Republican U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell gives her concession speech Tuesday night in the Gold Ballroom of Dover Downs' Rollins Center.
Shortly after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Republican Christine O’Donnell took the stage in the Gold Ballroom of the Rollins Center at Dover Downs to concede the race for the U.S. Senate seat to Democrat Chris Coons.
Coons defeated O’Donnell with 56.6 percent of the vote, 172,590 to 122,237. Independent Party of Delaware candidate Glenn A. Miller and James W. Rash combined for 3.3 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results posted online by the Delaware Department of Elections.
It was the most votes O’Donnell has ever received in her third try for U.S. Senate.
But, in the end, she could not overcome the 110,000 advantage Democrats have in the Diamond State. Her message of smaller government, including making the Bush tax cuts permanent so that small businesses would have more money in their pockets to hire people, did not resonate with enough voters. Neither did campaign ads hammering Coons for increasing taxes 54 percent during his six years in office, years that saw the real estate transfer tax dry up.
O’Donnell told hundreds of supporters that her campaign was still a victory in that her supporters changed the electoral process in Delaware forever.
“The Delaware Democratic system will never be the same,” O’Donnell told a cheering crowd of about 300. “The Republican Party will never be the same. Our voice was heard, and we will never be silenced.
“We will continue to be heard,” she said. “God bless you.”
She had just gotten off the telephone with Coons, she told the crowd during her concession speech. She reminded him to think about small business owners like Victor Rodriguez – a longstanding grocer in the traditional Hispanic enclave of Hilltop in the city of Wilmington’s Westside. Namely, she urged him to not cast a vote for a tax increase that small business owners said would cause some of them to close their doors. And she urged him to fight the death tax that she also said would hurt small business owners.
But O’Donnell believes her supporters will continue to be vigilant in keeping a watchful eye on Washington, D.C., which she continually criticized for irresponsible spending that has the nation trillions of dollars in debt to China.
Indeed, O’Donnell’s campaign taught the Republican Party of Delaware – the hard way – that the people pick their candidate, not party bosses, when she upset U.S. Rep. Mike Castle in the September primary.
The Tea Party Express-backed candidate also saw about $5 million pour into her campaign, most of it from out-of-state.
A steady stream of Delawareans headed to the polls after seeing the U.S. Senate race between O’Donnell and Coons thrust into the First State into the national and international spotlight as well as the high-profile race for the U.S. House of Representatives race between Democrat John Carney and Republican Glen Urquhart.
Indeed, those two races attracted most voters to this off-year election.
And it was a mixed bag in terms of who voted for whom.
Some Democrats and Republicans voted along party lines, respectively. Some Republicans voted for the Democrats in the two top races. Some Democrats voted for both Republicans in the high profile races. Some people split their vote.
Republican Bob Russell, 59 of Hockessin, voted for Coons and John Carney, the Democrat in the race for Delaware’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, at the Hockessin PAL Center. Russell, a Castle supporter, did not want to vote for O’Donnell because she’s “never really had a job,” he said. As for the U.S. House race, he went for the Democrat because of the social issues that people fought for like health care reform and Roe v. Wade.
Democrat Ken Brick, 51 of Brandywine Hundred, voted for Coons and Carney at Brandywine High School.
“I think [Coons] is far more qualified,” Brick said. “I also know him personally. I know his children. He is much more of an inclusive person. He’s more of a healer. He’s more pragmatic. My sense is that Christine O’Donnell is reactionary, fear-based and will cause a lot of separation.”
Democrat Barbara Volko, 48, of Greenville, with her daughter Jameson, 9, voted for Coons because he’s more educated and capable of doing the job and Carney because she has heard him speak before and likes his stance on environmental issues.
Republican Marilyn Flaherty, 86, of Greenville, voted for Republicans, including O’Donnell and Urquhart, at Alexis I. duPont High School because she is unhappy with the Obama administration and wants more checks and balances in Washington, D.C.
Also at A.I. High, Republican Samuel Hobbs, 45, of Greenville, voted for O'Donnell and Urquhart because he's concerned with taxes going up as a businessman.
“I live on a farm here in Greenville, Delaware and there are farmers up and down the state that are under pressure because of the estate tax,’ Hobbs said. “One gentleman Christine O’Donnell talks about has been farming the same farm since the 1800s. All they want to do is just farm their land. People around them have sold their farms for beach houses. His property may be worth $5 million or $6 million and they don’t have money to pay [those] taxes. So, they’re going to have to sell their farm. Instead he wants to die because he knows that he can pass that family farm on and that’s an absolute travesty. Our government should never be putting people in that position, especially here in the state of Delaware. We only have so much green space.”
Republican Jeffrey Watt, 49, of Hockessin, brought his sons Matthew, left, and Joshua, right – students at Brandywine Springs – to the Hockessin PAL Center where Watt voted for O’Donnell and Urquhart. Watt, a Mike Castle supporter, said he sort of held his nose when he voted for O’Donnell because he did not like the outside influences on Delaware. However, he found Urquhart was in the conservative mode that Watt follows.
