Why Christine O'Donnell Could Be More Dangerous Than Sarah Palin

[pampango]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-christine-odonnell-could-be-more-dangerous-than-sarah-palin/64542/

Because she has the idiot bravado of the talk show regular. I write this 2/3rds of the way into her "debate" with Chris Coons in Newark, Delaware.*

Sarah Palin was wounded by Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson in their 2008 interviews because she seemed at some level aware of what she didn't know. She was obviously uncomfortable with Couric's "What newspapers, specifically, do you read?" question because she sensed that the topic held perils. She acted the way I would if questioned about, say, opera. ("Which ones do I like? All of them! They're so great. All those notes!")

In this debate tonight, O'Donnell has not seemed uncomfortable for one second** -- even in her most obvious dodge, about whether she really thinks evolution is a "myth." The difference is, she is a talk show regular. Among the many things wrong with talking-head gab shows, which have proliferated/ metastasized in the past generation -- they're cheap to produce, they fill air time, they make journalists into celebrities, they suit the increasing political niche-ization of cable networks -- is that they reward an affect of breezy confidence on all topics and penalize admissions of complexity, of ignorance on a specific topic, or of the need for time to think.

O'Donnell comes across as a perfect, unflappable product of the talk-show culture. Sarah Palin knows that she is bad under open questioning -- so she avoids it, speaks only to selected audiences, is interviewed only by Fox. If she were to run for president, which I've always doubted, this would make her brittle for the unavoidable main campaign. Christine O'Donnell shows that the other path can create a better, unshakably on-message product for this era.

[gateley]

1. I see your points, but I don't think she's going to be dangerous because she's

not going anywhere politically. I hope.

[MrSlayer]

2. She choked on the Supreme Court question, same as Palin.

You would think she'd be prepared for that.

I don't find her dangerous at all nor do I find Palin dangerous. Both of them appeal only to the 20% of people who still think Bush was good.

[hendo]

9. Yeah, I would have figured that someone of her ilk would have jumped

on Roe V Wade

[MadMaddie]

3. She is too stupid to feel uncomfortable

She believes her own hype!

I stick with the idea that we take no one for granted and we actively work to crush them during the elections.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. O'Donnell is Sarah Palin's "Mini-Me"

:evilfrown:

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

5. This woman is not dangerous. She will lose. I'm more certain of that tonight than I was before...

Chris Coons was absolutely brilliant. He allowed her to get away with a few jabs, but did incredibly well.

This woman is a complete joke!

In Georgia or Arizona, she'd be dangerous. In Delaware? No. It's a blue state. Very level-headed and smart people...

[missheidi]

13. In Georgia she'd lose...

She's the laughing stock of Atlanta...we're just thankful that she's in Delaware...and not here.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. Hey, fellow Georgian! I grew up in Downtown Decatur, and while I think she'd

be a laughing stock in Atlanta and some of the surrounding areas, outside of the metropolitan area, she'd be a hit.

It's not like that in Delaware. It's a strong left-of-center state that is primarily BLUE.

I just wish it were true that Roy Barnes had a better chance at winning. Love him!

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. She is toast, was toast. Never wasn't toast.

Every pixel and dollar spent defeating her, every second of coverage she receives, is better employed against Toomey, Johnson, Paul, MacMahon, Coats, Ayotte, Portman... a hundred House candidates

She's not a threat -- she's a distraction.

She's a Judas goat for the media. And she's a short trip from DC or NY, so easy to cover -- almost an amazing coincidence

More bright shiny things offered to us secure in the knowledge that we'll chase them....

[saltpoint]

7. O'Donnell has an electability problem though, and

it's an old problem that is coming up here again in a couple of short weeks.

The publicity she's gotten this campaign has been disastrous. Landmark disastrous.

I don't think Palin can completely recover from the perception by a large percentage of voters that she is an idiot, and O'Donnell is no brighter and maybe more strange.

[hendo]

10. People have come back from worse

Didn't Rick Sanchez kill someone via drunk driving? And he made it all the way from a local channel in Miami to MSNBC and then on to CNN.

[saltpoint]

12. The Sanchez case is a media hire, where O'Donnell is

about to be rejected yet again by voters in her state on a state-wide ballot.

