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Friday, September 17, 2010

How to Blow A Senate Seat By Nominating A Clown

So some Republicans think Christine O'Donnell can't win, do they? What if she does?

In 2008, the Green Bay Packers had Brett Favre and it was thought that they were probably the only team from the NFC that would even have a shot of beating the Patriots that year. But after the NY Giants beat them in the NFC Championship, the sports pundits turned forecasters said it looked like the Super Bowl was going to be a blowout win for the Pats. A young, still mistake prone and untested Eli Manning against a Patriot's machine? The naysayers said it could never happen.

 Bookmaker Charles Krauthammer would probably have said that there was about a 1 in 10 chance of the Giants beating the heavily favored Patriots.

While it doesn't always work out, it doesn't mean we shouldn't always give it our best. Just because the odds may be against something, doesn't mean you pack up and go home. What if everyone involved with Apollo 13 just gave up? What if the United States Hockey Team didn't play in the 1980 Olympics because they were afraid being beaten by the Soviets would give the communists a propaganda edge?

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” For those who may want to throw in the towel or give up on Delaware's Senate seat, there is an old Chinese proverb that says the person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.

Sometimes, taking a shot can surprise you. Those who have gambled and lost know that losing is life's existential norm. Winning is something you have to work for and believe in with faith and enthusiasm. You have to will victory. But you can also will defeat. It depends on one's attitude. You can't give up until its over. It's why they play the games.

Working for the big win still has its benefits even if you do lose. Go ask Tug McGraw whose claim to fame is that he coined the phrase "You Gotta Believe" for Mets fans in 1973. They lost to the Oakland A's, but the enthusiasm generated from that series bolstered attendance at Mets game for years to come. Tug McGraw is probably thankful now that he didn't coin the phrase "Forget about it, we suck."

If Karl Rove was supporting a different candidate, would he have gone on Hannity the day after George W. Bush won the 2000 nomination and question his character by reading off liberal talking points about his alcohol abuse and alleged cocaine use that occured in his "checkered past?" If Sean Hannity interupted, would Rove quip back at him "well, what about the DUI? And George W. Bush's academic record?" Shady at best, right Karl? Character and rectitude, right Karl?

I know how to settle this whole feud right here. On Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove should trade his documentation clearing him of any wrong doing in the Scooter Libby case for a copy of Christine O'Donnell's letter clearing her of her IRS tax lien. Then they should share tea together.

If you think Christine O'Donnell can't win because she's not qualified to be in the Senate, think again. Take a look at what happened in Minnesota when an unqualified candidate ran against the Democrat Party establishment. From Open Left (written before the election):
Transformative progressive candidates are people who speak and communicate well. Franken's training as an artist and a storyteller meant that he took risks, creative risks, and learned how to connect with large groups of people and entertain them. He's very very good at it. And that's the kind of person we need in the Senate, a smart, dedicated, aggressive Democrat that understands the modern media environment.

Democrats in Minnesota would do well to stop stabbing him in the back. Just say, eight years ago Al Franken was a professional comedian, and voters can tell the difference between jokes and Norm Coleman's record of voting with Bush to send thousands of Americans and sink trillions of dollars into an immoral war that should never have been waged.
The Democrat establishment thought that Franken could never beat Coleman in the general election. They pretty much gave up on the seat after Franken beat Patricia Lord Farris, a member of a longtime Minnesota Democratic family in the primary. The writer pleads with fellow Democrats to frame Franken properly much the way we plead with Republicans. Just say that O'Donnell was a struggling media commentator years ago who was not making a lot of money, and voters can tell the difference between someone who had some personal financial problems and an opponent who wants to continue sending trillions of American taxpayer dollars into a bottomless pit and increase an immoral deficit that should have never been run up by bailouts and stimuli in the first place.

Someone needs to tell our anti-O'Donnell GOP doomsayers that even a clown can win a Senate seat. And Christine O'Donnell ain't no clown. 

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