MU Poll: O’Donnell cuts Coons’ lead in half; independents go 47-42 for O’Donnell

This (PDF) probably explains why President Obama and Vice-President Doofus have been popping up in Delaware over the last few weeks, despite Democrats’ assumptions that the open Senate seat was a slam-dunk:

In the past two weeks, Republican Christine O’Donnell has narrowed Democrat Chris Coons’ lead in Delaware’s U.S. Senate race from 19 points to 10 points. The latest Monmouth University Poll finds Coons has the support of 51% of likely voters to 41% for O’Donnell. Two weeks ago, this race stood at 57% to 38%.

O’Donnell has actually pulled into a 49% to 43% lead in the southern part of the state (i.e. Kent and Sussex counties). Two weeks ago, this region of the state was divided at 47% for O’Donnell and 46% for Coons. The Democrat continues to hold a sizable advantage in New Castle County, but the current 56% to 36% margin is down from the 63% to 33% edge he held earlier this month.

O’Donnell has also made gains among independent voters, now leading Coons 47% to 42% among this voting bloc. Two weeks ago, she trailed in the independent vote by 51% to 41%. “While Coons still has the advantage, it has to be uncomfortable knowing that O’Donnell was able to shave 9 points off his lead in just two weeks.

The interesting thing is that while her vote total has risen, the majority of Delaware voters still say she is unqualified for the post,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The swing in independent voters is huge, as this reflects similar movements throughout the country in races that are going from blue to red.

If you look at the cross-tabs, respondents gave a 49% disapproval rating to President Obama;  independents gave him a 56% disapproval rating.

The Obama administration isn’t taking this race lightly:

“If you keep Connecticut and Delaware, it makes it very hard for the Republicans to get there,” one senior administration official said. “It is really an effort to leave no stone unturned.”

Although Delaware appears well in hand for Democratic nominee Chris Coons, he will get a further boost Saturday when Obama visits Philadelphia, where media coverage extends to nearby Delaware.

RCP still gives a 15 point edge to Coons, and time is running out for O’Donnell, so the GOTV efforts need to be massive.

But there’s something going on in Delaware and it’s making Democrats very uneasy.  Pulling this off would be huge for Republicans in an already big year, all while the Left continues with an unrelenting barrage of vitriol and smears against Republican women.

Knocking a Democrat off from Joe Biden’s old seat would be icing on the cake.

O’Donnell’s first campaign ad

Released yesterday:

I first saw the ad last night and my first reaction to it was that if your first campaign ad has you proclaiming “I’m not a witch”, then there’s definitely a problem.

Watched it again this morning, and my feelings really haven’t changed much, although putting everything in perspective is helpful.  Considering the relentless attacks she’s taking from the Left, I’m guessing that this is the ad where she says enough is enough and hopefully, turns the spotlight on Chris Coons and the issues that should be what this election is about.

Allahpundit writes:

…[A]dmittedly, most “everyman” appeals don’t include a, er, formal denial that one is a witch. But the situation is what it is. She’s got a big pile of lemons and now she needs to make lemonade. No sense pretending voters haven’t heard about what most of them have already heard about.

Jim Geraghty likes the ad, and thinks it has the potential to be a game changer, or not:

Intensely personal, perhaps the only approach that could cut through the noise that has surrounded her bid since she stepped into the spotlight. There’s almost a bit of vulnerability or awkwardness, and that almost becomes charming.

I hope her campaign is getting this ad into heavy rotation. If it does, and the numbers don’t move, it’s effectively over…

I’m still not fond of the spot.  It doesn’t work for me.  I understand what she’s trying to do here, and like I said, it needed to be done.   But it just reaffirms the overall perception of her not being ready for prime-time.  But I’m a misanthropic pessimist–what do I know?

The appeal to the sympathy vote didn’t work for Palin as she was getting lambasted by the Left and the media every day during the 2008 campaign, and I doubt it will work here.  Even with an energized base.  I hope I’m wrong, though.

Let’s just say I’m really interested in seeing the next batch of polls for this race after this ad’s release.

Update.  For what it’s worth, Rush isn’t so fond of the spot. [Via The Right Scoop]

What’s going on in Delaware?

I’m having some trouble trying to comprehend this:

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.

Whatever else Ms. O’Donnell may symbolize, she stands for the idea that politics in the online age is increasingly borderless and can often be shaped more by national causes than by anything having to do with local constituents.

[…]

The bulk of the contributions her campaign has received have come from outside Delaware, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and until this week she had no campaign office in the state. She and a few aides were working out of her town house.

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.

