Tuesday November 2, 2010
Embattled Christine O’Donnell Loses to Coons in Delaware Senate Race
By John Jalsevac
November 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The “Tea Party tidal wave” (as newly elected Kentucky Senator Rand Paul labeled it tonight) that is sweeping the United States still wasn’t strong enough to carry embattled Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell to Capitol Hill.
At about 9:45 pm. EST tonight, O’Donnell conceded the race to her opponent, Democrat Chris Coons. “We worked hard. We had an incredible victory. Be encouraged. We have won. The Delaware political system will never be the same … the Republican Party will never be the same,” O’Donnell told supporters in her concession speech. “Our voices were heard and we’re not going to be quiet now. This is just the beginning.”
Coons cruised to an easy victory, 56% to 40%, over the Tea Party-backed pro-life Republican candidate, with 99% of precincts reporting.
The race between media lightning rod O’Donnell and Coons was one of the most-watched races this election cycle.
Earlier this year O’Donnell captured headlines when she pulled off the seemingly impossible when she defeated self-described “moderate” Congressman Mike Castle, the Delaware GOP’s pick for U.S. Senate.
That surprise victory occurred thanks in large part to a boost from the Tea Party Express, and more endorsements from U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the National Rifle Association, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Additionally, O’Donnell gained pro-life/pro-family backing from the Susan B. Anthony List, a political action committee dedicated to putting pro-life women in Congress, and Concerned Women for America.
However, as soon as O’Donnell entered the race she was subject to scathing attacks from local as well as national media. Some of these attacks focused upon her unapologetically conservative moral views, while other picked up on inconsistencies in statements made by O’Donnell about her past.
In an odd twist, O’Donnell was forced to divert a large part of her resources to simultaneously countering the seemingly mutually-exclusive rumors circulated by her enemies that she was either a radical evangelical that was out of touch with mainstream America, or a witch. The latter claim that was based upon a 1999 interview with comedian Bill Maher, in which the senate candidate admitted that in her troubled teenage years she had once dabbled in witchcraft.
A possible game-changer in the race happened on Thursday when the internet gossip site Gawker published an anonymous writer’s story of his alleged drunken one-night stand with O’Donnell on Halloween three years ago.
The editor of Gawker explained that the purpose of the piece was to point out the hypocrisy of O’Donnell’s conservative views, although the author of the article admitted that he and O’Donnell didn’t actually have sexual relations. “If it was any politician whose private life diverged from his public life in such an interesting way, we’d be interested in that,” Gawker editor Remy Stern said. “It had nothing to do with her being a woman.”
The story was met with outrage from women’s groups, including the pro-abortion National Organization for Women, which denounced the Gawker story as unacceptable “slut-shaming” and an outrage against all women.
It remains unclear how the smear piece may have affected O’Donnell’s chances at victory. While some pundits had speculated that the piece could have won her sympathy among women voters, O’Donnell’s loss by 16 points is significantly more dramatic than the 10 point loss predicted by a poll released last week, which was taken before the Gawker piece hit.