However, Republican Bob Kissell, 68, of Greenville, went across party lines and voted for Coons and Carney.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for Christine O’Donnell,” Kissell said. “She’s unqualified. A lot in that message has appeal, but there’s a whole lot more to that job than just saying less government. It was tough on the House side because Urquhart seems to have some intelligence and ideas.”
Democrat Barbara Volko, 48, of Greenville, with her daughter Jameson, 9, voted for Coons because he’s more educated and capable of doing the job and Carney because she has heard him speak before and likes his stance on environmental issues.
Republican Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell today challenged her Democratic opponent Chris Coons on his statement that the Constitution disallowed the integration of religion into the federal government, asking, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"
The exchange, which prompted laughs from the studio audience, came during a debate this morning at Delaware's Widener School of Law, which was aired by WDEL radio.
In a discussion over the whether or not public schools should be allowed to integrate religion-based ideas into science curricula, O'Donnell argued that local school districts should have the choice to teach intelligent design if they choose.
When asked point blank by Coons if she believed in evolution, however, O'Donnell reiterated that her personal beliefs were not germane. "What I think about the theory of evolution is irrelevant," she emphasized, adding later that the school of thought was "not a fact but a theory."
Coons said that creationism, which he considers "a religious doctrine," should not be taught in public schools due to the Constitution's First Amendment. He argued that it explicitly enumerates the separation of church and state.
"The First Amendment does?" O'Donnell asked. "Let me just clarify: You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"
"Government shall make no establishment of religion," Coons responded, reciting from memory the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Coons was off slightly: The first amendment actually reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.")
"That's in the First Amendment...?" O'Donnell responded.
Also during the debate, O'Donnell stumbled when asked whether or not she would repeal the 14th, 16th, or 17th Amendments if elected.
"The 17th Amendment I would not repeal," she said, before asking the questioner to define the 14th and 16th amendments, adding: "I'm sorry, I didn't bring my Constitution with me."
The 16th Amendment allows Congress to raise taxes without apportioning them among the states or tying the taxation to Census results. The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States. The 17th Amendment established direct election by popular vote of two U.S. Senators to each state .
Earlier in the debate, O'Donnell accused Coons of constitutional ignorance, saying that "perhaps they didn't teach you Constitutional law at Yale Divinity School."
O'Donnell's campaign later defended her comments about the First Amendment in a statement, arguing that she "was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as subsequently established by the courts."
"She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution," said O'Donnell's campaign manager, Matt Moran. "It was in fact Chris Coons who demonstrated his ignorance of our country's founding documents when he could not name the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment."
A recent exchange between Christine O’Donnell and Bill O’Reilly, with a lack of scientific information on both sides.
O’REILLY: Everybody knows that scientists have enough knowledge to clone a human being if they wanted to.
O’DONNELL: Right.
O’REILLY: But they’re not, at least not that we know of. And now they’re in the monkey realm. And I don’t understand, if that’s the possibility that people might be cured, why the objection. Because I never buy the slippery slope….
O’DONNELL: By their own admission these groups admitted that the report that said, “Hey, yay, we cloned a monkey. Now we’re using this to start cloning humans.” We have to…
O’REILLY: Let them admit anything they want. But they won’t do that here in the United States unless all craziness is going on.
O’DONNELL: They are – they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they’re already into this experiment.
Fact check:
Presumably O’Donnell was misremembering a 2005 report about growing human brain cells within mice. Not the same as an actual functioning human brain. Yes, it has been demonstrated that some mice are more intelligent than members of Congress but no genetic manipulation was required.
Regarding O’Reilly, as per usual when you see the term “everyone knows” it’s a hint of something untrue. It is possible that scientists now have the capability of cloning a human being.
But cloning mice proved fairly easy, sheep much harder, and monkeys much harder yet. Until somebody actually does clone a human being, we won’t know whether scientists have enough knowledge. But of course at some point they will have the knowledge and the will clone humans. And it won’t be the end of the world. We already have human clones. They’re called identical twins.
Casanova’s rule for seduction was to tell a beautiful woman she was intelligent and an intelligent woman she was beautiful.
The false choice between intellectualism and sexuality in women has persisted through the ages. There was no more poignant victim of it than Marilyn Monroe.
She was smart enough to become the most famous Dumb Blonde in history. Photographers loved to get her to pose in tight shorts, a silk robe or a swimsuit with a come-hither look and a weighty book — a history of Goya or James Joyce’s “Ulysses” or Heinrich Heine’s poems. A high-brow bunny picture, a variation on the sexy librarian trope. Men who were nervous about her erotic intensity could feel superior by making fun of her intellectually.
Marilyn was not completely in on the joke. Scarred by her schizophrenic mother and dislocated upbringing, she was happy to have the classics put in her hand. What’s more, she read some of them, from Proust to Dostoyevsky to Freud to Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Lincoln (given to her by husband Arthur Miller), collecting a library of 400 books.
