On September 25, Christine O’Donnell Tweeted that her campaign had raised nearly $2.5 million since the primary, an astounding total.
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.
Campaign strategists will argue whether it’s wiser to start airing ads early or to wait until the final weeks or days, when voters are presumably paying the most attention. This cycle has seen two Republican candidates take each approach, with each one enjoying the fruits of some success from it.
Earlier this cycle, Florida Republican Marco Rubio’s campaign stopped television advertising once Gov. Charlie Crist departed the GOP primary. They ran no ads from May 1 to August 25; during that time, Charlie Crist enjoyed a poll surge, probably driven by his prominence in preparing the state’s response to the Gulf oil spill. But Rubio didn’t do too badly, and once Rubio ads went up on the air, his poll numbers popped up and his lead has grown steadily since then.
In Nevada, Harry Reid greeted Sharron Angle’s primary victory with an avalanche of negative ads. Angle had led hypothetical match-ups, but as the general election began, Reid began to lead and Angle’s favorable numbers dropped. At one point the Mason-Dixon poll put Reid up by 7 percentage points. Angle went up on the air, pouring enormous amounts of money — about $575,000 in a week! — into television advertising, going toe-to-toe with the big-spending Reid. It was a strategic gamble that appears to be paying off: If Angle needs more money between now and Election Day, she can always appeal to an energized base that yearns for a defeated Reid. But if she had held her cash in reserve and waited while Reid’s lead grew, some Republicans might have written her off as too long a shot, too ill-defined by Reid’s early advertising wave to make a comeback. Today, the race remains neck-and-neck, and Angle has a good chance of coming out on top against the unpopular incumbent.
O’Donnell’s circumstances seem a bit closer to Angle’s; the 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.
If Chris Coons can make the race about electing a witch to the Senate, he will win. If Christine O’Donnell can make the race about whether Delaware is happy with what it’s getting from Washington, she will win.
Is the DE TV media market cheap or expensive? I am unfamiliar with this market, but I believe I read somewhere that most DE candidates have to advertise on Philly TV stations? If so, it would be a lot more expensive than the NV market, so O'Donnell might not have the luxury of saturating the market now until election night.
$2.5MM is a lot of money, but it might be smarter to wait until the final 3 weeks of the campaign.
@John Gatt: She can also buy cable, and Salisbury, Md., which are cheaper. Salisbury reaches her base in southern Delaware; but Philly reaches the population center in northern Delaware. She's probably going have to do a bit of all three.
Realistically, writing as a former resident of DE, it seems improbable that she can come back. Portraying her opponent as a big taxer (he is) will only go so far. Not answering the people who have turned her into a cartoon isn't helping. If she wins, I'll be the first to pop the cork, but I am very pessimistic about her prospects.
The problem with O'Donnell waiting before spending money to air ads is that it lets the opposition characterize her. She already has large baggages - letting the impression sink in ever deeper is not going to help.
Of course, it would be nice if some of the money O'Donnell and Angle are getting instead went to other Republicans across the country who have a good chance of defeating their opponent (Better than being rated for the former.) but need the money to do so.
1. CD is no Marco Rubio by any measure, including, temperment, experience, intelligence, ethics or common sense. In fact, CD makes Sharon Angle look like Golda Meir.
2. CD has too much baggage for any advertisments to work. If she had any chance to win in Delaware (in spite of her mortgage, tax and school loan defaults, discrimination lawsuit, general paranoia and Clintonesque relationship with the truth) right after she won the primary, she lost that by her failure to do any meaningful campaigining and the dribs and drabs of other nutty and questionable things coming to light (witchcraft, lies about her education, etc.)
3. Consider that, consistent with her prior habit of using campaign money for personal benefit, she has already spent the money. Or consider, consistent with her history of being less than truthful, that she never got $2.5m.
I goes deeper than that. O'Donnell hasn't made public appearences in the past 5 days and apparently has none planned for the next 5 days. She hasn't engaged the local Delaware media, no meet and greets with the voters, and she hasn't even confirmed she'll attend upcoming candidate forums. What the heck has she been doing?
