Tales from the Trail

Like father, like daughter?

Meghan McCain, the outspoken daughter of Senator John McCain, showed her father’s outspoken tendencies as she described Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell of Delaware as a “nut job”.

“Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office,” Meghan McCain said of her father’s fellow Republican, who recently ran an ad declaring, “I’m not a witch.”

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain said  Tea Party favorite O’Donnell “has no real history, no real success in any kind of business.”

“And what that sends to my generation is (the message that) one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how lack of experience you have,” said McCain, 26, author of the new book, “Dirty Sexy Politics.”

O’Donnell stunned the Republican establishment in September when she defeated Mike Castle, a former two-term governor and longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives, to win the Republican U.S. Senate nomination from Delaware.

Christine O’Donnell says her  “I Am Not A Witch” ad is an attempt  to reintroduce herself to the public… after some old video put a damper on her national debut.

Delaware’s Republican U.S. Senate nominee was still savoring her stunning primary victory when the video clips from her past television appearances resurfaced.

Let’s just say, the old Christine wasn’t exactly the image the new Christine wanted to project — thus the reintroduction.

Is your tea getting cold? A new poll suggests the Tea Party movement may be losing some of its steam in the run-up to Election Day.

The ABC/Washington Post survey found that only 18 percent of registered voters now say they are more likely to vote for a Tea Party affiliated candidate. That’s down from 30 percent in July. Those less likely to vote for a Tea Party candidate remains at 28 percent.

Overall, 47 percent of the 1,002 Americans polled Sept. 30-Oct. 3 oppose the Tea Party, vs. 40 percent who support it. The split was even among likely voters, according to results that have a 3.5 percentage point margin of error. 

Congressman Mike Castle will not launch a write-in campaign for the U.S. Senate seat he once was heavily favored to win.

Castle had been considering the option of running as a write-in candidate since he lost to Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell in Delaware’s Republican primary election.

“While I would have been honored to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate, I do not believe that seeking office in this manner is in the best interest of all Delawareans. Therefore, it’s time for Jane (his wife) and me to begin thinking about the next chapter of our lives,” Castle said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Castle, who’s had a long political career (nine-term Representative, governor, lieutenant governor and state legislator), said he had been encouraged by people in his state who wanted him to fight on and that he had carefully considered their viewpoints.

The only Democrat who has run against, and defeated, both Republicans Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin says don’t sell either of them short.

“Take them both very seriously,” Vice President Joe Biden said Monday in an MSNBC interview.

Biden, a former senator from Delaware, defeated the state’s Republican Senate nominee in his last senate race. He also went head-to-head with Palin in 2008 when the former Alaska governor was Republican John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.

As a Brit I never like to write too much about the Tea Party, but today I have no choice.

Every week that goes by the movement seems to gain more momentum. On Tuesday, our poll showed Democratic heavyweight Harry Reid clinging to a narrow lead in Nevada against Tea Party insurgent Sharron Angle. That night, Republican establishment favorite Michael Castle was knocked off his perch in the Delaware primary by upstart Christine O’Donnell. Today, our Reuters/Ipsos poll shows one of the Tea Party’s most well-known favorites, Marco Rubio, opening a clear lead in the race for a Senate seat from Florida. With just six weeks to go until the elections, Rubio leads state Governor Charlie Crist, now running as an independent, by 40 percent to 26 percent, with Democrat Kendrick Meek trailing behind.

But who is going to benefit?

Republicans are hoping the surge in enthusiasm for a right-wing agenda will get their supporters to the polls, and right now there is a definite “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats in terms of their likelihood to vote.

Democrats are still hoping that “Tea Partiers” will simply be too right-wing for voters to accept in many states. The contest in Nevada is a critical one, with Reid hoping he can cling to his slight lead against Angle, a lead he might not have against a more centrist candidate. More to the point, some Dems could scarcely contain their glee this morning after O’Donnell’s victory, calling her an “ultra right-wing extremist” who will be rejected by Delaware voters, and arguing they might now just keep control of the Senate as a result.

Fresh off an upset victory in Delaware, Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell slammed the Republican establishment for “cannibalism” during the primary election but predicted she could win in the general election even without their support.

O’Donnell, an upstart who knocked off nine-term Representative Michael Castle in Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary election, made the rounds of the morning TV shows to tout her victory against the mainstream candidate.

She thanked former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for her support, saying it helped woo voters to her side.

The fate of another Republican lawmaker lies in the balance Tuesday in tiny Delaware, where the insurgent Tea Party movement is hoping to pull off another big primary  upset.

This time the target is Michael Castle, a nine-term Congressman who is pursuing the  Republican Senate nomination. The GOP establishment is behind Castle, a former governor and popular moderate (and said to be a direct descendant of  Benjamin Franklin) in a race Delawareonline.com reports  “hinges on character.”

Challenger Christine O’Donnell, a marketing consultant and little-known conservative, hadn’t been considered much of a threat — until she picked up support from the Tea Party Express and endorsements from Tea Party favorites former Alaska governor  Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.