Miller once called Marilyn “a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”
“Fragments,” a new book of her poems, letters and musings, some written in her childlike hand with misspellings in leather books and others on stationery from the Waldorf-Astoria and the Beverly Hills Hotel, is affecting. The world’s most coveted woman, a picture of luminescence, was lonely and dark. Thinking herself happily married, she was crushed to discover an open journal in which Miller had written that she disappointed him and embarrassed him in front of his intellectual peers.
“I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.”
Her friend Saul Bellow wrote in a letter that Marilyn “conducts herself like a philosopher.” He observed: “She was connected with a very powerful current but she couldn’t disconnect herself from it,” adding: “She had a kind of curious incandescence under the skin.”
The sad sex symbol is still a candle in the wind. There’s a hit novel in Britain narrated by the Maltese terrier Frank Sinatra gave her, which she named “Maf,” for Mafia, and three movies in the works about her. Naomi Watts is planning to star in a biopic based on the novel, “Blonde,” by Joyce Carol Oates; Michelle Williams is shooting “My Week With Marilyn,” and another movie is planned based on an account by Lionel Grandison, a former deputy Los Angeles coroner who claims he was forced to change the star’s death certificate to read suicide instead of murder.
At least, unlike Paris Hilton and her ilk, the Dumb Blonde of ’50s cinema had a firm grasp on one thing: It was cool to be smart. She aspired to read good books and be friends with intellectuals, even going so far as to marry one. But now another famous beauty with glowing skin and a powerful current, Sarah Palin, has made ignorance fashionable.
You struggle to name Supreme Court cases, newspapers you read and even founding fathers you admire? No problem. You endorse a candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who is the nominee in West Virginia? Oh, well.
At least you’re not one of those “spineless” elites with an Ivy League education, like President Obama, who can’t feel anything. It’s news to Christine O’Donnell that the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. It’s news to Joe Miller, whose guards handcuffed a journalist, and to Carl Paladino, who threatened The New York Post’s Fred Dicker, that the First Amendment exists, even in Tea Party Land. Michele Bachmann calls Smoot-Hawley Hoot-Smalley.
Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas: “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”
As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama: “ ‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”
On Saturday, at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim, Calif., Palin mockingly noted that you won’t find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky. She says she believes in American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the people running the country, exceptionalism is suspect; leaders should be — as Palin, O’Donnell and Angle keep saying — just like you.
In Marilyn’s America, there were aspirations. The studios tackled literary novels rather than one-liners like “He’s Just Not That Into You” and navel-gazing drivel like “Eat Pray Love.” Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” paired cartoon characters with famous composers. Even Bugs Bunny did Wagner.
But in Sarah’s America, we’ve refudiated all that
.
Bill Maher on Friday used Brett Favre's penis sexting incident to bash Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Christine O'Donnell, and white men.
During the "New Rules" segment of HBO's "Real Time" concerning this disgusting matter, Maher said it demonstrated "how pathetic and clueless white American males have become because the kind of guy who thinks there are women out there who just cold want to see your c--k is the same kind of guy who thinks Sarah Palin is swell and tax cuts pay for themselves."
From there, the so-called comedian went into a vulgar, six minute monologue bashing Palin - who he called a "MILF" as well as a "traditional idiot housewife" - white men, and all things conservative (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: Finally new rule -- if a woman rejects your first dozen advances don't up the ante by sending her a picture of your penis. This week we found out that Vikings quarterback Brett Favre allegedly tried to get with a young woman by sending her MySpace messages, voicemails, notes through a friend and when none of that worked and when it was third and long -- though not as long as most of us would have imagined - he decided to sext her pictures of little Brett to close the deal. You know, Brett, I get it. Your dictionary doesn't include the word quit or retire or married, but you've got to at least understand punt.
You know the worst part about having sex with Brett Favre? He keeps saying he's finished and then he comes back to drag it out for another year. To me this story really isn't about sports or sex or how necessary caller ID is. It's about how pathetic and clueless white American males have become because the kind of guy who thinks there are women out there who just cold want to see your cock is the same kind of guy who thinks Sarah Palin is swell and tax cuts pay for themselves. I will explain that connection further. But first let's just dwell for one more minute on how stupid it is to forget that in 2010 when you text someone a picture of your genitals, you're not just sending it to that person but to every person on the planet who has access to the internet. Somewhere right now there's a tribesman in Samoa thinking, Brett Favre is texting a picture of his dick to a woman? That shit never worked. And he's right. No one in the history of mankind has ever wanted to see a picture of a penis. Go back to the earliest cave painting. The very first one is of a cock and after that there all antelopes and sunrises.
But for some reason men persist. Why? And here's what we're getting to, because men have always been in charge, especially white men. Brett Favre is like a lot of white males. He's owned the world for so long, he's going a little crazy now that he doesn't. Also like many white men across the country, he lost his job to a Mexican.