She can read the polls and party ID data as well as anyone else. Why waste money on an unwinnable race.
FEC rules allow you to pay yourself a reasonable salary, so she can just sit on the cash and use it for personal expenses or a new house once the race is over. What good does it do to close the gap by 5 points when you're losing by 15?
What matters now is if third time's the charm. By that I mean to say; I hope the voters of DE will finally have gotten this ridiculous person out of their systems.
That's right kreminitly, she's extreme, she's crazy, she's nutty, she's extreme, she's an extremist. Nice democrat talking points that are wielded against anybody who isn't a slick liberal politician, but just a regular person who had the guts to put his/herself out there and take the slings and arrows of the media, the party hacks and those who have no problem making fun but who probably have never done anything worthwhile in their life.
I am so tired of everyone tearing down the candidates WHO GOT THE MOST VOTES. If everyone loved Castle so much - why did he lose? Same with Lowden and Lazio and Crist and Lease A Murkowski.... Where were their voters? How could they possibly have lost to these nut jobs, these extremists, these right wing loons who are so extreme?
You know why they lost? Because people are fed up with hacks of either party. Those extremists, those extreme loons are Americans backed by Americans. Go ahead kreminitly, continue to make fun of us. With any luck, much hard work and the grace of God, you'll be crying the blues November 3.
Having said that, she needs to get her butt in gear and campaign hard.
@kreminitly I wasn't for O'Donnell just because I didn't think she had a good chance of winning and Castle was a sure thing. I also don't think she's a good candidate for a number of reasons, both personal and policy for a pol in DE.
But with that, the primary is over and Castle is gone. The people of DE cannot vote for the perfect candidate, they have a chose of Coons or O'Donnell. So yeah, I'd vote for O'Donnell over the self professed "bearded Marxist".
They won GOP primaries, not general elections. And they won because voters were deceived, most notably with allegations that radio hosts were bribed and that Castle voted to impeach Bush. Hah!
The point is you have to be smart about strategy. The race can't be won now. That's why I think O'Donnell may be sitting on her money to use it for personal expenses (which is what she did in 2008).
How about that Dan Maes? People were so eager to vote for him because he said the correct things to excite them, that he won the Republican candidacy to run for governor in Colorado's general election.
Then we started finding out things about him, and FROM him (The latest document release that was suppose to answer questions about his time in Kansas, ended up being just as bad.) that made what had almost been a slam-dunk (The GOP retaking the governorship of Colorado.) into, well, an almost slam-dunk (The Democrats retaining the governorship of Colorado.). Everyone who was excited over what Maes said started dumping him, and the candidate himself has been little help.
Of the many good things the national groundswell has produced, one that is NOT good is the ability of fairly marginal candidates to win primaries because they say the right things that excite the grassroots, when in normal times they would have been washed out before their personal flaws killed their candidacy in the general election. Once they get in the general election, the flaws that were ignored ends up hurting them - either because they did not have experience running in elections, or worse. And what might have been an assured win, or at worst, a competitive shot for a seat, now becomes one less wory for the Dems.
Also, we chastise the Republicans who not only do not endorse the primary winner but actually run or think of running write-ins as being bad for the party. Good. But why give Clint Didier a pass for basically the same things, and have him insure Patty Murray stays a Senator for six more years?
It is similar to the aura of celebrity that helped Obama during his political campaigns, and what seems to be a selling point among certain Republicans (That includes Ron Paul.). It causes all sorts of flaws to be ignored by voters that ultimately make them a highly candidate - and some cases, high flawed elected official.
Well said, wtrach. Of course, I'd vote for O'Donnell in a heartbeat, if I was in DE. But that's not the point here. We'll know in a month if this strategy of pursuing ideological purity at every turn was the correct one.
