Veteran political candidate Christine O’Donnell believes the momentum Republicans have enjoyed in recent campaigns in the East will carry over to the Diamond State in her bid to win the U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in November.
O’Donnell, a political commentator for Fox News, CNN and other outlets, announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate at a press conference held at the University of Delaware’s Wilmington campus Wednesday, March 10.
That puts the conservative Wilmington Republican in a primary against U.S. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), also of Wilmington. Castle is a political heavyweight in an exclusive club occupied by the likes of Vice President Joe Biden of Greenville, and U.S. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del) of Wilmington.
New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, a formidable Democrat from Wilmington, has also announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat that Biden vacated due to his ascendancy to the vice presidency.
O’Donnell believes Republican victories in some unlikely areas of the country — Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia — were a “perfect storm” that will help her as a conservative, not Castle, whom she labeled a “career, liberal Republican.”
“This is the year that the people have chosen to take back their party and take back their country,” O’Donnell said. “It’s no different here in Delaware.”
In announcing her 2010 bid, O’Donnell echoed some of the campaign themes she used in her last run for Senate, when she challenged Biden. Namely, she wants to “stand up to the Washington elites” and fight “reckless spending, unbearable taxes and unfair policies that stifle our freedom.”
After Biden, a Democrat, defeated O’Donnell in the 2008 Senate race, he was sworn into office before he resigned to take office as vice president. Former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, also a Democrat, later replaced Biden with his chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, until a special election could be held this year.
But the people are frustrated with the status quo, O’Donnell said.
“The voters deserve a candidate who believes deficits are wrong, and that deficits destroy nations just as surely as they do families,” O’Donnell said. “Voting to spend money you don’t have has become an appealing option for too many politicians.”
Speaking of money, O’Donnell had said on her website she would formally announce her candidacy only when she felt comfortable about her fund-raising goals. However, when asked how much she had raised for this latest campaign and for the balance of her campaign war chest, O’Donnell declined to get into specifics.
“I’m excited and really encouraged by the support we’ve been receiving from all across the country, especially in these economic times,” she said. “This is not the filing deadline to judge the viability and potential of my campaign. The real deadline will be June 30. Everything will be available on the FEC [Federal Election Commission] report.”
After registration, the FEC requires a candidate's campaign committee to file quarterly reports to disclose all of their receipts and disbursements. Additional reports are required shortly before the candidate's primary election and before and after the general election.
Aside from members of the media, the room was filled with campaign supporters except for former senior campaign staffer David Keegan, who said he worked for O’Donnell in 2008 and planned to ask O’Donnell about her finances. Keegan, of Hockessin, was escorted out of the press conference by campaign officials, who told him only those with press credentials were invited, while he loudly proclaimed that he was responding to a Facebook invitation.
“She had me escorted out because she was afraid of what I would say,” he said after the press conference.
