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EZ SU ELECTION 2010 | THE NATION ‘Tea party’ gains send message to establishment tea party from A1


nell last night,” said Rush Limbaugh, whose radio show Rove had recently guest-hosted. Meanwhile, the victorious candidate


used a round of television interviews to blast a GOP establishment that she said was lazy and guilty of “political cannibal- ism” in its efforts to defeat her. The National Republican Senatorial


Committee, which had been silent about her win except for a tepid statement by Executive Director Rob Jesmer, quickly announced that it would be sending her a check for $42,000, the maximum allow- able under the law. In a statement, NRSC Chairman John


Cornyn (Tex.) said: “Let there be no mistake: The National Republican Sena- torial Committee – and I personally as the committee’s chairman – strongly stand by all of our Republican nominees, including Christine O’Donnell in Dela- ware.”


O’Donnell’s victory was not the only


big surprise on Tuesday night. InNewYork, newcomer Carl Paladino,


a businessman backed by tea party groups, soundly defeated former con- gressman Rick Lazio, who had been considered the favorite until the final stretch of the race. The GOP hierarchy did claim a win in


NewHampshire, however, where former attorney generalKellyAyotte beat lawyer Ovide Lamontagne, who had tea party support. But Ayotte — like O’Donnell — had also been helped by the backing of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and other leading conservatives. O’Donnell’s victory marks the fourth


time this year that the tea party has been blamed for — or credited with, depend- ing on the point of view — forcing the Republicans to put the ideologically pur- er Senate candidate on the ballot in November, rather than the one who has the greater chance of winning. But the three others — Ken Buck in


Colorado, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky—have proved to be stronger than Republican naysayers predicted. And although the tea party may have


cost Republicans their best shot at win- ning some key races, party leaders insist that the antiestablishment anger it rep- resents and channels will benefit the


In Delaware’s Senate race, frustrationwith GOP boiled over


BY AMY GARDNER AND SANDHYA SOMASHEKHAR


dover, del.—Long before Sarah Palin endorsed Christine O’Donnell and the Tea Party Express sent a last-minute surge of cash and manpower to help her win the GOP Senate nod in Delaware, conservatives here decided they had had enough of Rep.MichaelN. Castle and the Republican Party establishment. A sentiment had taken hold that party


elders weren’t listening, weren’t true to conservative beliefs and assumed that everyonewhovotes Republican would go along with their decisions, just as they always had. “There’s been a feeling for many years,


a frustration over the idea that the party’s trying to tell everyone all the time, ‘Here’s whoyou need to vote for’ and ‘Here’swho you should follow,’ ” said Bill Colley, the host of a local conservative radio talk show, who stopped by the Georgetown Family Restaurant on Wednesday after- noon. “This resentment has been roiling for years, and the pot boiled over this year. There is no Republican Party any- more in the state of Delaware.” For the national political world, Cas-


tle’s primary defeat by O’Donnell, an unknown candidate with questionable credentials, means a sudden dampening of the GOP’s chances to take over the Senate — and another rift within the party. It also puts national leaders on notice that, even in moderate Delaware, the anger of the “tea party” movement is a force they can’t ignore. But for Republican voters here, the


race was simply a chance for the ag- grieved to send a message to their op- pressors. The fact that Castle and nation- al GOP leaders were stunned by the result only proved their point. “We justhada belief thatwecould beat


the heck out of the GOP,” said Lynn Brennan of Rehoboth, who helped form the Delaware Conservative Coalition this summer. “Theway [DelawareGOPChair- man] TomRoss has treated the conserva- tives in this state—oh,my Lord.No true conservative could come up through the ranks of the GOP, because Mike Castle and Tom Ross wouldn’t let them.” O’Donnell won decisively Tuesday


despite an aggressive campaign by state and national Republicans, including Ross, to defeat her. She had run for Senate twice before, against then-Sen. Joeseph R. Biden Jr., and although she earned the support of the stateGOPthen, she was not viewed as a credible candi- date and lost overwhelmingly. O’Donnell is a marketing consultant


and a longtime advocate on such social issues as abstinence before marriage and


making abortion illegal — issues that do not typically resonate with Delaware’s moderate electorate. She has weathered a string of personal financial setbacks, including the near-foreclosure of her home, an IRS lien and a lawsuit from her alma mater for failure to pay expenses. She has also misspoken repeatedlyonthe campaign trail, including claiming that she won two of the state’s three counties against Biden, though she won none.


Amiscalculation During the primary, the state Republi-


can Party attacked her sharply for her money problems and her misstatements. They barred her campaign from using county GOP offices. But they miscalculated theirowncred-


ibility with primary voters, who, as Rush Limbaugh said on his radio talk show Wednesday, believe that “every politi-


“We just had a belief that we could beat the heck out of the GOP.”