Angle is a serious political candidate, with a strategy and real positions. OD is a gadfly, and someone for whom the truth is not a constant companion. Rush is trying to defend her, and I think he means it - because Coons is a marxist for goodness sake. But OD is not a conservative despite what people will try and tell you.
I am not a DE resident, so it isn't my decision, but pulling the lever for her would be very difficult for me to do, and then look at myself in the mirror and not feel somewhat slimed by the experience.
The polls suggest she really has way too high of negatives to make this competitive.
Angle - she can win. If you think of giving OD money, reconsider and give it to Angle.
Anyone who thinks OD is a true conservative probably thought Obama was a moderate democrat.
Why is it a Democratic talking point to point out she's an incompetent, ethically challenged whack job? Is the Republican party - of which I have been a member all of my life - now requiring a loyalty oath? Most of her policy views are not extreme - even if she thinks she has the power to stop self pleasure - she's just a total embarrasment who has a problem with the truth. I am no less of a Republican and conservative just because I think she's a serioulsy flawed candidate.
"Why is it a Democratic talking point to point out she's an incompetent, ethically challenged whack job?"
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I listen every day, and I can tell you that this mentality is coming straight off of AM radio. It's reaching toxic levels, me thinks. Don't get me wrong; I think the talkers are incredibly good political activists. But there are some-- I won't mention any names -- who are given way too much deference. Just ask Jim Geraghty.
MDGOP - do you have any reasonable expectation that 1) she means anything she is saying and 2) that what she has actually done with her life, the actual things she has done are in anyway conservative?
She doesn't, and she hasn't. These aren't democrat talking points; these should be requirements for a conservative candidate to whom we would entrust our vote.
Seems to me that O'Donnell has been on the offensive in the last couple of days: External Link
Regardless, I have to laugh at this continuing "sore-loser" menality of people who I assume were supporters of Mike Castle. Not surprisingly, the same mentality is shared by RINOs in general (Murkowski in AK & Crist in FL comes to mind). Grow up & stop pouting.
Many fair points here, but the idea that the Tea Party/outsider faction of the GOP has the whackier, more personally problematic set of candidates vs the establishment set, is flatly false. In fact the opposite is usually the case. Compare:
Tea Party / Establishment
Rubio+ / Crist
Buck+ / Gordon
Paul+ / that other KY hack
Angle+ / fumbling blonde chairlady
Fiorina+ / Campbell
Toomey+ / Specter
Johnson+ / nonexistent est candidate
Ill TP+ / Kirk
Miller++ / Murkowski
Raese+ / no est candidate
O'Donnell / Castle+
Some would argue with me on Angle & Paul being the worthier candidates but I'd maintain that an objective look at candidate performances, character, commitment, legitimate accomplishments bear this out. What does it say that our elected Democratic President & Vice President each have tons more baggage in terms of character, associations, & undisclosed records, etc., than one prospective Republican Senate candidate?
been wondering the same thing she needs to define herself before she is by the media and I fear she is already by them
she should throw down 500,000 worth of ads in New Castle pronto
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIs the DE TV media market cheap or expensive? I am unfamiliar with this market, but I believe I read somewhere that most DE candidates have to advertise on Philly TV stations? If so, it would be a lot more expensive than the NV market, so O'Donnell might not have the luxury of saturating the market now until election night.
$2.5MM is a lot of money, but it might be smarter to wait until the final 3 weeks of the campaign.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@John Gatt: She can also buy cable, and Salisbury, Md., which are cheaper. Salisbury reaches her base in southern Delaware; but Philly reaches the population center in northern Delaware. She's probably going have to do a bit of all three.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRealistically, writing as a former resident of DE, it seems improbable that she can come back. Portraying her opponent as a big taxer (he is) will only go so far. Not answering the people who have turned her into a cartoon isn't helping. If she wins, I'll be the first to pop the cork, but I am very pessimistic about her prospects.
The problem with O'Donnell waiting before spending money to air ads is that it lets the opposition characterize her. She already has large baggages - letting the impression sink in ever deeper is not going to help.