At the state Republican headquarters in Wilmington, staff members said Monday that they had no information about whether Ms. O’Donnell was out campaigning. A pile of O’Donnell yard signs, leaning against a wall near the door, was the only obvious signal that the party even had a Senate candidate. (The headquarters continues, though, to get calls from out-of-state voters who are furious at the local party for not supporting Ms. O’Donnell.)

After she won the primary, I wrote that the O’Donnell campaign would have to hunker down and work their tails off to get the message out about what she stands for, set the narrative and take her message to the people of Delaware.  Part of that was going out and pressing the flesh with some old-fashioned politicking.

I disagree with O’Donnell’s decision to stop doing media interviews–I’m not a fan of when politicians do that as it makes it appear as if there’s something to hide, or they lack confidence in themselves.

But back to the Times piece.  I understand the grassroots campaign is an online phenomenon more than anything (over $2 million raised doesn’t come in the mail), and people more astute than I on these matters have better insight as to what’s really going on in Delaware.  At least I hope so, anyway.  But I’m just getting the feeling that O’Donnell is not going about this the right way, and needs to get out there more and not less.  Again, I hope I’m wrong.

UPDATE. It’s been a little more than two weeks since the primary and the O’Donnell campaign still hasn’t run a television ad.  Jim Geraghty scratches his head:

We are a month away from Election Day, and so far, the O’Donnell campaign has yet to air a television ad. I am informed by those close to the campaign that the ads should be going up “soon,” with the precise launch date still being determined by those producing the ads.

[…]

[T]he Chris Coons campaign and the DSCC have each aired two ads since the primary, and obviously O’Donnell has endured being the punchline of every late-night comedian and Saturday Night Live. This race may turn on whether or not her image in Delaware voters’ minds has been irrevocably set, or whether she can show that there’s much more to her than her old appearances on MTV and Bill Maher’s show.

T minus thirty days…

More on Delaware (and did I mention Chris Coons is a liar?)

Witchcraft and masturbation notwithstanding, the 2010 Senate race in Delaware is about much more important things.

Take it away, Stacy McCain:

[T]he issues in Delaware are even more starkly defined between Chris Coons and O’Donnell than they were in the GOP primary. A vote for Coons is emphatically an endorsement of the policies of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. A vote for O’Donnell is a rejection of those policies.

Every indicator of electoral sentiment currently suggests that voters are prepared to deliver one of the loudest “no” votes in American political history. Therefore, it behooves Democrats to make the mid-term election a vote about something — anything — other than the Democratic Party’s policies.

Indeed.

And then there’s this–Coons is a tax and spend liberal.  That is to say, he loves raising taxes:

Coons, 47, is the top executive of New Castle County, home to a majority of Delaware’s population. From a Republican perspective, there’s one really important thing to know about his time in office: In 2004, when Coons first ran for the job, he promised not to raise taxes. Since then he has raised taxes not once, not twice, but three times.

Coons inherited a surplus. Celebrating victory on election night in 2004, he said his “top priority would be to continue balancing the budget without increasing property taxes,” according to an account in the local News Journal. Yet in 2006, he pushed through a 5 percent increase in property taxes. In 2007, he raised property taxes 17.5 percent. In 2009, he raised them another 25 percent.

Coons wanted to raise other taxes, too. He proposed a hotel tax, a tax on paramedic services, even a tax on people who call 911 from cell phones.

So there you have it.  This is a race between conservatism and liberalism.  Plain and simple.  And since the ruinous policies of liberalism have clearly been on display since January 20, 2009 2007, voters in Delaware (and throughout the country) have a clear choice.

And have I mentioned that Chris Coons is a liar?

UPDATE. Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, this:

Since upsetting party-backed Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) in Delaware’s GOP Senate primary Tuesday, Christine O’Donnell has raised nearly $2 million online.

A source with knowledge of the campaign’s online fundraising operation said that not only is the money is coming in as fast as it did for Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) ahead of his special election, but that O’Donnell’s raising money online at a pace that’s two to three times faster than Sharron Angle in Nevada after her win in the primary.

A week before his special election with Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, Brown raised $1.3 million online in a single day with some 16,000 individual donors.

Being that O’Donnell is the true anti-establishment candidate in Delaware and, given that she’s raised a boatload of cash over the past week and, that Coons is a tax and spend liberal, how long before the O’Donnell campaign switches to offense and make this campaign NOT about masturbation and witchcraft?

Road Trip Open Thread

It’s a beautiful late summer/early fall day here in Jersey, a perfect day for a road trip.

Have I mentioned that Chris Coons is a liar?

