The Last Time Christine O'Donnell Checked, America Was About Free Enterprise

She's had her ups and downs. She's been a political pundit, a PR relations consultant and a political candidate. She has had financial trouble and she's managed to keep herself afloat. So now the critics are complaining that she's able to write a book and she's getting offers that she would never have gotten had she not become so "notoriously" well know. If we could all be so lucky.

For those who sit around on the couch and criticize their political villains without having their tax records scoured, their sex lives put in tabloids or their motives questioned, the prospect of Christine O'Donnell making money as a result of her Senate run is simply unacceptable. How dare she cash in on losing an election? How dare she do what every one of us trying so hard to do: make money.

This is supposed to be a free enterprise country. People struggle for years, decades in O'Donnell's case, before they break the seal and start seeing some real income. But, breaking that seal doesn't come from whining, criticizing or begrudging others their own. It comes from hard work. It comes from going after it day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year. There are sacrifices that have to be made.

It's called perserverence. It's a success principle.

Christine O'Donnell put her name and reputation on the line. She was scrutinized by the press and by her political opponents. She was smeared and she was criticized. Paying your rent? A few hundred dollars. Filing with the Federal Elections Commission? A few more hundred dollars. Finally getting paid for putting up with the bull&%*t? Priceless.

Do you know what Christine O'Donnell went through to get Sarah Palin's endorsement? She wrote her. She asked surrogates to help her. She called her PAC. She publicly asked for it. Then she got in her car and drove to the Restoring Honor rally in DC and pulled every string she could until she could get to see Palin face to face. They talked. Palin went home and slept on it. Then it came. Her endorsement helped her win the Delaware GOP senatorial primary.

Perserverence.

Christine O'Donnell spent long days campaigning for months. She couldn't take clients in her consulting business because she was running. That was income she could have made without having her name dragged through the mud. But, O'Donnell had a bigger vision. Yes, the visibility she gained because of her run for Senate will help her make more money than she would have otherwise.

And good for her.

In my America, opportunity rules and it trumps whining.