Of course, it would be nice if some of the money O'Donnell and Angle are getting instead went to other Republicans across the country who have a good chance of defeating their opponent (Better than being rated for the former.) but need the money to do so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCouple of thoughts:
1. CD is no Marco Rubio by any measure, including, temperment, experience, intelligence, ethics or common sense. In fact, CD makes Sharon Angle look like Golda Meir.
2. CD has too much baggage for any advertisments to work. If she had any chance to win in Delaware (in spite of her mortgage, tax and school loan defaults, discrimination lawsuit, general paranoia and Clintonesque relationship with the truth) right after she won the primary, she lost that by her failure to do any meaningful campaigining and the dribs and drabs of other nutty and questionable things coming to light (witchcraft, lies about her education, etc.)
3. Consider that, consistent with her prior habit of using campaign money for personal benefit, she has already spent the money. Or consider, consistent with her history of being less than truthful, that she never got $2.5m.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI goes deeper than that. O'Donnell hasn't made public appearences in the past 5 days and apparently has none planned for the next 5 days. She hasn't engaged the local Delaware media, no meet and greets with the voters, and she hasn't even confirmed she'll attend upcoming candidate forums. What the heck has she been doing?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseShe can read the polls and party ID data as well as anyone else. Why waste money on an unwinnable race.
FEC rules allow you to pay yourself a reasonable salary, so she can just sit on the cash and use it for personal expenses or a new house once the race is over. What good does it do to close the gap by 5 points when you're losing by 15?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat matters now is if third time's the charm. By that I mean to say; I hope the voters of DE will finally have gotten this ridiculous person out of their systems.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's right kreminitly, she's extreme, she's crazy, she's nutty, she's extreme, she's an extremist. Nice democrat talking points that are wielded against anybody who isn't a slick liberal politician, but just a regular person who had the guts to put his/herself out there and take the slings and arrows of the media, the party hacks and those who have no problem making fun but who probably have never done anything worthwhile in their life.
I am so tired of everyone tearing down the candidates WHO GOT THE MOST VOTES. If everyone loved Castle so much - why did he lose? Same with Lowden and Lazio and Crist and Lease A Murkowski.... Where were their voters? How could they possibly have lost to these nut jobs, these extremists, these right wing loons who are so extreme?
You know why they lost? Because people are fed up with hacks of either party. Those extremists, those extreme loons are Americans backed by Americans. Go ahead kreminitly, continue to make fun of us. With any luck, much hard work and the grace of God, you'll be crying the blues November 3.
Having said that, she needs to get her butt in gear and campaign hard.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@kreminitly I wasn't for O'Donnell just because I didn't think she had a good chance of winning and Castle was a sure thing. I also don't think she's a good candidate for a number of reasons, both personal and policy for a pol in DE.
But with that, the primary is over and Castle is gone. The people of DE cannot vote for the perfect candidate, they have a chose of Coons or O'Donnell. So yeah, I'd vote for O'Donnell over the self professed "bearded Marxist".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThey won GOP primaries, not general elections. And they won because voters were deceived, most notably with allegations that radio hosts were bribed and that Castle voted to impeach Bush. Hah!
The point is you have to be smart about strategy. The race can't be won now. That's why I think O'Donnell may be sitting on her money to use it for personal expenses (which is what she did in 2008).
Let's not make the same mistake in 2012.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow about that Dan Maes? People were so eager to vote for him because he said the correct things to excite them, that he won the Republican candidacy to run for governor in Colorado's general election.
Then we started finding out things about him, and FROM him (The latest document release that was suppose to answer questions about his time in Kansas, ended up being just as bad.) that made what had almost been a slam-dunk (The GOP retaking the governorship of Colorado.) into, well, an almost slam-dunk (The Democrats retaining the governorship of Colorado.). Everyone who was excited over what Maes said started dumping him, and the candidate himself has been little help.
