The Christine O'Donnell Trap

Christine O' Donnell is a whack job. Now what? There's really no denying that she's a whack job. Even her biggest defenders who normally lie through their teeth to cover for Republicans won't come out and say she isn't a whack job.

But does that mean she can't be elected?

HELL NO

I know I know, its Delaware and its Joe Biden's old seat. Of course many of us on the left thought we could never lose Ted Kennedy's seat either.

Oh you can point out that Martha Coakley was a terrible campaigner and you would be right. But it still doesn't mean that it can't happen again.

If there is one problem I have with my fellow bloggers and opinion makers on the left its that we so often appeal almost solely to reason without generally bothering to even try to appeal to peoples' gut feelings. What ends up happening is we win these high brow debates and we laugh at crazy ass GOP candidates.

But our candidate ends up falling behind in the polls and ultimately losing.

Look around at the midterm polling. O'Donnell is not the only and many would say not even the worst candidate the Republicans are fielding this election season. And yet many of these Tea Bagger whack job candidates are leading their more mainstream and "reasonable" Democratic opponents. And to me that's because loud, strong and wrong will beat soft light and right anyday when it comes to politics.

Yes Christine O'Donnell is a whack job. But we can't sit around and laugh and point at her. Rather we need to be pounding her into oblivion. Using sledge hammers instead of scalpels. Not going for nuance but instead using easy to remember bumper sticker type arguments until she is not even remotely electable.

And that samething we should be doing to GOP candidates all over the country. Hell I look around the blogosphere sometimes and see some of the most biting Democrats from liberals and progressives aimed at Democrats. But when its election time we are having arguments over whehter its "right" to call wingnuts in this country the "American Taliban".

What

The

Fuck?

This isn't debate club folks, its politics. Its pretty much a zero sum game. Either we will win or lose in a feew short weeks and if we lose the country is even more screwed than it already is. And that's the kind of mindset we have to have going into this fight. Damn all that "well we can't do that because we are better than them" mentality. Ain't gonna be any moral victories in November.

If you care about this country not going down the shitter. If you care about the government not getting shut down by GOP obstruction. If you care about coming down off our war footing. Then we all need to be trying to vaporize candidates like O'Donnell with the hardest hitting attacks we can muster.

So yeah, we can all laugh about "Pinky and The Brain" cartoon analogies when it comes to Christine O'Donnell. But we also better be preparing to go to war to defeat her. Because I can guaran damn tee you that the opposition is doing just that. And they play for keeps!

Its time we responded in kind