By Jay D. Homnick on 9.15.10 @ 6:05AM
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/
In the biggest electoral surprise of Tuesday night, conservative activist Christine O'Donnell defeated longtime GOP Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware's Republican Senate primary.
Well, well, well, if tea is not your cup of tea, perhaps we can scrounge up a few crumpets for you on Election Day. This November, we have a wide variety of teas from such exotic locales as Alaska, Nevada, Delaware and even New Hampshire. (There is even a rumor that Herb London and Al Regnery will partner up to market something called Herbal Tea.) Any movement whose influence is being felt in all of the aforementioned states is not about to be blown away by the sneers and sniggers the Democrats have been firing in opposition.
More importantly, the Tea Party candidates have jolted the Republican establishment to the core. They even managed to do that in Delaware: a consummation devoutly to be wished, as Joe Biden wrote back in his Globe Theatre days. Here the Poobahs, the nabobs, the satraps, the moguls and the Kahunas all agreed that Christine O'Donnell was the bugaboo. Well, boo-hoo about your boo-boo, fellas. It could not have happened to nicer guys.
Okay, let me get a grip on myself and come down from cheerleader mode to apply for readmission in the precincts of dispassion. In the last few days leading up to the Delaware Republican Senatorial Primary, your old-guard Republican insider types put on a full-court press in support of Mike Castle. Mike has been a Representative from Delaware for many years and polls indicated that if he won the primary he would win the general election handily. He is a classic RINO, whose horn is considered an aphrodisiac by Northern tribes. His opponent, Christine O'Donnell was getting the usual treatment from the usual suspects: "too dumb, too nutty, too slutty, too green, too yellow, too blue, too gray." The polls have been less kind to her than to Castle.
But the voters spake, and the pillars did shake. The voters smote, and the Castle lost his moat. Mike Castle will not be your Castle.
Which brings us to the fierce debate which raged between Charles Krauthammer and Rush Limbaugh prior to the primary vote. Both of these gentlemen have waived their protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act and advance their arguments with vigor. Krauthammer slammed Palin and DeMint for backing O’Donnell: they were being "irresponsible and capricious." He cited a maxim propounded by the late William F. Buckley Jr. to the effect that one ought to back in primaries the most conservative among the electable.
Limbaugh responded that such considerations are suspended in time of emergency, when the country is traveling full-speed in a hand-basket down the road paved with good intentions.
I concurred with Limbaugh yesterday and with the citizens of Delaware today. It is not enough now to elect candidates who lean rightward of Obama. We need people who understand that trillion-dollar deficits and socialized medicine are not inconveniences. They are not annoyances. They are not setbacks. They are not unpleasantnesses. They are not regrettable episodes. They are not divergent views, odd turns, eccentricities. They are not even outrages and atrocities. THEY ARE IMPOSSIBILITIES.
Only candidates who understand that the only answer to "yes, we can" is "no, we cannot" are worth fielding. That is the whole point of sideswiping the political process with a third-party non-party wrecking crew who hold their teacups with monkey wrenches. The Republican establishment is asea and a movement is afoot. This is all coming to a head in November, when we will see who is really ahead and, derivatively, what lies ahead. (Plenty of lies ahead in the campaign, that’s for sure.)
The biggest winner of all is Sarah Palin, who has been tarred by our feathered friends as the ultimate in unelectable. Well, she let down her hair and said goodbye to the Castle. Everything is different now. She is through the looking-glass, and so the last word must go to the White Queen:
"That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first --"
"Living backwards!" Alice repeated in great astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing!"
" -- but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways."
"I'm sure MINE only works one way." Alice remarked. "I can't remember things before they happen."
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.
- Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events.
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