Sanchez has skill as a news anchor. I'm not sure O'Donnell has much to recommend her on the basis of her public career.

You're right -- people can come back from far down, but it's an uphill climb in politics. I think Coons is going to steamroll O'Donnell and that may be the last we hear of her as a candidate. I could see her on FOX News but not in the Congress.

[Bravo Zulu]

8. In what regard?

[tavalon]

11. She is Sarah Palin without the word salad

I can see your concern but I still believe she'll be mocked off the main stage. Granted, that belief could be shaken but so far, she's just been great fodder for the Daily Show and SNL can't be far behind.

[slackmaster]

15. Sorry, but I have to laugh at the idea that either of those nitwits could be "dangerous"

:rofl:

[Johonny]

16. she could turn you into a newt

[scheming daemons]

17. Why do we think somebody who is going to lose by more than 20% is dangerous?

This is getting silly.


She's dangerous like Lyndon LaRouche is dangerous.

[slackmaster]

19. Some of us haven't figured out who the real enemy is, I'm afraid

Earlier today I saw a thread, I think in GD, expressing disbelief and asking how the voters of California could tally up votes against same-sex marriage but in favor of legalizing marijuana.

The fact that the latter hasn't actually happened notwithstanding, I believe that asking such a question reveals a lack of understanding of human nature. Voters' collective views sometimes fall into neat, predictable groupings, but often they don't. One factor that people often fail to consider is intensity of opinion. An individual may lean left or red or up on Issue A and Issue B, but may feel very strongly about one yet so indifferent about the other that in the voting booth the individual simply reverts to the status quo on the weaker issue. Or a person may influenced at the last minute by something he or she saw, or may vote out of spite, or in support of a perceived underdog.

Pardon me if this rambles. It's just before 3:00 AM and I just awoke from some vivid dreams. I offer this as a concrete example of what I'm referring to here, not an attempt at explaining the entire state's votes or to impugn any official campaign:

I personally know a couple who are very liberal on just about everything, and are likely to vote Yes on marijuana legalization. They're close friends of mine. They're Democrats, avid bicyclists, and go to extremes to avoid polluting the environment or eating unhealthful foods. They only own one car, and one of them bikes to work most of the time.

They are generally indifferent to LGBT (or LGBTQI or LGBTLSDMFT or whatever you call it now) rights, but like many voters they were planning to vote No on California's Proposition 8 in 2008, the one that amended the state constitution to say that marriage is between one man and one woman. A No vote made sense from a libertarian viewpoint, and also from the perspective of just voting No if you really don't care or don't feel that you understand an initiative (which is what I often do).

About a week before the election, several businesses in their neighborhood that had displayed Yes on 8 materials were vandalized, including signs torn down, hastily spray-painted angry slogans, and a few broken windows. It didn't look like a random hit by teenage hooligans. Clearly those storefronts were targeted by people who felt strongly against Proposition 8 (or maybe it was a false-flag operation by Pro-8 people, if you want to allow for the less likely, paranoid interpretation). One of those businesses belongs to a friend of the couple, and it's one that they frequent.

That senseless act of vandalism was enough to sway my gay-indifferent friends to go solidly Yes on Proposition 8. Their new attitude (with which I don't personally agree) is that people who don't respect other peoples' views and property aren't mature enough to take on the responsibility of marriage.

I tried to persuade them to go back to No in 8, but they were so angry that they became unreachable. That change seemed hard-hearted, but having known the people since we were in our early 20s it didn't surprise me. I didn't push hard because it's neither my fault nor something I have any control over.

You can't win people over by putting them down. It never works. Success in politics requires both understanding people and respecting them even when you don't agree with them. I often hear conservatives say that conservative candidates are failing to gain control because they aren't conservative enough. The funny thing about that is that I hear liberals saying the same thing about liberal candidates (i.e. that they failed because they aren't liberal enough). It's like saying that people don't like rabbit shit mixed with shredded wheat for breakfast, so the solution is to feed them pure rabbit shit.

TV people are not the enemy. The enemy is our own inability to understand and lack of empathy for others.

I think I need another couple of 90-minute sleep cycles before I have to get up and go back to my eyestrain-causing job.

[Scuba]

18. There's no crazy like god crazy.