Christine O’Donnell is the Republican nominee for Joe Biden’s old Senate seat. What does that mean? Well, in conjunction with the other conservative victories in Republican primaries the same day – Ayotte in New Hampshire, with Sarah Palin’s support, also won the Republican nomination for the Senate – that the once potent Northeastern Country Club Branch of the Republican Party is dead. Where are the RINOs now? I mean, besides Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, whose state may well soon have a Tea Party governor, what is left of RINOs?
Charlie Crist was routed out of the Florida Republican Senate Nomination. Murkowski lost a dynastic seat in Alaska. Bennett, though just barely a RINO, lost his ancient Senate seat in Utah. Last year, defying the Republican establishment in New York, Doug Hoffman and conservatives denied Dierdre Scozzafava an upstate House seat. Sharron Angle in Nevada, Carly Fiorina in California, Nikki Halley in South Carolina – wow! – where have conservatives lost?
In some cases, like the Delaware Senate race and the Florida gubernatorial race, establishment Republican pundits have warned that nominating candidates who are too conservative could cost Republicans victories. In one sense, maybe. Castle probably would have captured a Senate seat and Christine will have a tougher hill to climb. But the pundits may be grossly underestimating the enthusiasm factor in these races. How many conservatives in Delaware will turn out to vote for Christine O’Donnell? Any conservative who can walk, crawl, or be wheeled into a voting booth. The conservative turnout in Delaware (and other states with “hopeless” Tea Party nominees) will help other conservative Republicans up and down the ticket. Even in losing, Christine may win. But why should she lose? All the attacks on her so far have been personal or the drearily familiar and essentially meaningless “Far Right” smears. When she talks policy, not personalities, O’Donnell may find voters much more happy with her candidacy. And in a small state like Delaware, she can engage in a great deal of face-to-face dialogs with voters.
There is another component to her win, and several other “Palin” wins – Sarah has supported, very strategically, very conservative women to carry our message. Much as the geriatric feminist left feared, the new young and lovely blood of women in politics runs in the veins of principled and courageous young women. Look around the country. Nikki Haley, Sussana Martinez, Carla Fiorina, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Mary Fallin, Ayotte, and a host of other conservative women in lower profile races are not just reclaiming the banner of feminism for the Republican Party but for conservatives in the Republican Party. Not too long ago, the face of the Republican Party was much like, well, Mike Castle. Now it has women, it has Hispanics like Marc Rubio and Sussana Martinez. The Republican Party, particularly the conservative majority of the party, is beginning to look much more like America than the Democrat Party.
Finally, the O’Donnell victory means emphatically that conservatives rule a major political party in America. This is something new for us. Ronald Reagan defeated RINOs, but he did not capture the party itself. No sooner had Reagan left office than his loyal vice president was promising America a “Kinder, gentler America” and ousting Reagan conservatives from the White House. Having labored in the cotton fields under George H. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and then John McCain, conservatives have had enough. The ugly rise of Big Brother federalism, the purchasing of our votes with our own tax dollars, the impudent poisoning of our moral and spiritual life in the name of some creepy incarnation of tolerance, the deconstruction of education and of information by cadres of an army that hates us, the vague promises that “Republican” alone means restoration – all these are being emphatically and dramatically rejected while the stupefied world of American leftism and quasi-leftism watches on.
The November elections will not transform American government. The parties in January will not be able to do anything without bipartisan cooperation, and the new, truly conservative Republican Party will surely deny that cooperation except when it advances our agenda. In two years, the two political parties will have presidential candidates to contend and, it should now be clear to anyone, the Republican nominee and running mate will be a true revolutionary, a man or a woman wholeheartedly committed to clear conservative principles – someone who has already endured all the abuse and slander which the left can invent, and which, as Christine O’Donnell showed on Tuesday, no longer bothers us at all. That is what O’Donnell means.
