Opinion: Neither Christine O’Donnell’s ‘idiot bravado’ nor Chris Coons’ baldness sways partisan bloggers
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There’s polls, there’s the court of public opinion, and there’s television talking heads, but everyone knows the only opinions that matter are those of the blogosphere.
The morning after a nationally televised Delaware debate in which one candidate (Chris Coons, Democrat) claimed to be a cleanshaven capitalist (and not a bearded Marxist) and the other Senate hopeful (Christine O’Donnell, Republican) had difficulty with any recent Supreme Court decisions, the bloggers around the country had red meat in front of them. Let’s see how they chose to slice it up.
Heather of Crooks and Liars presented video of O’Donnell insisting that Coons is a Marxist, and led her post thusly: ‘During their first debate for the Delaware [U.S.] Senate race, Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell proved that conservatives are incapable of understanding irony and sarcasm and have no clue what Marxism is.’
On his post titled, ‘Why Christine O’Donnell Could Be More Dangerous Than Sarah Palin,’ the Atlantic writer and former President Carter speechwriter James Fallows answered, ‘Because she has the idiot bravado of the talk show regular.’
Adrian Chen elucidated poetically with Gawker’s trademarked subtle grace: ‘Democrat Chris Coons, resting on a double-digit lead in the polls, was baldly dominant. Actually, just bald. O’Donnell’s strategy was to project radical sympathy with common folks scared of Marxists and their death taxes. Her ignorance on most questions of policy really reinforced her message that, ‘I’m you.’ Stupid, idiot you — you who haven’t read a newspaper in three years.’
You get the picture, the lefty bloggers felt that ding dong, the accused witch was a ding dong. Quips from the righty blogosphere after the jump.
University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse titled her debate post, ‘Watch Christine O’Donnell dominate debate, even as Wolf Blitzer tries to control her.’ After pasting in a CNN video, Althouse wrote of the ‘tea party’ darling: ‘She is not susceptible to pushback by people who imagine themselves her superiors. Extremely well done.’ The Gateway Pundit latched on to the dig O’Donnell made about the popularity of Catholicism, writing: ‘Oops … Christine O’Donnell just let the commie out of the bag. Christine O’Donnell nailed self-professed Marxist Chris Coons tonight saying, ‘I would argue that more people would support my Catholic beliefs than his Marxist beliefs.’ No wonder the state-run media hates her. She keeps bringing up the facts that they do not want disclosed. Wow!’
Curt Levey on Red State admitted that O’Donnell failed on the question about the Supreme Court, but said that Coons, a lawyer for 18 years, didn’t win that round handily either. ‘O’Donnell struggled when asked which Supreme Court decisions she dislikes, but Coons didn’t do any better,’ Levey blogged. ‘When asked the question, Coons could only come up with the same case, Citizens United, that a questioner had asked him about a few minutes earlier (Wolf Blitzer failed to push the issue with Coons, unlike with O’Donnell). Moreover, Coons’s answer consisted of nothing more than the usual Democratic talking point — corporations shouldn’t have free speech rights — that even my dog knows by heart by now.’
And finally, Jim Geraghty of the National Review Online, in his post titled ‘Did Delawareans Just Endure the Worst-Moderated Debate Ever?’ thought O’Donnell didn’t live up to the negative expectations viewers may have tuned in for. ‘If Delaware voters tuned in expecting a bubble-headed, wacky ditz to ramble about masturbation and Satanism, they probably wondered where she was and why some woman who seemed to know about the issues was on stage instead,’ he wrote.
-- Tony Pierce
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