Chris Coons is a liar who obviously reads my blog (UPDATED)

That’s the only conclusion I can come to this morning after reading this story from The Hill on the first debate between Coons and Christine O’Donnell:

Coons appeared steady Thursday, if not a bit boring — something that could actually prove an asset in this general election contest. He emphasized his experience as county executive while drawing contrasts between himself and O’Donnell without truly going on the attack.

[…]

Borrowing a line from Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Coons suggested the race would be fought on issues important to Delaware voters, rather than in the national media spotlight. “It’s often said that this is Joe Biden’s seat,” Coons said. “It’s not. It’s Delaware’s seat.”

That’s what he said last night.

As I posted yesterday, this is what Coons said earlier this week in a post at Daily Kos:

Make no mistake – Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Michelle Bachmann, and the Tea Party Express will invest to make sure O’Donnell joins them in Washington.

We cannot let that happen.

We cannot let Joe Biden’s seat fall into ultraconservative hands – into the grasp of a candidate who is out of touch with Delaware and the challenges Americans face every day. [Emphasis added]

How Scott Brown-esque of Mr. Coons–downplaying the image of Democratic entitlement and dynastic politicians in their ranks when he’s talking to Delaware voters in the debate, but reasserting that Democrats need to hold “Biden’s seat”, while talking to the moonbats.   All in the span of about two days.

There are words to describe people like this.  “Hypocrite” and “liar” both come to mind.

(via Memeorandum)

UPDATE. Jim Geraghty links.

UPDATE. Red State links.

UPDATE. Moe Lane links to his own blog.

UPDATE. The Daily Caller links.

UPDATE.  Doug Ross links.

Thanks to everyone for the links!

Support Christine O’Donnell’s campaign!

UPDATE.   What is it with Democrats and their obsession with entitlement?  Ed Morrissey reports on Jack Conway’s comments on the Kentucky Senate seat he’s trying to win.

UPDATE.  Doc Zero links at his place, cross-posted at Hot Air.

Coons: This is “Joe Biden’s seat”

From the party that desperately tried to save “Ted Kennedy’s seat” last January, we now have this.

Chris Coons, pandering to the lemmings at Daily Kos, writes that the people of Delaware need to wake up and smell the tea:

Make no mistake – Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Michelle Bachmann, and the Tea Party Express will invest to make sure O’Donnell joins them in Washington.

We cannot let that happen.

We cannot let Joe Biden’s seat fall into ultraconservative hands – into the grasp of a candidate who is out of touch with Delaware and the challenges Americans face every day. [Emphasis added]

What a bunch of arrogant, self-righteous babies.

Here’s a clue Democrats–the seat’s no longer Joe Biden’s seat.  In fact, it never was Joe Biden’s seat.  As hokey as it sounds, the “seat” belongs to the people of Delaware, to elect to it whomever they see f it.

If anything should rile up the people of Delaware to consider voting for O’Donnell, it’s nonsense like this.  The arrogance and the sense of entitlement.  I guess its part of what pissed off the voters in Massachusetts when they voted for Scott Brown as well.

O’Donnell wants the Senate seat because she’s hoping to bring some real change to Washington.

Coons just want to…er, keep Biden’s seat.  Out of spite.

Have fun with that.

UPDATE. Just a thought.  If Chris Coons is Harry Reid’s pet, then doesn’t that make it Harry Reid’s seat?

Some free advice for the O’Donnell campaign

By way of Harry Reid, my advice is to please use the following in an advertisement of some sort:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday predicted to The Hill that Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons will safely win the Nov. 2 general election against GOP nominee Christine O’Donnell.

[…]

“I’m going to be very honest with you — Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He’s my pet. He’s my favorite candidate,” Reid said.

[…]

I told him that and I tried to get him to run. I’m glad he’s running. I just think the world of him. He’s my pet.“

This is pathetic.  If I was Coons, I’d feel a bit disgusted after hearing that.  Seriously, his “pet”?  What a strange comment.

Despite a bitter primary, the general election in Delaware will be about how Democrats have been leading this country down the wrong path for the better part of four years, and how more Republicans in Congress should will rectify that problem. 

Most incumbent Democrats are running scared from being associated with the Obama/Reid/Pelosi junta this fall.  In one statement, Reid has essentially tied himself to Coons.

It would probably make sense for the O’Donnell campaign to drive this point during the next six weeks.  Just a thought.

About Delaware

Congratulations to Christine O’Donnell on last night’s victory! That was pretty amazing.

Stacy McCain, who’s been all over the O’Donnell story, sums it up best:

[T]he Tea Party stuffed a torpedo right up John Cornyn’s tailpipe.