Lynn Brennan, an organizer of the Delaware Conservative Coalition


cian’s got a character problem.” In this difficult economy, voters in


Delaware felt sympathetic to O’Donnell’s financial troubles — especially when juxtaposed with Castle’s long career in politics, including nine terms in Con- gress and stints as governor, lieutenant governor and state lawmaker. “You know what gotme? She’s down to


Earth. She’s on the street. She’s been there,” said Fred Drake Sr., a retired salvage company owner who was eating lunch at the Kirby & Holloway Family Restaurant in Dover onWednesday. Add- ed Betty Drake, his wife, who also voted for O’Donnell: “What we’re going through, the foreclosures — that doesn’t upset me at all.” There’s no dispute that Palin’s en- dorsement, along with that of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), helped O’Donnell in the final days. Palin’s recorded phone calls went to thousands of homes. The Sacra- mento-based Tea Party Express spent more than $200,000 on broadcast and newspaper ads as well as mailings and e-mail blasts. The group also mobilized its “phone from home” volunteers, who called Delaware homes from their own living rooms across the country — a


grass-roots effort that has boosted tea party candidates in Utah, Nevada and Alaska as well. But the grass roots had already found purchase in Delaware, said Brennan, whose Delaware Conservative Coalition hosted a picnic in July at Sam Yoder’s Farm in Houston, Del., expecting 300 attendees — 1,200 people came. Former senatorGeorge Allen (R-Va.) spoke, Bren- nan said. “It’s been building probably since the


9/12 march last year,” she said. “We all came back here, and we realized there were a whole bunch of people just like us, from here, feeling the exact same way.” It’s unclear what the full impact of O’Donnell’s win will be on state and national Republican operations. Even as a number of national GOP


leaders, including Karl Rove, continued to criticize O’Donnell—and dismiss any chance of her winning in November against Democrat Chris Coons — others were lining up behind her and pledging financial support. Her Web site boasted that she had raised $750,000 by late Wednesday,anindication that she’s likely to have enough money to compete.


’Gone Old Party’ The Delaware GOP was not on board


yet. While local activists and Tea Party Express leaders were calling for Ross’s resignation Wednesday, the party’s Web page was still loaded with attacks on O’Donnell.


Ross declined to say in a phone inter-


view whether he would heed the calls to step down, nor would he say what the party is doing to retool its efforts to get behind O’Donnell. “That’s something we’re trying to coordinate with the RNC,” he said, adding that he planned to issue a statement Thursday. One thing seems certain: If the GOP


doesn’t change, these activists will stay away. Stephen B. Hyle, a tea party orga- nizer, renounced his Republican affilia- tionWednesday morning and became an independent. The GOP in Delaware, he joked, now stands for “Gone Old Party.” Hyle said he hopes that O’Donnell becomes the poster girl for disgruntled Republicansaroundthe countryandthat the momentum of this week will carry her to victory.He acknowledged that she may not win, but he said that isn’t really the point. “This campaign was certainly about


her, but thewave she is riding is to send a message to the parties that you should no longer dictate your will on the people,” he said. “It was to punish not only Castle but the Republican Party in Delaware and the national Republican Party.” gardnera@washpost.com sandhya@washpost.com


Republicans gaining the lead in female politicians’ gains


BY ANNE E. KORNBLUT Democrats used to own the field of


women running for higher office. Not anymore. Nearly two years after an anticipated


gender bounce — with predictions that women in both parties would rush into politics inspired by bothHillaryRodham Clinton and Sarah Palin — it turns out that themomentumis ontheRepublican side. If there is a Palin effect, it is not being matched by any Clinton effect at the other end of the ideological spec- trum. Primaries this week accelerated the


shift. Two high-profile Senate races, in Delaware and New Hampshire, yielded female Republican nominees. That makes a total of five Republican women nominated for Senate so far this cycle. Excluding incumbent senators, Demo- crats have nominated only four, and one of them was Martha Coakley of Massa- chusetts, who already lost. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said


it is “very fair” to argue that the energy for female candidates is trendingRepub- lican, a view several other Democratic strategists shared. “I’ve been struck by it,” said Dee Dee


Myers, former White House press secre- tary and author of “WhyWomen Should Rule theWorld.” “All themomentumis on the tea party


side, so why wouldn’t it also be with the women on the tea party side?” OtherDemocratsdispute thenotionof


a conservative “year of the woman,” saying that the numerical advantage is slight, if it exists at all. They also note that some of the Republican nominees, including Christine O’Donnell of Dela- ware, are seen as fringe candidates unlikely towin in their general elections. Stephanie Schriock, the head of Emi-


ly’s List, which is dedicated to electing pro-choice women, said the “candidates that are making it through these prima- ries are more and more extreme, radical right-wing folks” who, even though they are female, do not appeal to independent andmoderate women. As always in politics, it is possible that


the frenetic media attention of a few personalities — O’Donnell as well as Nikki Haley of South Carolina several months ago—ismasking the underlying reality: No matter what happens, there will still be more Democratic women in office after the midterms, based on the sheer number of incumbents who are likely to win. Still, the Republican women are fresh


faces. There are many more Democratic women running for the House (87) than Republican ones (47). But Republicans have fielded 30 challengers to run against incumbents, more than the 27


