Christine O'Donnell flounders and errs in debate.
It really is no wonder that so many of the new breed of Tea Party/Republican candidates avoid being interviewed by anyone other than Fox News. When they are removed from that partisan environment their ignorance becomes almost painful to witness.
I'm sure she will put them up on her website today, once someone tells her who they are.Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell's lack of political experience was exposed last night in a nationally-televised debate with her Democratic candidate.
Although she escaped from the 90-minute debate without a major gaffe, she was repeatedly caught floundering and stumbling in her answers on domestic, foreign and economic policy.
In one of several incidents reminiscent of Sarah Palin's embarrassing television interview with CBS during the 2008 White House race, O'Donnell looked blank when asked to name a recent Supreme Court she disagreed with. "There are lots," she said but admitted she could not recall any of them. She added she would put them up on her website today.
I am obviously only reading about this debate - I haven't actually watched it - but what I am reading makes it sound like a car crash.
So, she thinks that it's unfair to bring up things which she said "a decade and a half ago", whilst calling Coons a Marxist because of a self portrait from his student days. That's hardly consistent.With such a commanding lead, Coons, a dull candidate, had been expected to play it safe and avoid being overly critical of O'Donnell. But he quickly dispensed with that strategy and accused her as holding "extreme positions" and accused her of lying about him.
She in turn called him a Marxist, in part because of a self-portrait when he was a student and partly because she said he favoured higher taxes.
It was a rare public appearance by her, having largely kept out of the public eye after being mauled by the media in the immediate aftermath of her primary win, in particular her admission that she dabbled in witchcraft as a youth.
When the witchcraft issue came up during the debate, she said that the election "should not be about comments I made on a comedy show a decade and half ago". Asked why she had made a political ad that started with the statement 'I am not a witch', she replied: "To put it to rest, to put it behind me."
On conservative views on sex she advocated in the 1990s, she said: "While I have made statements, my faith has matured."
Pressed on whether she still believed that evolution is a myth, she insisted: "What I believe is not relevant."
And it's a bad day when any person running for high office is reduced to stating, "What I believe is not relevant."
Really? Then why should we elect her? I have always thought that we elected people precisely because of what they believed. That they described the kind of society which they wanted to live in - and create - and that we embraced or rejected their world view. She appears to be turning that whole notion on it's head.
We have seen this with several of the Tea Party/Republican candidates. The minute they are put under any kind of scrutiny, they simply fall apart.
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6 comments:
I disagree. I did watch the debate. She's been portrayed in the media is being another Sarah Palin. Form what I saw in the debate, she would demolish Palin. I think she and her opponent both did fine in regards to both their base and moderates.
I think he Guardian has taken the comments from the debate very deliberately out of context, especially on the matter of who was pushing the comedy as truth agenda. If you want to see the parts most relevant to what was written about, that section is in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwhYgf
"And it's a bad day when any person running for high office is reduced to stating, "What I believe is not relevant." Really? Then why should we elect her? I have always thought that we elected people precisely because of what they believed."
I highly disagree with this. People are quite capable of keeping their religious beliefs out of the legislating, which is the context of the quote. If she tried to pass a law making it illegal to have sex before marriage, or to not eat meat on Sundays, I'd have a problem with it, but I support her right to believe it.
My impression from the debate is that this is a person worthy of attacking for her individual beliefs rather than general incompetence.
I tried to watch the clip, SP, but the link didn't work.
I found it interesting that you thought the Guardian took what she said out of context. Perhaps they went looking for a story which was already in their own heads.
If she tried to pass a law making it illegal to have sex before marriage, or to not eat meat on Sundays, I'd have a problem with it, but I support her right to believe it.
Of course she has a right to believe whatever she wants. But I think I also have a right to make a value judgement on someone based on what they believe. If someone believes in crazy bullshit, I have a right to know that. As people who believe in crazy bullshit tend to be crazy.
Whoops. Lets try that again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwhYgf--bKw
I'm not sure you have a right to know what someone believes. An expectation before you vote for them perhaps. She's certainly not under any legal requirement to state her religious beliefs before holding office. The question was fair game, but the answer should stand.
Intelligent design is an interesting issue. I think schools should deal in fact rather than conjecture. Science will occasionally get something wrong, but evolution is a theory in much the same sense as gravity.
I'm sorry to say that she isn't at all out of the mainstream here. We still have our children pledging allegiance to one nation under God in our public school systems. Our money still says In God we Trust. If pressed on their personal beliefs, someone who claims Jesus speaks to them every morning through their cat and tells them how to vote would still likely beat an atheist into office.
Thanks for that, SP. She opened the clip claiming that the US fought the Russians in Afghanistan, when we all know that it was the Mujahideen.
And I do think we have a right to know what anyone running for office believes, even though - as you rightly state - in the US wacky religious beliefs make one more likely to be elected, rather than less.
And, as she is talking about allowing creationism to be taught in school alongside evolution, "as an equal theory", we don't even need to ask what she believes. Anyone making that argument is, as far as I am concerned, a religious nut case.
Ok, you win.
If after all she's been through, she still doesn't know the First Amendment and admitted such in a debate, she isn't qualified for much of anything.
Oh there's no victory, SP. You were simply more willing than I was to give her enough rope to hang herself. And, as expected, she complied.
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