As made ridiculously obvious by this Memeorandum thread, O’Donnell’s victory has caused convulsions throughout the blogosphere and others who wish they were relevant, otherwise known as the media.

There’s so much information out there but the meme goes like this:  We (being the press/liberal blogs) hate Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.  O’Donnell was endorsed by the same.  Ergo, Christine O’Donnell is a moron and deserves to be mocked.

That’s pretty much it.  That and the NRSC made idiots of themselves yet again, by not only dipping their toes in primaries (which they should not be doing) but backing candidates that really suck.

Oh, and Karl Rove is a real douchebag piece of work.

Now–activists, bloggers, conservatives, door-knockers, whatever–have to go all out and make sure O’Donnell wins this thing.  Remember, we can’t stop statism and the Democrats’ liberal agenda with moral victories.  This is serious stuff we’re talking about here.   Cap and trade.  Healthcare reform.  Tax policy.  All of it is on the table.  We have a chance to set the agenda by winning the Senate–and yes, yes, it’s a long shot–which starts with Delaware.

It’s a rough road ahead for the next six weeks or so.  The media onslaught will be massive.  The blogosphere will be venomous. But remember, if Castle had won last night, do you really think they would be conciliatory and polite and patting us on the back for voting for the “right” candidate?

Conservatives need to stand strong against it all.

It’s up to O’Donnell and her team to run a smart and efficient campaign.  There’s little room for error.

That being said, the campaign needs financial support.

Support the Christine O’Donnell campaign.

Support other conservative Senate candidates.

UPDATE.   Smitty over at The Other McCain links!  Part of the Reach Around—thanks guys!

Who to vote for in Delaware

Has to be Christine O’Donnell.

Is O’Donnell the perfect candidate? Of course not.  Comparing what she stands for vs. Mike Castle’s horrendous voting record, the choice gets clearer.

The way I look at it, having Mike Castle caucus with the Republicans is like having another Blue Dog Democrat in the Senate.  Yeah, they might vote with you some of the time.  But then again, they probably won’t.

That being said, there are Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson who voted for Obamacare, and there are moderate Republicans even, like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins who vote for billion dollar Democratic-sponsored stimulus bills, defying their own party’s stance.  And we all know how the Arlen Specter debacle turned out.

Mike Castle is a career politician.  Someone who has made his living by doing nothing but planning for the next election.  All on the taxpayer’s dime.  He’s a Republican establishment darling and for that, he deserves extra scrutiny.

Nobody is giving O’Donnell a chance to win.  True, Delaware is not Kentucky, where Rand Paul surprised the experts.  It’s not Nevada either, where Sharron Angle, despite her missteps, remains in a competitive race versus majority leader Harry Reid.

Yes, this is Blue Delaware.  Just like blue New Jersey, my home state.  A state where a Republican like Chris Christie not only won his election versus corrupt liberal and Obama fan, Jon Corzine, but is doing great things taking on the left-wing public employee unions and fighting corruption.  That wasn’t supposed to happen either.

And remember Massachusetts?  The bluest of the blue states?  When Uncle Ted passed on a little over a year ago, it was just assumed that the Democratic nominee would just coast to an easy victory.   The experts and pundits just assumed voters would just have the common sense to send a Democrat to that seat.  And I seem to recall that Martha Coakley had a hefty 25+ point lead after the primary in September, which of course, slowly and steadily dissolved.   Republican Scott Brown is now the junior senator from the Bay State.

All politics is local, and as such, the people of Delaware will have to decide if they want to send the long-serving congressman to the other chamber as their voice in the Senate.  It’s their absolute right and duty to do so.  And if moderate Republicans in Delaware want to make him their choice, so be it.

But if Republicans there want change, or the chance for real change, then maybe its time to think twice about sending an establishment Republican to DC.

Geographically speaking, Delaware is my neighbor to the south and if I were a resident of that state, I would have to vote for Christine O’Donnell.

Tomorrow morning there will be a lot of huffing and puffing about how this primary will affect Democrats and how the GOP missed out on winning a majority in the Senate.   This may be true.  And yes, there’s an excellent shot that O’Donnell will lose big.  But then again, maybe conservative activists should try and beat the odds on this one.  Take their case to the voters over the next six weeks or so.

One last thing.  The NRSC and the RNC have for too long taken Republican voters down the wrong path of playing defense when a good offense is warranted, of backing horrible candidates, of forcing milquetoast Republicans and shying away from conservatism.

But Republican leaders in Washington need to know that their time is up.

This is as good a year as any to start.