Christine O’Donnell’s Big Victory: She Won with 30,563 Votes – Total

30,563 Total number of votes Christine O’Donnell received to win the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat in Delaware, according to the state’s official tally. Her opponent, liberal GOP Rep. Mike Castle, received 27,021 votes — or did they? Election fraud expert Brad Friedman at The BRAD BLOG is not buying it.

Christine O’Donnell’s Ex-Campaign Manager Accused Her of Embezzling Donations, Said O’Donnell ‘Just Wanted to Make a Buck’

As we noted earlier, the announcement by the nonpartisan ethics group CREW that it will file a complaint on Monday charging Delaware’s GOP-Tea Party Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell with misappropriating campaign donations apparently struck a nerve. O’Donnell reneged on two invitations to appear on Sunday political shows, including — and this is telling — the GOP-friendly show on the Fox.

O’Donnell’s alleged financial corruption may be news to the rest of the country, but on Election Day, the Delaware Republican Party, no less, released an anti-O’Donnell robocall in which Kristin Murray, O’Donnell’s former campaign manager accused O’Donnell of using campaign donations to pay personal expenses and of incompetent financial management that left bills unpaid and the campaign thousands of dollars in debt.

Transcript:

KRISTIN MURRAY: This is Kristin Murray. In 2008, I was the campaign manager for Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell. I got into politics because I believe in conservative values and wanted to make a difference. But I was shocked to learn that O’Donnell is no conservative.

You see, this is her third Senate race in five years. As O’Donnell’s manager, I found out she was living on campaign donations — using them for rent and personal expenses, while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt.

She wasn’t concerned about conservative causes. O’Donnell just wanted to make a buck. That’s why I left and why I won’t trust O’Donnell with my hard-earned tax dollars.

This ad has been paid for by the Delaware Republican party, www.delawaregop.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

As Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said in a release last week, “Ms. O’Donnell has had no discernible job for several years, and instead has lived the life of a professional candidate, using the generosity of her campaign donors for her support … That may just be freeloading to most people, but it’s embezzlement for a federal candidate.”

In the robocall, Murray suggests that O’Donnell’s financial shenanigans somehow make her “no conservative.” This is laughable, of course. Based on the right wing’s abysmal track record in managing the economy, O’Donnell’s financial incompetence and malfeasance make her a textbook conservative.

Sanity and Fear Will Collide in Washington Events

RallySanityWatchers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report know about the “competing” rallies planned in Washington on Halloween weekend, a couple of days before the midterm elections. Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity seems to be beating out Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive in the Facebook fans department.

On the Rally to Restore Sanity Facebook page, there is an open challenge to come up with 25 things that would not help restore sanity at the event. Among the suggestions:

  • Talking about the miracle of the size of the crowd
  • Wearing a McCain/Palin 2008 campaign button
  • Wearing the American flag as an article of clothing or an accessory
  • Bringing small rugs, turning toward FOX “News” and praying six times during the rally
  • Safety pinning copies of our birth certificates to our chests
  • Starting a movement to change the National Anthem to “The Thong Song” because “The Star Spangled Banner” is anti-colonialist
  • Inviting a local coven to provide insight on the Delaware Senate race
  • Have speeches fact-checked by Andrew Breitbart

There’s also a call for slogans for hand-painted signs but so far, the results are more earnest than funny. Among the better submissions are, “FOX–the only network where you are dumber after you watch it,” and “Sarah Palin is proof you’ll never go poor appealing to the lowest common denominator.”

Can you do better? Share your suggestion for either category in the comments.

Republican Senators Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Don’t Answer the Phone for Lady Ga Ga

Ga Ga: “I am here to be a voice for my generation, not the generation of the senators who are voting, but for the youth of this country, the generation that is affected by this law, and whose children will be affected. We are not asking you to agree with, or approve of the moral implications of homosexuality.”

There is so much wrong with these assumptions that it’s hard to know where to start (many Guard members are in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, and why NOT ask the senators to stop declaring homosexuality is immoral?) but as the aunt of a 12-year-old, I know that Ga Ga is correct that she speaks for youth, and her heart is definitely in the right place on this one.

Christine O’Donnell Abruptly Cancels Fox Appearance After CREW Says It Will File Complaint Charging She Embezzled Donations

Why would a media savvy candidate like Christine O’Donnell blow off a coveted opportunity to appear on the Sunday political shows? Could it be because her lawyers warned her against risking incriminating herself by discussing on-air an ethics watchdog group’s charge that she embezzled campaign funds?

Christine O'Donnell speaking a Christian political rally after filing of embezzlement complaint was announced
Christine O'Donnell speaking a Christian political rally after filing of embezzlement complaint was announced
On CNN Friday night, CREW, the nonpartisan Washington ethics watchdog group, announced it will file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission on Monday charging that Delaware’s new Republican U.S. Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell lied on forms she filed when she launched her candidacy and misappropriated $20,000 in campaign funds from two prior failed runs for the Senate.

O’Donnell became the right wing’s latest overnight celebrity when she defeated Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware’s Republican primary on Sept. 14. She promotes herself as a Christian whose morality forbids her from lying. “A lie, whether it be a lie or an exaggeration, is disrespect to whoever you’re exaggerating or lying to, because it’s not respecting reality,” she said in a televised exchange years ago. When asked if her adherence to the truth would have prevented her from lying to protect Jewish families who were hiding from Nazis during World War II, she demurred. “You never have to practice deception,” she said. “God always provides a way out.” (In other words, “no.”)

The funds in question were donated to her two previous Senate campaigns, first in 2006, when she came in third out of three in the Republican primary, and then in 2008, when she won the GOP nomination but was soundly defeated by Sen. Joe Biden in the general election.

On AC360 Friday night, CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan told Anderson Cooper that witnesses had come forward who had firsthand knowledge that O’Donnell had illegally put donated funds to personal use in 2009 and early 2010 when she was not an active candidate for any office:

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