And if Brett Favre's penis could talk, what would it say? Well, other than no photos please, I think it would say, I'm not a witch. I'm you. Because for hundreds of years, white penises were America. White penises found America. They made the rules and they called the shots, in the workplace, in the home and at the ballot box. But now the unthinkable is happening. White penises are becoming the minority. 2010 was the first year in which more minority babies were born than white babies. This is what conservatives are really upset about. That the president is black, and the Secretary of State is a woman, and every shortstop is Latino, and every daytime talk show host is a lesbian. And suddenly this country is way off track and needs some serious restoring. If penises could cry, and I believe they can, then white penises are crying all over America. And that's where this crew comes in. The lovely MILFs of the new rank. And their little secret is that their popularity comes exclusively from white men. Look at the polling. Minorities hate them. Women hate them. Only white men like them. I'm no psychiatrist but I do own a couch. And my theory is that these women represent something those men miss dearly: the traditional idiot housewife.
If an election between Obama and Sarah Palin were held today and only white men could vote, Sarah Palin would be president. Did you know that in 1788, when there were 4 million people in America, only 39,000 of them, the rich white men, got to vote? That doesn’t sound good to you? Well, what I if threw in a picture of my cock?
Which brings me back to Brett Favre, and I think it is worth noting that in one of the alleged photos of Mr. Favre, he is pleasuring himself on a bed while wearing Crocs. And if you think about it, is there any better metaphor for the sad state of America today than an over the hill white guy lazily masturbating in plastic shoes?
Disgusting. Can you imagine a comedian doing this kind of a presentation tying a white football star's sexual indiscretions to Democrat women such as Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi? The National Organization for Women would already be demanding an apology from Maher and HBO.
Of course, what we have found in recent years is women bashing is quite acceptable in America today as long as those women are Republicans.
On a more contextual note, Maher was once again playing fast and loose with the facts. The idea that Palin's support only comes from white men is nonsense. A CBS News poll from April found 28 percent of men view Palin favorably as opposed to 36 percent who didn't. This wasn't all that different from the female ratio of 21 percent to 40 percent.
As for how minorities feel about Palin, I couldn't find any poll reporting such and wonder where Maher got this opinion from.
Yet this negative view of female politicians is by no means exclusive to Palin and conservative women. As Salon reported October 8:
One problem is that powerful female politicians tend to be divisive, to say the least. In a New York Times/CBS poll from the summer of 2007, Hillary Clinton was viewed unfavorably by 42% of registered voters. She polled as high as 46% unfavorable before that. (Gallup had her at 50% unfavorable.) Everyone also began hating San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi once she became Speaker of the House.
All these women have been relentlessly demonized by their political opponents. And for different reasons, they're all pretty easy targets.
"Relentlessly demonized." Yes, I'd say that's exactly what Bill Maher and his ilk have done and continue to do to Sarah Palin.
As a final note concerning Maher's loose use of questionable statistics, there were actually only 3 million people in America according to the 1790 census. As for the small number that voted in our nation's first presidential election, only ten of the thirteen states participated as North Carolina and Rhode Island were ineligible having failed to ratify the Constitution; New York failed to appoint its allotment of electors.
Maybe more importantly, only six of the ten states that participated in that election actually had a popular vote. The other four had only electors cast ballots.
As such, Maher's use of our nation's first presidential election to bash "rich white men" was as factually-challenged as it was disgraceful.
But that shouldn't surprise us about Maher who is famous for never letting the truth get in the way of an attack on a conservative.
*****Update: Ann Coulter points out more Maher idiocy via e-mail --
He said Favre was upset – and did something only a white guy would do, send a pic of his penis to a girl – because like most white men, his job was taken by a minority. Then Maher showed a picture of Mark Sanchez as the minority who took Favre’s job.
Mark Sanchez was accused of RAPE! RAPE!
Yeah, only a white guy would do something so vulgar as send a pic of his penis to a chick.
For those that have forgotten, Sanchez was accused of rape while a freshman at USC.
During last night's debate between Delaware GOP Senate candidate teabagger Christine O'Donnell and her opponent Chris Coons, O'Donnell was asked about the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
"A federal judge recently ruled that we have to overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. There are a couple of things we need to say about that. First of all, judges should not be legislating from the bench. Second of all, it’s up to the military to set the policy that the military believes is in the best interest of unit cohesiveness and military readiness. The military already regulates personal behavior in that it doesn’t allow affairs to go on within your chain of command. It does not allow it you are married to have an adulterous affair within the military. So the military already regulates personal behavior because it feels that it is in the best interest of our military readiness. I don’t think that Congress should be forcing a social agenda on to our military. I think we should leave that to the military."
During another moment, O'Donnell was asked if there have been recent Supreme Court opinions to which she objects. O'Donnell was stumped:
Um, I'm very sorry, right off the top of my head, I know that there are a lot, but I'll put it up on my website, I promise you."
Christine O'Donnell debates Chris Coons in Delaware - as it happened
• Christine O'Donnell stutters on Afghanistan, healthcare
• Democrat Chris Coons emerges as debate winner
• O'Donnell refuses to answer question on evolution
• Tea Party favourite was relaxed but weak on detail
Christine O'Donnell supporter outside the site of her debate against Chris Coons in Newark, Delaware, tonight. Photograph: Tim Shaffer/Reuters
Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite who shocked the Republican party by winning its Senate primary in Delaware, is the centre of American politics tonight as she prepares for her most public outing.
