I Am She As You Are She As You Are Me . . .

. . . and we're Christine O'Donnell.

I'm crying.

Delaware's most famous deadbeat has put out a series of incoherent television ads designed to re-introduce herself to Diamond State voters. It's a whole new twist on negative campaigning in that O'Donnell, facing the camera with soft music in the background, tells us who she isn't. She's not a witch. She's not an heiress. She's not a Yale graduate. (Yeah, we figured that out.) She's apparently . . . us.

This ad is goo-goo without the g'joob. O'Donnell is trying to cast herself as someone who knows the value of a dollar and is trying to to the best she can to get by. This argument would actually work if, I don't know, the dollars she spent on herself were her own and not from her previous Senate campaigns. And she still apparently has trouble paying her bills. That doesn't sound like the average American or the average Delawarean to me. If the voters of Delaware accept her as one of their own and send her to Senate, and if she becomes the newest spokeswoman for the American right, she really will prove to be us. We'll be proven to be just as dumb as she is.

How could such dumb ads work? Personally, I think O'Donnell has no interest of being elected to the Senate. I agree with those who suspect she's only trying to get a television deal with Fox News. She wants to follow in the footsteps of her father, Daniel O'Donnell, the official Bozo the Clown of the Philadelphia television market.

Oops! Correction: Daniel O'Donnell was not the official Bozo the Clown in Philly, but rather a stand-in. Christine sixteen, choking smoker, don't you think the joker laughs at you? :-D

It's Witchcraft

Bill Maher, commenting on Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, noted that the Republicans may still have a shot at winning Joe Biden's old Senate seat because O'Donnell, unlike Sarah Palin, comes across as a nice, sweet person. But he probably increased the chances of Chris Coons, O'Donnell's Democratic opponent, to win in November when, on his HBO show, he played a clip of O'Donnell from his old show "Politically Incorrect" - the clip was from around 1997 - saying that she "dabbled" in witchcraft.

So O'Donnell was actually involved in diabolical rituals and learned how to cast spells on people? Kind of what Palin is famous for!

I want to laugh, but I also want to cry - I mean, she could be in the United States Senate in four months! This is a woman, after all, who has theorized that of scientists creating mice with human brains. (I think the opposite theory - humans with mouse brains - is more plausible, especially in explaining why Democrats are always caving in to conservatives!) But the more I learn about her, the more I feel sorry for the poor girl. She comes across as a sweet naive young woman who doesn't know what she's talking about and doesn't even know what she's saying half the time. She's like a cross between Sally White - Mia Farrow's ditzy character in Woody Allen's Radio Days - and an MSNBC morning talk show host who obviously needs the guidance of a smarter, savvier sidekick. But I'm not here to discuss Joe Scarborough. ;-)

As for her witchcraft, I can imagine O'Donnell over a hot cauldron trying to put a curse on Mike Castle, and - possibly by twitching her nose - hexing Karl Rove for opining that she's a flawed candidate. And I'll bet she really looks cute in one of those pointed hats! Maybe, if elected, she'll continue to live in Delaware and commute to Washington by broom! But after sending to the Senate heavyweights like Joe Biden, William Roth, and Thomas Carper, is Delaware really serious about sending to the Senate a self-professed ex-witch with the perkiness of Samantha and the maturity of Sabrina?

O'Donnell has laughed off the witchcraft remark, and it will probably give her the free media she wants, but her wackiness is bound to illicit laughter and fear in many voters. Rove may have had his bark stripped for suggesting she's a weak candidate, but he's been proven right every day since the Delaware primary. I just want to know one thing - if O'Donnell gets into the Senate, will her economic agenda be referred to as "Wiccanomics?" :-D

Chris Coons is probably thrilled that Bill Maher showed this clip; I'll bet he could kiss him for this! I wouldn't recommend it. O'Donnell will only make insinuations against Coons and ask him where his "man pants" are.

Mike Castled

In a stunning upset in Delaware, Mike Castle lost his bid for the nomination to run for Vice President Biden's old Senate seat to Palinette Christine O'Donnell, a high-wired far-right Tea Partier with a history of running for office in that state and never getting anywhere. O'Donnell - who is not related to anyone at MSNBC - has proven that you don't have to be an experienced, professional politician who knows what you're doing - like Mike Castle, Delaware's lone congressman for nearly twenty years. You just have to make a lot of noise to attract attention from fellow nutjobs. (O'Donnell ran against Biden in 2008, but lost. She allegedly used some of her campaign funds for personal expenses, leading her campaign manager to back Castle in this special election.)

The Democrats suddenly have a chance to keep the Senate. O'Donnell - whose biggest claim to fame is as a sexual abstinence activist in the nineties - will face Democrat Chris Coons in November. Some people have suggested that Coons may have an uphill battle because of strong Tea Party support in rural Kent and Sussex counties that may not be offset enough by voters in urban New Castle County, which includes Wilmington. Except that only 31 percent of Delaware voters think O'Donnell is electable, and even Dick Armey wouldn't endorse her.

Meanwhile, Tea Party supporter Joe Miller, having defeated Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska U.S. Senate primary with the blessing and support of Sarah Palin - who has made her dislike for the Murkowski family clear - is talking about privatizing Social Security (I think I heard right!) - has given his Democratic opponent a fighting chance in this very Republican state. Don't count out Scott McAdams, that Democrat opposing Miller. Bear in mind that Mark Begich became the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alaska since 1974 only two years ago. His Republican opponent, the late and venerable Ted Stevens, was only hindered by corruption charges. Miller may be an even bigger nutjob than Christine O'Donnell!