Is Christine O’Donnell Actually Running For Senate?

Filed in National by on September 30, 2010

Or is she running for new conservative pundit darling? I’m glad I’m not crazy. I kept asking – what is O’Donnell doing with her $2M? Why am I not seeing commercials? I see Chris Coons commercials. The New York Times did a profile of the race and noticed that O’Donnell hasn’t actually been doing many public appearances.

Just take the example of Christine O’Donnell, the Republican Senate candidate in Delaware. Ms. O’Donnell is ubiquitous on conservative cable shows and talk radio, with her candidacy hyped by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party Express, based in California. But you can barely find a trace of Ms. O’Donnell or her campaign in Delaware itself, a state that is smaller than some national parks.

If Ms. O’Donnell is actually running anything like a traditional campaign for the Senate, there isn’t much evidence of it right now. The campaign’s Web site lists no public events at which voters or reporters can meet her or hear her speak. (And in any event, Ms. O’Donnell has declared herself off limits for interviews with national reporters.) Last week, a spokeswoman for Shirley & Bannister, a Virginia-based consulting firm that the O’Donnell campaign recently hired, said she would find out about any scheduled appearances by the candidate, but then she stopped returning e-mails.

Meanwhile, Ms. O’Donnell’s Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, the New Castle County executive, was happy to tick off the major events he attended last weekend — the annual N.A.A.C.P. dinner, an AIDS Walk, a “mud run” (don’t ask) that attracted thousands of Delawareans. He said he hadn’t crossed paths with Ms. O’Donnell at any of them, and in fact, as he thought it over, Mr. Coons said he hadn’t seen his opponent since they debated on Sept. 16.

I can’t decide whether this is an indication of her ego – thinking that she can win based on her popularity with the Rush Limbaugh crowd – or whether she doesn’t really want to win. Does she want to be a U.S. Senator? She’ll probably make more money as Tea Party darling than as a U.S. Senator. Of course, a Senator will be a much bigger prize on the pay circuit than an almost-Senator. What do you think?

h/t Mike Mahaffie

Tags: ,

About the Author ()

Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (38)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. MJ says:

    She’s hording her money so she has something to live off of when she gets out of prison.

  2. Anvil says:

    “Patrick Markey of Villanova University and Charlotte Markey of Rutgers University studied Internet usage and found a pattern between the number of search requests for porn and the states that supported winners in the last two presidential elections.” No wonder you guys hate COD. If she won, you’d have nothing to do after the election. No reaching across the aisle on this debate.

  3. heragain says:

    She doesn’t go anywhere she won’t be encased in supportive energy.

    I doubt she’d enjoy a committee meeting in an actual office in government, anywhere. She’s running for “Evita.”

  4. anon says:

    Maybe it’s a case of “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. ”

    Is she running any TV or radio ads downstate? Her strategy is lower-DE based, so I wouldn’t expect to see much in NCC anyway.

  5. anonone says:

    Her campaign website really is looking more and more like a scam everyday. No events. No commercials. Just tweets and fundraising.

  6. Did anyone else catch Melanie Sloan’s (from CREW) op-ed in yesterday’s NJ? There were some interesting items in there. According the op-ed, O’Donnell is now trying to retroactively declare her rent as a salary.

  7. The NYT isn’t buying O’Donnell’s claims that she’s not responsible for her inaccurate LinkedIn profile:

    Oddly enough for a campaign trying to escape a reputation for fibbing, a spokeswoman for Ms. O’Donnell did not dispute the Web page’s authenticity when asked about it last week by The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, who first reported its existance on Tuesday.

    The profile, which seems to have gotten pretty much everything else straight, was removed Tuesday as it attracted more media attention. (But not before Talking Points Memo got a screen grab.) It included detailed descriptions of several jobs Ms. O’Donnell has held and her regular appearances on Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” show in the 1990s. A spokesman for LinkedIn, a popular professional networking site, told the Associated Press it was looking into the matter, but offered no other comment.

    Ms. O’Donnell took the opportunity to reassure reporters that her commitment to the truth is unwavering.

    “I have always been clear about my educational background,” she said.

    They’re probably not buying it because it took her a week to come up with that story.

  8. Dr. Strangevote says:

    We need to find 2/3 volunteers to dress as witches and show up at every single event she appears at. They can hand out special campaign broomsticks and cauldrons marked “Witches for O’Donnell” to the crowds.

    I wonder if Tom Ross tapped in to her wireless router and set up the LinkedIn profile while he was hiding out in O’Donnell’s shrubbery?