How O'Donnell captured the public's attention is no surprise, given her back-story of controversial television appearances. But she has since become a public face of the Tea Party and its radical reshaping of the Republican party, and now vies with the likes of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman in name recognition and exposure.
We'll be following all the debate action here live, from 7.30pm ET (12.30am in the UK), and the post-debate reaction. Please, leave your thoughts and comments below and follow events on Twitter right here with our list of 50 Top Twitter accounts for US politics.
7pm: Good evening and welcome to the Christine O'Donnell circus. She may not be a witch but how about a clown?
Since she won the Republican primary so dramatically, according to the polls Delaware voters haven't embraced her. There's a new poll out tonight from CNN/Time, which polled an awesome 3,000 likely voters (which is about roughly half the population of Delaware), and it's bad news for O'Donnell:
According to a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, 57% of likely voters in Delaware support Coons, the executive of New Castle County, with 38% backing O'Donnell, who scored a major upset last month when she defeated Rep. Mike Castle to win Delaware's GOP Senate nomination.
Almost every other poll has shown similar margins. That's why tonight debate is so important for O'Donnell.
7.15pm: So how will the debate go? Here's my guess: O'Donnell will actually do very well. And here's why: she is a very experienced TV performer, so should be very comfortable in the medium.
As we saw with Sarah Palin in 2008, and George Bush in earlier elections, even a weak debater can be transformed into a useful one with enough coaching. O'Donnell has hardly been seen in public for the last two weeks, and my guess is that she has been practicing for this non-stop.
There is always the prospect that O'Donnell will just "make stuff up", given her history of doing so on live television. But I doubt it. But who can say? That's what makes this exciting.
7.19pm: And here's an attractive O'Donnell supporter outside the debate venue in Newark:
A Christine O'Donnell fan outside the debate. Photographer: Tim Shaffer/Reuters
Yes, dressed as a witch. That's a supporter. Isn't O'Donnell not a witch?
7.25pm: How will the Democratic candidate Chris Coons cope with it all? Since O'Donnell has to make all the play here, since she's way behind in the polls, he just need to fend her off and keep cool.
Coons's campaign asked for advice from Joe Biden, based on his debate against Palin in 2008, which makes sense. Basically, Coons could just recite the Pledge of Allegience for every question and still win.
7.30pm: Here we go. Wolf Blitzer of CNN is reading out the rules. No biting, no scratching.
The first hour will be questions from moderators, then half an hour of questions from the great unwashed. Opening statements now, Coons to start. He looks like a vaguely sexier American version of William Hague (for British readers) without the Yorkshire accent but with all of the Hague charisma. Yes, he's that exciting.
7.33pm: Coons's opening statement is about how he has a proven track record, whereas... well he doesn't have to say anything, since O'Donnell doesn't have a track record.
"I look at this debate as a job interview," says Coons.
7.34pm: It's O'Donnell. It's the national debt! "My opponent wants to go to Washington and rubber stamp the spending bills."
As I suspected she's very smooth on TV. But she's reading from cards, whereas Coons didn't, at least not obviously. Oh no he did too, I'm told.
"A vote for my opponent will cost the average Delaware family $10,000 instantly," says O'Donnell. Oh yeah.
7.36pm: Question one: it's the economy stupid. Why trust a Democrat again? "I think the voters of Delaware should trust this Democrat," says Coons, listing his business background and experience as a county executive.
Now he's on about a new tax credit. Or something. Expanding the home office tax credit. Woo! Home office tax credit NOW!
7.38pm: O'Donnell is going on about tax increases while Coons was Newcastle county executive, and then repeats the "rubber stamp" line. That's obviously the talking point of the night.
But she over-ran her time there and gets cut off.
Specifically, what would you do to help the economy, Ms O'Donnell? "Get out of the way of the entrepreneur," she says, and proposes ... a two-year capital gains tax cut. And, of course, get rid of the "death tax". That will help dead entrepreneurs, for sure.
Coons is coming back at her, saying he doesn't understand what she's on about, and says he doesn't believe some of the numbers she has just quoted about unemployment doubling in Delaware "under his watch". She replies that they come from the Bureau of Labor and will be on her website tomorrow. We'll see.
Pizza shop owners make $300,000 a year? That's what O'Donnell just said. Maybe. I paid $30 for one recently so there's dough to be had. (Pete's Apizza in Columbia Heights. Tasty.)
7.43pm: Ooooh Coons is punching back, saying that many of the things O'Donnell claims on her website "simply aren't true".
CNN has a split screen up, showing both candidates, and O'Donnell may not realise it but her eye-rolling and grimaces are being seen.
7.44pm: What would you cut from the federal budget? Wolf asks O'Donnell, and don't say waste, fraud and abuse, he warns.
So O'Donnell goes on about ... waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and education.
