From the Jolt:
No, Really: This Christine O’Donnell Ad is Great.
Ask, and you shall receive; nearly three weeks after winning the primary, Christine O’Donnell’s campaign is up on the air in Delaware. As you may have sensed, I was beginning to think her ads were going to come too late to make a difference.
You all know I’m a Ruling Class RINO who thinks that if Christine O’Donnell will stiff her former employees, she’ll turn her back on anyone, right? So I’m inclined to be very, very skeptical. I still think she’s got to climb Everest and she’s trying to do it without oxygen masks.
But this is a great ad. 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; her image in the electorate’s mind is set and they won’t give her a chance to change it. But if it does, it means she’s broken through and refocused their minds on the question that can win her the race: Are you happy with what you’re getting from Washington? You cannot protest what Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are doing by sending Chris Coons, no matter what his ads seem to suggest.
It must be Opposite Day; I’m nodding to this ad, while the kind-hearted Anchoress is underwhelmed: “Well, I like the playful ‘I’m not a witch.’ and the ‘I’m nothing you’ve heard.’ After that, I wanted to hear what she IS, and ‘I’m you’ didn’t tell me that. In fact, forgive me, but when I heard ‘I’m you,’ all I could think of was Linda Tripp’s disastrously-received ‘I’m you’ statement during the Clinton/Lewinsky debacle. Given her good looks, perhaps others will like ‘I’m you,’ but I also didn’t love the droning, ‘none of us are perfect, but we all can agree . . .’ No, it’s not working for me.”
This morning adds two more odd wrinkles to a Delaware race. First, notice Coons’s response in classifying himself ideologically:
Two readers asked Coons whether he would “be willing to hold your head up high, and say, ‘I’m a liberal and proud of it.’ “
“There are areas where I’m solidly progressive, but I am also a fiscal conservative and don’t think you can consistently label my positions with either liberal or conservative,” Coons responded.
If he doesn’t want to be identified as a liberal, that’s what O’Donnell needs to do.
Second, the officeholder coming to help Chris Coons persuade Delawareans not to vote for the candidate who has said wacky things on TV in the past is . . . Al Franken.