That Thump You Just Heard Was Christine O’Donnell Being Thrown Under Palin’s Bus

Posted on: September 2nd, 2011

Oh how the world changes in an election cycle.

To be honest, I was never really a Christine O’Donnell fan. I met her at the Right Online conference in Las Vegas in 2010, and she was a very nice lady. In my 5 minutes with her however, she didn’t strike me as someone that might be a United States Senator one day. Possibly an unfair measurement, but it was my first impression, and at least in my experience, those observations are usually right. As a result, I never fully understood the frenzy of the supporters of her campaign to unseat Mike Castle in the GOP primary in 2010. Sure Mike Castle was a RINO in the mold of Sen. Snowe and Sen. Collins, but at least it would flip a seat from a Democrat in a blue state to a Republican. Who knows what crazy things Joe Biden might have said about his former seat being taken by an “R” and how it would affect his gaffe track record.

Christine, of course, went on to get trounced by Coons in 2010 by a country mile. Now to be fair, I have talked with many people who get paid big money in politics, that say Mike Castle would not have been a slam dunk, even in the Red Tide that occurred in the last election. Christine still had a future with the Tea Party peeps who would have whole heartedly supported her if she chose to run again–or maybe just do speaking events. That future looked bright… until last Wednesday.

The back and forth that went on in the press over whether Governor Palin had cancelled her speech, or just put it on hold, was fortunately overshadowed by President Obama and Speaker Boehner stealing the spotlight from the silliness happening outside of Washington with a squabble of their own. The truly confusing thing about this is that the main sticking point was that O’Donnell speaking was not a problem with the Palin camp, so they had no problem with it before they had a problem with it. Confused yet?

Why would there be a problem with a former candidate (who was endorsed by Sarah Palin, and a Tea Party favorite a lil over a year ago) speaking at a Tea Party event? Even if it is true that Christine’s people lied about her speaking with Palin via text, I think it might be a lil harsh to threaten to pull out of an event that possibly thousands of people are going to attend because you’re speaking. Just put O’Donnell at the beginning of the program, and usher her off stage before Palin speaks later. Problem solved.

Instead, we had all this calamity and confusion, and once again it looks like Governor Palin has rank amateurs surrounding her and handling her affairs. One of the results of this being a former candidate for office that was beloved by the same people who adore Palin, now is in a very public way thrown under a bus and used as a speed bump on the road to…?

Christine O’Donnell deserved better.

We deserve better.