Now she's making some point about Coons's spending policies. "He's a career politician," says O'Donnell.
Coons sensibly ignores O'Donnell's attacks and goes deep into the weeds of federal spending cuts he'd support, like the second engine for the F-35. Dammit, that second engine has to go.
7.47pm: Oh now the moderator asks about "personal finances," and lists O'Donnell's various dodgy personal financial matters, such as a tax problem.
She tries to go off on a tangent about how wealthy Coons may be, and the moderator drags her back. "I worked for non-profit groups," O"Donnell says. "I sold my house," she claims, which is interesting because her bank was threatening to do that for her at one point.
7.50pm: "You're just jealous you weren't on Saturday Night Live," laughs O'Donnell for some reason that isn't clear, after Coons says the attacks on O'Donnell are a distraction. It comes off like a scripted line. "I can't wait to see who plays me," Coons responds. Not bad.
7.52pm: O'Donnell is trying hard to rile Coons, throwing out lots of accusations about corruption. Blitzer asks Coons to respond. "That may take a while," says Coons and then, in response to some point O'Donnell made about Delaware's bond rating, says: "My opponent doesn't know how bond ratings work." I think we can probably agree that's cruel but fair.
O'Donnell, as we know from the Republican primary, can play dirty, and she is doing so here. She needs to watch that off-camera eyebrow raising.
7.55pm: Foreign policy. Like anyone cares?
Oh it's Afghanistan. Except that O'Donnell at one point talks about withdrawing from Iraq. Coons kindly corrects her: "I suspect you meant Afghanistan."
"I'm concerned that it's a conflict that without an end in sight," says Coons, and O'Donnell is on about a "random withdrawal" and accuses Coons of "jumping around" on this and taxes. "Let's focus on the issue here, which is Afghanistan," says Coons.
O'Donnell then says perhaps the gaffe of the night:
"When we were fighting the Soviets over there in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s, we did not finish the job, so now we have a responsibility to finish the job and if you are gonna make these politically correct statements that it's costing us too much money, you are threatening the security of our homeland."
Uh? The US was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s? There's a slip, as well as Iraq/Afghanistan mix-up. Since the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 that's really just plain wrong, but in no way was the "US fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan" - unless you count Jimmy Carter's boycott of the Moscow Olympics?
Anyway, O'Donnell sounds entirely out of her depth and is rattling on about benchmarks and seems to like President Karzai rather more than seems useful.
7.59pm: The witch ad! "This election cycle should not about comments I made a decade and a half ago," says O'Donnell. So why did you open a TV ad with "I'm not a witch"?
Anyway, O'Donnell says she loves the people of Delaware so much, and that's what important. "My faith has matured over the years," she says. That's nice. And the Constitution is what will be her guide in all things.
Coons is asked to rebut that, which is hard since you can't rebut jelly. Which parts of the constitution do you like, asks Coons, all of it or just the parts that suit you? O'Donnell doesn't respond and the question moves on to religion, or "faith" as they put it here.
8.03pm: Wolf asks O'Donnell about her once saying "evolution is a myth". "That should be decided by the local community," says CO'D.
Local schools should decide if evolution is a myth? Sorry Christine, in 1985 the Supreme Court said absolutely No.
Wolf is pressing her to say what she believes about evolution. "What I believe is irrelevant," says O'Donnell, trying to explain what she meant, and is just waffling. Very unimpressive but the moderators let her off the hook after a couple of tries to get her to answer the question. Obviously they skipped this bit in the coaching sessions.
Now O'Donnell goes to the very vague use of the word Marxism by Coons many years ago. This is a reference to an article Coons wrote as a student with a headline referring to himself as "a bearded Marxist". "I am a clean-shaven capitalist," Coons replies, which gets a laugh despite his repeating an old line.
O'Donnell is trying very hard to make this point, Coons merely responds to her thought that this should "send a chill down the spine of Delaware voters" by saying, "If it were true I'd agree."
8.08pm: As predicted, O'Donnell is quite good at this stuff, she knows how to work TV. Unless of course you actually listen to what is she is saying, it's all either fairly wild or bland nothings. So, on education, her solution is to "sit down and talk to teachers" and says problems will not be solved by "throwing more money at them".
So far O'Donnell's not said anything that isn't cut and paste from the Big Book of US Political Debate Replies.
8.12pm: Teachers "have the most influence over our students" says O'Donnell. Well, duh.
8.14pm: Healthcare reform. O'Donnell just waffles, saying at one point "We need to make health care more affordable," stressing the word "care" as though its important.
8.22pm: Dammit, CNN just cut away from coverage of the debate! To its stupid Parker-Spitzer talkshow. Gah. Over to CNN.com.
You fools, CNN. That's a cheap stunt.
8.23pm: Where were we? In the middle of fascinating stuff, as O'Donnell was floundering. O'Donnell was talking what I believe would be accurately described as "nonsense", banging on the Republican talking point about the government dictating to doctors what they could do, saying: "Uncle Sam has no business coming in the examination room." Ah, really? "That's a great slogan, you toss it around every time you speak," says Coons.
