lot of misrepresentation I think in terms of her background issues which are slight at best. Fired from a job, not holding a job for several years. Basically running a very ideologically driven campaign, so it’s been a different forum, approach to an election that we’ve seen heretofor. I basically have not seen her out publicly campaigning, so there’s that as well. It’s essentially the Tea Party Express and others who are coming in with money and running their ads and that’s what it’s all about, so its different than the others. There’s some pressure that comes from that, sure.

K. O'DONNELL: At first, you ignored her. Do you regret that? Do you think you reacted in time?

CASTLE: I don’t regret anything at this point. We made the decision NOT to engage n the basis she was misrepresenting so much with personal slander and a variety of things I found distasteful. And, in don’t, I don’t regret that. I hope that our strategy is effective as far as the election is concerned, and I’m pretty confident it is. That’s something the voters will tell us tomorrow.

K. O'DONNELL: Is there a moment where you say, how did you get here?

CASTLE: Oh yeah, you think about why did it toughen up? Why did, is there a squeeze there, sure you think about those things, but I had a primary back in '92. I had I think a much more qualified opponent, couple opponents, than I do now. That was tight too, but it didn’t have the money influence that this one has. I’ve been sitting here thinking about Sarah Palin and wondering if she’s ever been in Delaware. I don’t know if she has or not or even through Delaware for all that matters. You know, ah there are all these various influences that you don’t expect and you hope people will pay attention to how outside all of it is.

K. O'DONNELL: Senator DeMint endorsed your opponent, surprised?

CASTLE: Doesn’t surprise me. That’s where Jim DeMint is coming from and remember every other Republican senator endorsed me. Jim DeMint has made it his crusade to find the most conservative people he can support and is supporting [them]. I’ m not remotely surprised that he endorsed her. I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner.