Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell
As with Tea Party candidates Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Mike Lee in Utah, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Ken Buck in Colorado, Joe Miller in Alaska, and Marco Rubio in Florida, the Republican establishment is trying to fend off O’Donnell’s primary candidacy. However, rather than learn from these defeats and take a more muted approach in future contested primaries, the Republican establishment is doubling down on its anti-Tea Party strategy.
Yesterday, the Republican Party of Delaware released a statement, calling O’Donnell “reckless,” “hypocritical,” and “dishonest”:
As the facts continue to emerge regarding perennial candidate Christine O’Donnell’s reckless and hypocritical behavior, I wanted to highlight some of the key media coverage her dishonest campaign has received over the last 24 hours…
Days earlier, Delaware GOP Chairman Tom Ross derided O’Donnell as a “troubled perennial candidate” who is “not electable in Delaware or anywhere else for that matter”:
Ross noted ‘while it is disappointing that the Tea Party Express has not done any due diligence on troubled perennial candidate Christine O’Donnell, it is our hope that they will investigate her half-truths and outright lies before squandering tens of thousands of dollars on a candidate who is not electable in Delaware or anywhere else for that matter.’
Indeed, the Delaware GOP doesn’t even list O’Donnell as a candidate on its website.
As Dave Weigel notes, these statements are “some swipe from the GOP.” If O’Donnell wins next Tuesday’s primary, will the Delaware GOP even support a candidate they view as dishonest and unelectable?
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