female Democratic challengers, accord- ing to new statistics compiled by Jenni- fer Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute at AmericanUniversity. The figures suggest that the Demo-


cratic stranglehold on electing women that has existed for two decades could start to erode. There are now six female governors,


divided evenly between the parties. But in the Senate, there are 13 Democratic women and just 4 Republicans, one of whom, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, recently lost her primary. There are 59 Democratic women in the House, com- pared with 17 Republicans — with a woman, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leading the chamber. The potential for a shift is likeliest at


the gubernatorial level. In the current governors’ races, the two major parties have each nominated five women. But the Republican women appear to


have an edge going into November: Three appear to be at least slightly ahead of their Democratic rivals (Haley, Jan Brewer in Arizona and Mary Fallin in Oklahoma), and two of themare in dead heats (SusannaMartinez in NewMexico andMegWhitman inCalifornia).Among Democratic gubernatorial nominees, only one is ahead (Libby Mitchell in Maine), two others are locked in tight battles (Alex Sink in Florida and Diane Denish in New Mexico) and the other two face uphill battles (Jari Askins in Oklahoma and Leslie Petersen in Wyo- ming). Palin has unquestionably played an


outsize role in upping the Republican numbers, endorsing several women, in- cludingHaley andO’Donnell,whomight never have gained sufficient attention otherwise. Shehas brought to theRepub- lican Party what some members had once complained did not exist: a concert- ed effort to tap female candidates for promotion and lift themout of obscurity. And then there is this: The woman


most capable of counteracting a Palin bounce for Democrats — Secretary of State Clinton— is not available to cam- paign. Add to that a general sense ofmalaise


among Democrats, a volatile electorate angry at the status quo and a growing acceptance of female politicians in both parties, and the trend is hardly a sur- prise, strategists said. “Who better to say, ‘I’mnot part of the


establishment’ than a Republican wom- an?” said Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. “If you want to convey you are not of the firmament of Washington, D.C., and ergo of all the problems and out-of-control spending and corruption, you have to say, ‘I’m a Republican wom- an,’ because so few of them have ever been involved at that level.” kornbluta@washpost.com


ROB CARR/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Christine O’'Donnell talks with her father, Daniel, in between television interviews in Dover, Del., a day after her upset defeat of Rep. MichaelN. Castle in the state’s Republican Senate primary. O’Donnell had the backing of the tea party movement.


GOP inNovember. “We’re in the eye of the storm here,”


said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Sen- ate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). “Those people are fired up, and they are not going to vote Democrat.We are about to hit the other side of that storm.” But even after the midterm elections,


establishing peaceful coexistence within theGOPranksmay be no small challenge — not least because some tea party candidates are promising to do the oppo- site.


“Republicans have been a big part of


the problem. I’m not going to Washing- ton, D.C., to fit in with big-spending Republicans,” Buck said in an interview in July, before he won the nomination. Tea party candidates bristled when


former Senate GOP leader Trent Lott (Miss.), now a lobbyist, told The Wash- ington Post in July: “As soon as they get


here, we need to co-opt them.” They argue that the rise of their movement will in fact make other Re- publicans less inclined toward compro- mise and accommodation. Whether or not the party wins control


of either house of Congress this fall, every Republican lawmaker will be keenly aware of incumbents who fell in the primaries because they were insufficient- ly conservative. They will know that in the era of the tea party, any step away from the path of orthodoxy could be the making of a devastating campaign ad — or a primary opponent. “That’s going to make people very


nervous about their votes,” said former congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.), who is now a lobbyist. Particularly on spending, “the safest


vote politically will be no,” he added — which means it could be difficult for Republican congressional leaders to


marshal the numbers they need even for routine appropriations bills that are necessary to keep the government oper- ating.


With such a strong political force at


work within the party, Republican con- gressional leaders may also have to look over their own shoulders. Former House majority leader Rich-


ard K. Armey (Tex.), whose Freedom Works organization has helped organize tea party events, predicted on CNN last weekend that the movement could force the kind of cultural shift that the Repub- lican “Class of 1992” made in the House two years before the GOP won back the chamber. One of the first effects of that shift was


the nudging aside of the congenial long- time Republican leader Bob Michel (Ill.) in favor of firebrand back-bencher Newt Gingrich (Ga.). The tea party phenomenon may also


have the effect of getting the 2012 Repub- lican presidential race off to an earlier start,andsending the contenders further to the right. Led by Palin, the potential candidates


have been unusually active in conten- tious primary contests, which in some instances have become proxy wars. OnWednesday, formerMassachusetts


governor Mitt Romney, who is expected to make another bid for the WhiteHouse in 2012, announced his endorsement of O’Donnell and gave her $5,000. “Now is the time for Republicans to


rally behind their nominee, Christine O’Donnell,’’ he said. “She ran an impres- sive campaign. I believe it is important we support her so we can win back the U.S. Senate.”


tumultyk@washpost.com


Staff writer Dan Balz contributed to this report.


KLMNO


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010


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