O'Donnell gets asked who should pay if people without insurance need treatment, and she is utterly lost, saying "We have to address that" and doing the goldfish thing. "Ah, make them pay it," is her eventual reply. "Nobody should be forced to pay for anyone else's healthcare," is her off-the-cuff final answer.
"That's what happening today," says Coons, explaining what happens when uninsured people get sick in the US and go to ER rooms, and who ends up paying.
Very weak stuff from O'Donnell. Clueless.
8.27pm: Now it's the "classified knowledge" that O'Donnell once claimed she had on the subject China. Tonight she says she was talking about briefings she got when working for a non-profit but doesn't say what they were.
Anyway, it appears that because the US owes money to China, China won't help it with Iran or North Korea. According to O'Donnell. Ah ha.
On the specific point of her previous claim that "China has a plan to take over America," Wolf asks, quoting O'Donnell's previous words back to her, what is it? I was misquoted, says O'Donnell, which is quite weird. She misquoted herself? That's very post-modern.
"Right now China could take us over monetarily," says O'Donnell. What? The technical term for that is "bollocks".
8.33pm: Questions from pimply students at the University of Delaware now. And they are actually pimply. The students, not the questions, although they aren't great.
On "don't ask, don't tell," Coons says he's in favour. O'Donnell is a muddle, saying that judges shouldn't legislate from the bench and that Congress shouldn't force its social agenda. So who should? The military, says O'Donnell. So the military is a law unto itself?
But why specifically, asks Wolf. "Because it's a military policy that our military set forth," replies CO'D.
O'Donnell is sounding very uncertain and doesn't seem to know that DADT was a policy put in place by Congress and the White House, and that civilian control of the military is kind of a big deal.
With perfect timing, Coons brings up the example of Harry Truman and the racial integration of the US military against the wishes of the generals and high command.
On abortion, O'Donnell jumps in to say that she was against abortion but that the number of abortions following rapes is tiny. Very defensive there, answering questions no one had asked.
8.38pm: On campaign finance reform, O'Donnell claims her donors are receiving intimidating calls from being forced to disclose their details. The answer, she says, is that donors names should be declared to the FEC but not published. So no one could find out who they are. How useful, and a new meaning to the word transparency.
"There's just so much there Wolf, I just don't know," says Coons, when asked to respond, literally throwing up his hands.
8.42pm: Here we are on the New York City mosque downtown, and O'Donnell says the local community should be listened to. Wolf points out that most of the local community, including the mayor and council, support it. Oh well, maybe they'll be voted out, says O'Donnell. Mmm. That's the sound of a straw being clutched.
On to the Supreme Court, which recent decisions do you disagree with? O'Donnell looks blank and says she can't think of any. Well we know you disagree with Roe versus Wade, says Wolf. Oh that, I thought you said recent decisions, says O'Donnell - which is a fair point. But she can't think of any others, although she mentions "pornography" and otherwise reduced to mentioning the "don't ask, don't tell" decision, which she admits was a federal court decision.
Coons has another go at the recent Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court that blew up campaign spending laws.
8.47pm: O'Donnell is making some weird point about cap and trade legislation, saying that Coons's family's business – the company that makes Gore-Tex – would have gained somehow from cap and trade. Coons says not that he's aware.
Wolf then asks O'Donnell for her evidence on whatever it is she means and she comes up with ... fuel cells. Not quite sure what she's trying to say there. And neither does Coons.
"It was difficult from her question to know what she was talking about," says Coons, who points out that the company makes thousands of products, including dental floss, and then goes on a brief lecture about some component the company makes for fuel cells, although that has nothing to do with cap and trade that is obvious – or even not obvious.
Coons seems very fluent and more impressive. As in, he might actually know what he's talking about.
8.52pm: In some ways this is like hearing people speaking two different languages, like Mandarin and (in O'Donnell's case) Klingon.
Wolf goes to back to the "witch" ad. "Why did you do that?" asks O'Blitzer. "To put it to rest," says O'Donnell. But why if you knew that people would talk about it?
8.56pm: Closing statements! Woo!
O'Donnell: reading again. "What Washington needs now is new voices," she says and then gets off a string of nasty accusations about Coons. Again, this is just cut and paste Tea Party internet download.
Coons: also reading. "Ms O'Donnell has experience - of running for office, not running anything." Coons sticks in the knife.
Time is up. That was as much fun as doing laundry but without the clean, fresh smell.
OK, what's the conclusion?
9.02pm: Hey, all the Chilean miners are up. For some reason CNN.com switched straight from the debate to CNN's Spanish language channel. "Rescate de 33: Objetivo Logrado". Cool. But not quite what I was hoping.
9.09pm: On O'Donnell's repeated squirming and attempts not to answer the question about whether or not she believed in evolution, a sharp reader emails:
If she doesn't believe in evolution she's more likely to have descended from witches than monkeys.