Of the many good things the national groundswell has produced, one that is NOT good is the ability of fairly marginal candidates to win primaries because they say the right things that excite the grassroots, when in normal times they would have been washed out before their personal flaws killed their candidacy in the general election. Once they get in the general election, the flaws that were ignored ends up hurting them - either because they did not have experience running in elections, or worse. And what might have been an assured win, or at worst, a competitive shot for a seat, now becomes one less wory for the Dems.
Also, we chastise the Republicans who not only do not endorse the primary winner but actually run or think of running write-ins as being bad for the party. Good. But why give Clint Didier a pass for basically the same things, and have him insure Patty Murray stays a Senator for six more years?
It is similar to the aura of celebrity that helped Obama during his political campaigns, and what seems to be a selling point among certain Republicans (That includes Ron Paul.). It causes all sorts of flaws to be ignored by voters that ultimately make them a highly candidate - and some cases, high flawed elected official.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell said, wtrach. Of course, I'd vote for O'Donnell in a heartbeat, if I was in DE. But that's not the point here. We'll know in a month if this strategy of pursuing ideological purity at every turn was the correct one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAngle is a serious political candidate, with a strategy and real positions. OD is a gadfly, and someone for whom the truth is not a constant companion. Rush is trying to defend her, and I think he means it - because Coons is a marxist for goodness sake. But OD is not a conservative despite what people will try and tell you.
I am not a DE resident, so it isn't my decision, but pulling the lever for her would be very difficult for me to do, and then look at myself in the mirror and not feel somewhat slimed by the experience.
The polls suggest she really has way too high of negatives to make this competitive.
Angle - she can win. If you think of giving OD money, reconsider and give it to Angle.
Anyone who thinks OD is a true conservative probably thought Obama was a moderate democrat.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy is it a Democratic talking point to point out she's an incompetent, ethically challenged whack job? Is the Republican party - of which I have been a member all of my life - now requiring a loyalty oath? Most of her policy views are not extreme - even if she thinks she has the power to stop self pleasure - she's just a total embarrasment who has a problem with the truth. I am no less of a Republican and conservative just because I think she's a serioulsy flawed candidate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Why is it a Democratic talking point to point out she's an incompetent, ethically challenged whack job?"
******************************
I listen every day, and I can tell you that this mentality is coming straight off of AM radio. It's reaching toxic levels, me thinks. Don't get me wrong; I think the talkers are incredibly good political activists. But there are some-- I won't mention any names -- who are given way too much deference. Just ask Jim Geraghty.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMDGOP - do you have any reasonable expectation that 1) she means anything she is saying and 2) that what she has actually done with her life, the actual things she has done are in anyway conservative?
She doesn't, and she hasn't. These aren't democrat talking points; these should be requirements for a conservative candidate to whom we would entrust our vote.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSeems to me that O'Donnell has been on the offensive in the last couple of days:
External Link
Regardless, I have to laugh at this continuing "sore-loser" menality of people who I assume were supporters of Mike Castle. Not surprisingly, the same mentality is shared by RINOs in general (Murkowski in AK & Crist in FL comes to mind). Grow up & stop pouting.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMany fair points here, but the idea that the Tea Party/outsider faction of the GOP has the whackier, more personally problematic set of candidates vs the establishment set, is flatly false. In fact the opposite is usually the case. Compare:
Tea Party / Establishment
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRubio+ / Crist
Buck+ / Gordon
Paul+ / that other KY hack
Angle+ / fumbling blonde chairlady
Fiorina+ / Campbell
Toomey+ / Specter
Johnson+ / nonexistent est candidate
Ill TP+ / Kirk
Miller++ / Murkowski
Raese+ / no est candidate
O'Donnell / Castle+
Some would argue with me on Angle & Paul being the worthier candidates but I'd maintain that an objective look at candidate performances, character, commitment, legitimate accomplishments bear this out. What does it say that our elected Democratic President & Vice President each have tons more baggage in terms of character, associations, & undisclosed records, etc., than one prospective Republican Senate candidate?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse