The Delaware GOP Is Waiting for What?

Filed in Delaware, National by on July 24, 2013

The NJ had an article in Tuesday’s paper with this misleading title: Republicans wait as O’Donnell weighs another campaign. That title gives you the impression that there is something weighty and momentous going on here — that party leadership is somehow deferring to their local wingnut welfare grifter to give her first shot at running for the U.S. Senate against Chris Coons.

If you dig into the article, though, you can see the impatience of the local GOP with this stunt. Greg Lavelle wants her to make up her mind and get on with whatever she is going to do (and he is right, decisions do need to be made now and even now might be too late given the GOP disarray) and Dan Short thinks that O’Donnell is a contributing factor to the GOP decline in fortunes here. Charlie Copeland makes reassuring noises about being neutral here, but does point out that she’s been a 3-time loser on a pretty big scale. Only Steve Grossman wants you to know that the teajhadis want her to run. Does Steve even know that (according to Don Ayotte) the former true believers are now IPoDers who will be dominating the political landscape Any.Minute.Now.

For her part, O’Donnell isn’t committing yet:

At a special GOP convention Saturday to elect Charles L. Copeland state chair, O’Donnell said she did not know when she would make a decision about a campaign. She referenced persistent tension within the party, strife that was evident in 2010 when grassroots conservatives from southern Delaware feuded with moderate northern Republicans over her primary campaign against then-U.S. Rep. Mike Castle.

“We have to rebuild the foundation in the party,” O’Donnell said.

That tension was real and she didn’t help it any. But then, I bet that the biggest priority of the local GOP leadership is convincing Christine that the IPoDs are the What’s Happening Now Conservatives, in hopes that she’ll be just one more anchor over there. Too bad that Christine has figured out the formula to get paid, and she’ll probably get that the IPoDs don’t have any money. But all of this *waiting* just masks the fact that there aren’t good candidates on the GOP side anyway. If there was, they wouldn’t be waiting for her.

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"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Comments (9)

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  1. cassandra_m says:

    And this AM, the NJ reports on COD responding to speculation on whether or not she is running for Senate here by reporting on a COD tweet, of all things:

    O’Donnell tweeted: “To be clear, a 2014 Senate run isn’t even on my ra­dar!” It came after a tweet earlier in the day that said a decision to run in 2014 would depend on “many factors,” including her parents’ health.

  2. Walt says:

    I don’t think any GOP Committee person with any common sense wants O’Donnell to run. Although she certainly was not the cause of it, she has become a symbol of the disunity in the Delaware Republicans. And she is not electible on the statewide level. The GOP needs to move on from all that.

  3. Jason330 says:

    This phantom, this ethereal mist of a candidate is on the top of the DE GOP depth chart. That’s how weak their bench is.

  4. mediawatch says:

    Maybe a draft Sher Valenzuela movement is in the wind.

  5. puck says:

    Here’s wishing a long and healthy life to Christine O’Donnell’s parents.

  6. Yes, COD is a three-time loser.

    Of course, the reason why, for example, the entire 2012 GOP statewide ticket aren’t (isn’t?) three-time losers is b/c they haven’t run three times.

  7. liberals are mike protack says:

    Delaware under the one party rule of the incompetent and feckless Democrats is the loser. Zero economic growth, zero progress on schools, zero improvement on roads/traffic and zero effort on crime/shootings. Delaware used to be a great state, under the Democrats it has become an appendage of banks and other nuttbag special interests.

  8. Geezer says:

    Which must make the utter failure of the Republican Party particularly galling. The one party ruling the state can get as corrupt as it wants because people realize that ANYTHING is better than the sort of assholes who call themselves “liberals are idiots.”

  9. Jason says:

    Geezer for the win. Republicnas have taught voters well.