9.15pm: I'll do some more analysis when I get my brain working again. But my first thought is that O'Donnell was worse than I'd expected while Coons was surprisingly good. I think she actually did him a favour tonight.
9.20pm: My second thought is: I knew it was a mistake to live blog this debate while sober. It certainly didn't help.
9.35pm: O'Donnell was all over the place a couple of times but the worst gaffe was her remark that "we" were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Here's the full quote:
"If you remember when we were fighting the Soviets over there in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s, we did not finish the job, so now we have a responsibility to finish the job."
Fact: The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Another fact: If "we" means the US (and you've got to think it has) then the US did in no way "fight" the Soviet Union. But I'm sure O'Donnell will claim that she meant to say supported the mujahideen or Taliban or Iraq or China. Whatever.
9.44pm: Transcripts of the debate are now coming through and we can enjoy Christine O'Donnell's full majesty of language:
Nancy Karibjanian: What opinions, of late, that have come from our high court, do you most object to?
O'Donnell: Oh, gosh. Um, give me a specific one. I'm sorry.
Karibjanian: Actually, I can't, because I need you to tell me which ones you object to.
O'Donnell: Um, I'm very sorry, right off the top of my head, I know that there are a lot, but I'll put it up on my website, I promise you.
Wolf Blitzer: We know that you disagree with Roe v Wade.
O'Donnell: Yeah, but she said a recent one.
Blitzer: That's relatively recent.
O'Donnell: She said "of late." But yeah. Well, Roe v Wade would not put the power. It's not recent, it's 30-something years old.
Blitzer: But since then, have there been any other Supreme Court decisions?
O'Donnell: Well, let me say about Roe v Wade. If that were overturned, would not make abortion illegal in the United States, it would put the power back to the states.
Blitzer: But besides that decision, anything else you disagree with?
O'Donnell: Oh, there are several when it comes to pornography, when it comes to court decisions – not the Supreme Court, but federal court decisions to give terrorists Miranda rights. There are a lot of things I believe. This California decision to overturn don't ask, don't tell. I believe there are a lot of federal judges legislating from the bench.
Blitzer: That wasn't the Supreme Court. That was a lower...
O'Donnell: That was a federal judge. That's what I said. In California.
10.09pm: So now let's hear from You The Reader in the comments.
• tardislass writes: The media everywhere seem to be infatuated with this race. Just remember Coons has a 15 point lead over O'Donnell and even the head of the Delaware GOP says she's unelectable. It may be spectacle but please don't think this is indicative of US politics.
Quite right, although she is indicative of the Tea Party movement and that's worth thinking about as the election draws near. Chris Coons is also pretty indicative of the technocrat wing of the Democratic party, and he was one half of the debate here.
• Loztralia writes: Sorry, have we already forgotten who was in power in the lead up to the financial crisis and created the conditions that allowed it to happen? Has the world gone batshit insane?
Well I agree with you but Wolf Blitzer seems to think here that US economic history began on 20 January 2009, based on that question.
• thea1mighty asks: O'Donnell has an honors degree!?
No, she hasn't. She has a BA and some "fellowship at a conservative think tank" that no one has heard of but not an academic credential.
• RipThisJoint says: Coons just articulated probably the best policy for immigration reform i've heard yet.
Rats, I missed that thanks to the CNN cut-out. Thanks again CNN.
10.20pm: One of the comments by a reader reminds me of a quote of Christine O'Donnell's that I didn't quite catch at the time – or rather, it sounded so dumb that I doubted my own ears:
America is a magnet for all those all over the country.
Very George Bush. And look where he ended up.
10.30pm: The ThinkProgress blog has the video of O'Donnell's health care floundering:
How not to answer a question, badly.
"Well, then we have to address that. We have to address that." Not really much of a response at all. Not sure about the "recent CBO report" she's raised here. That may be a "CBO report" in her head.
11pm: The closer you look at O'Donnell's performance, the worse it gets. Her answers don't survive serious examination, and when she wasn't dishing out platitudes or making hard-to-understand accusations about her opponent, she had very little to say. Several times she appeared to babble, talking nonsense about Afghanistan, was stumped when asked about the Supreme Court, had little clue about "don't ask, don't tell," and floundered on healthcare. She avoided several inconvenient questions by not answering them but failed to shrug them off.
O'Donnell had nothing to say and didn't say it very well. But she didn't implode on camera and knows that the key to TV is to keep talking calmly and everything will sound ok. That's fine for a talkshow guest but not for a Senate candidate.
Coons was the clear winner but O'Donnell's patchy performance meant he didn't have to work very hard. Given the opportunity he sounded impressive and he refused to let O'Donnell's accusations bother him.
The New York Times has an even-handed report that goes so far as to say:
While Mr Coons had broader range on issues and current events, he sometimes seemed mean-spirited.
O'Donnell's television experience (she has appeared frequently on air as a conservative voice, including multiple guest spots on comedian Bill Maher's show) showed - she was clearly more comfortable in front of the camera.
Sadly for O'Donnell, "comfortable" was all she was. We knew she could talk but that appears to be all she can do.