  9. anon says:

    That’s what she gets for using Mike Protack’s router. But then, everybody else does too.

  10. Jason330 says:

    This is the rope-a-dope she used on Castle. She stays in the shadows until three weeks out , then it is an all out cable TV, radio, Internet blitz of lies, distortions and outrageous claims. The intended effect is to make her opponent look like a bewildered loser trying to contend with a rockslide of public confidence while she rides a widely reported SURGE of popularity and momentum.

    Coons is right about where Castle was this far out from election day.

  11. delacrat says:

    Mama grizzlies like C O’D are avoiding local media. More profitable to stick with Fox.

  12. anonone says:

    Has Coons released his income tax filings?

  13. anon says:

    Does he have to?

  14. Coons is in a much better position – Castle was consistently polling <50% this far out.

  15. It’s funny Delacrat because O’Donnell told Hannity she’s doing local media only. With whom?

  16. anonone says:

    I don’t think he does, but it would be good if he did and then hammered Christine to release hers, particularly since they might show income tax evasion (using campaign funds as personal income and not declaring it).

  17. heragain says:

    Since she won’t release hers, her supporters can’t count, and he actually has ISSUES to discuss, he doesn’t need to start that.

  18. a. price says:

    im tellin you, she has stolen all the donation money to pay for her underground witch/BDSM dungeon.
    we know she has one. After all, using teabag logic, if she appears to be against something and has no proof to the contrary, she must be a double agent bent on the destruction of America.

  19. DownstateD says:

    Delaware Politics announced an organizational meeting tonight at a church in Georgetown, so something is going on.

    Is a church allowed to host partisan political events? I doubt that church would let me hold an organizational meeting of Obama supporters even if I asked really nicely.

  20. anon says:

    A church can rent space to anybody as far as I know. I guess if they were seriously undercharging there might be a problem.

  21. They’re just starting to organize now?

  22. PSB says:

    a church can certainly rent to anyone it wishes, but it cannot show favortism–low rates to one ‘side’ and normal rates to others. It also certainly cannot advocate one candidate over another (if you vote for X you will go to heaven, if you vote for Y, well …).

    The UUFN (Newark Unitarian church) is hosting a candidate forum on Saturday October 9th. The flyer is at http://www.uufn.org/forum/ it notes in bold the candidates who have confirmed, and it is updated regularly.

    Coons has confirmed, O’Donnell has not yet confirmed.

    Note that WDEL’s Loudell is moderating the morning, and WDEL’s Mascitti the afternoon. The News Journal’s Beth Miller plans to cover the Carney/Urquhart panel.

    The Canadian Broadcast Network plans to cover the event (to help Canadians figure WTF Delaware is doing this year).

    The UUFN (www.uufn.org) is not charging anyone (attendees or candidates) for this–it is a public service to help voters be better informed.

  23. Joanne Christian says:

    My understanding is they can rent–but not for profit, just costs incurred from usage. It is tricky, and our church rents to no one–because of the hassle it creates like this, and the threat always looming of litigation of tax exempt status. We stick w/ baby showers and Pinewood Derbys.

  24. a. price says:

    “Is a church allowed to host partisan political events? I doubt that church would let me hold an organizational meeting of Obama supporters even if I asked really nicely.”

    silly liberal. All the Obama events are at gay socialist mosques

  25. a. price says:

    The Canadian Broadcast Network plans to cover the event (to help Canadians figure WTF Delaware is doing this year).”

    canadians CARE about what is going on in delaware?

  26. Brian Shields says:

    Canada is probably the only place less relevant than Delaware.

  27. PSB says:

    a church is certainly allowed to rent for partisan events. The UUFN often rents to the 23rd RD Democratic committee for its annual auction/spaghetti dinner.

    our denomination’s office of advocacy has issued a publication, the Real Rules, which separates fact from fiction regarding what you can and cannot do. It is at http://www.uua.org/documents/washingtonoffice/real_rules.pdf

    The UUFN of course would happily rent space to the 23rd RD Republican committee for their events, and would charge the same as is charged to the Dems.

    the rent issue raises the topic of UBTI, unrelated business taxable income, income earned unrelated to your tax-exempt mission. There is a rough rule of thumb that no more than 5-10% or so of your faith community’s income should come from activities (such as hall rentals) that compete with for-profit area businesses.

  28. Dana Garrett says:

    With all those campaign dollars coming in, she might be spending most of her time at banks in the Cayman islands.

  29. mediawatch says:

    Christine doesn’t have to spend on advertising as long as the Teabaggers do their dirty work on her behalf. And it’s absolutely correct that the less she says — either about the issues or her personal life and beliefs — the better off she is. She has gotten incredible coverage by doing practically nothing for the last two weeks, so why change?
    Her best strategy is to steer clear of face-to-face meetings with Coons; then, two-three weeks before the election, blitz with negative ads and hope it sticks. Meanwhile, set aside enough contributions to pay yourself (retroactively, of course) enough to pay for food, rent and an occasional night of bowling until Fox News offers a contract.

  30. O’Donnell busted again – her LinkedIn excuse just dried up.

    Delaware Republican Senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell has responded to accusations that she overstated her education in her resume by insisting that a LinkedIn profile erroneously stating she went to Oxford University wasn’t authored with her knowledge.

    But now a new website has surfaced listing the same erroneous biographical information. And a website spokesman claims that O’Donnell entered the data herself.

    On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee pointed out a second O’Donnell Internet profile also lists the candidate as having studied at the University of Oxford (O’Donnell took a course with the Phoenix Institute on Oxford’s campus). On a Zoom Info entry, the Delaware Republican is described as having received a “Certificate” in “Post Modernism in the New Millennium” at the University of Oxford. The entry, as noted in the top right corner, was “User Verified.”

  31. MJ says:

    DownstateD – The Sussex County Democratice Committee meets at a Methodist church in Georgetown.

  32. mediawatch says:

    Ahhhh, but has COD verified that she’s the actual Zoom Info user?

  33. mediawatch, you know she won’t. She’ll just continue to say that she’s a victim of someone else misrepresenting her resume just to make her look bad 2 years later.

  34. anon says:

    I’m waiting for a coven of witches to show up and say “Of course she joined us!” and prove it with a lock of her hair and vial of her blood.

  35. More on the ZoomInfo profile with the same Oxford error as in her LinkedIn profile. Basically, the company is confirming that the profile was created by O’Donnell herself.

    ZoomInfo, which has spent the day looking into this, has sent over a statement detailing what happened with this profile. According to the company, O’Donnell’s profile was claimed in 2008 through something called a “double opt-in process.”

    The company says this process cannot function without “response to a verification e-mail message.” ZoomInfo is not releasing that email address, citing privacy. But here’s the rub: The company is confirming that they have identified the emailer:

    We can say, however, that the email address was not of an anonymous nature — that is, the address was not from a personal free email service and contained identifying information. ZoomInfo’s Terms of Service require users to agree that they will not “impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent” their affiliation with a person or entity.

    The company is also confirming that O’Donnell — or whoever claimed the profile — would have had ample opportunity to change any wrong info, and that after it was claimed, it could not be changed any other way:

    All persons who claim profiles on ZoomInfo have the opportunity to review, update, delete and change information that ZoomInfo has compiled from other sources. In addition, persons who claim their profiles may add information of their choosing, including employment and educational history. All employment history (titles and companies), educational background, etc. is “locked” when the registrant claims the profile. Our automated system does not add any new titles, companies or educational records to claimed profiles, even if we find new Web articles and update a profile with these references.

  36. Prup (aka Jim Benton) says:

    It has gotten — incredibly — even worse. TPM reports that

    But TPM just spoke with a Claremont official who reviewed O’Donnell’s 2002 application file. Ryan Williams, who oversees the Lincoln Fellowship program, told us that O’Donnell lists a certificate from Oxford University on her resume. “She did have a line about Oxford,” he said as he looked at her file, which also included an essay and letters of recommendation.

    Williams told us the item on O’Donnell’s resume reads:

    Oxford University, Oxford, UK Certificate awarded Summer 2001But O’Donnell did not attend Oxford. She received a certificate from a summer seminar program called the Phoenix Institute, which was housed on the Oxford campus. A Phoenix spokesman told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent the use of Oxford was “misleading.”

    […snip]
    Before now, it was unclear if O’Donnell had really been saying she’d attended Oxford, since she disputed the LinkedIn profile which used the school’s name and her campaign explained the program she had attended. Earlier today, a ZoomInfo profile surfaced with the same term. But Claremont’s review of her application while on the phone with TPM makes crystal clear the Oxford claim comes from O’Donnell.

    Other Republicans this year have crazy poszitions, but I am really coming to believe she is actually disturbed.