Did NRSC Sabotage Christine O'Donnell with "Witch Ad" Unauthorized? [EXCERPT & COMMENT]

FORBES Magazine ^ | August 11, 2011 | Adam Geller (with commentary by me)

[Moseley]

EXCERPT FROM FORBES MAGAZINE:

She says she never wanted to make the ad - which was prompted by questions about a statement she had made on a late-night talk show years earlier - and was surprised when it showed up on the Internet. She blames an insistent media consultant but also her own inability to put her foot down.

"It was a wrong-headed move, made for all the wrong reasons, but it was mine," O'Donnell writes in "Troublemaker: Let's Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again." The book is scheduled to go on sale Aug. 16. The Associated Press purchased a copy on Thursday.

Soon after, she hired Davis to produce ads for her campaign, based on the recommendation of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. O'Donnell writes that Davis pushed her to film the "I am not a witch," commercial, even though she made clear she was deeply uncomfortable with the idea. Even then, she says, she never intended to use the ad. According to O'Donnell, her hand was forced only when the ad was leaked and posted on the Internet.

"It was a wrong-headed move, made for all the wrong reasons, but it was mine," O'Donnell writes in "Troublemaker: Let's Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again." The book is scheduled to go on sale Aug. 16. The Associated Press purchased a copy on Thursday.

[Rocky]

Sounds to me like she trusted the wrong people. You know, those establishment Republicans who want to maintain the status quo.

[GOP_Muzik]

In the end she is responsible for her own judgement. Had I been her campaign manager, right after that whole ‘witch’ thing happened I would have played with it instead of against it...and made a TV commercial recreating a scene from the Wizard of Oz with Pelosi as the Wicked Witch of the West, and then cut in O’Donnell and Glenda, with some easily interjected dialogue. It would have been a classic immediately, and would have won her the election. Too many people overplay how to influence popular media. The lowest denominator, passion, and humor will always win.

[Moseley]

If she was in charge all she had to do was get up and walk

Christine O'Donnell agrees that she should have gotten up and walked out. However, consider:

1) Fred Davis replied, Let's just try it and we'll look at it together and see what it looks like. It was filmed not for actual use but just in the development process to think about different approaches and strategies. So saying the lines was sold as only a test, an experiment, not as the actual ad for broadcast on television.

2) If you watch the ad, you can see Christine flinching while she says the first couple lines. You can see (especially if you know her at all) that she absolutely hates the lines she is saying. Then after the 3rd or 4th line, she gets comfortable with the rest of the script and becomes her normal self again, speaking normally.

3) When a person is sitting on the studio set, they are wired in with the microphone and the ear piece. SHe could not just easily get up to leave.

4) A good legislator is a consensus builder, especially in the US Senate. Christine would be good at patching together 51 votes for a bill or amendment. Christine was not running for military General, but for consensus builder.

[Parley Baer]

No doubt in my mind that the NRSC and the NRP sabotaged Christine’s run for the Senate. I will not give the back stabbers any of my money.

[Moseley]

Had I been her campaign manager, right after that whole ‘witch’ thing happened I would have played with it instead of against it...and made a TV commercial recreating a scene from the Wizard of Oz with Pelosi as the Wicked Witch of the West, and then cut in O’Donnell and Glenda, with some easily interjected dialogue

Kind of incomprehensible that the campaign manager did not think of any number of better responses. There are several dozen ways they could have had fun with it, defuse the issue with humor, etc. The campaign played it too safe, I think. A fan created a better funny ad on his own, about how Obama made the budget disappear like magic, etc., etc.

[upsdriver]

She was a horrible candidate and no standard bearer for conservatives. Get over it.

You speak with Rovian tongue.

[Moseley]

The ads run by Castle against Christine O’Donnell in the primary were as viscious as any ads I have ever heard.

TELL US MORE, I had not heard about that. What were Castle's ads like in the primary? Are they available somewhere like on You Tube?

[Moseley]

The ads run by Castle against Christine O’Donnell in the primary were as viscious as any ads I have ever heard.

TELL US MORE, I had not heard about that. What were Castle's ads like in the primary? Are they available somewhere like on You Tube?

[ngat]

Yeah, shame on her for trusting the hired consutants from her own party. She should have known the party she was a member of would stab her in the back. What ever would make her think republican “leaders” would close ranks around the candidate the voters of the republican primary chose?

[ngat]

Member of the Rovejo Tribe, huh?

[Abby4116]

They were radio ads, run on Delaware and Philadelphia stations. Really nasty, bitter, belittling ads. The primary was less than 2 months before the general election, so those negatives remained in voters' minds. I doubt youtube would have audio clips.

I don't know if there were tv ads (I don't watch much television).

[Abby4116]

They were radio ads, run on Delaware and Philadelphia stations. Really nasty, bitter, belittling ads. The primary was less than 2 months before the general election, so those negatives remained in voters' minds. I doubt youtube would have audio clips.

I don't know if there were tv ads (I don't watch much television).

[Moseley]

But,she was a horrible manager of her campaign !

If you are familiar with campaigns, the saying goes that a candidate's job is to do ONLY TWO things: (1) raise money and (2) show up and speak.

That's what campaign experts will tell you, in their sleep, with the slightest prompting.

Everything else is suppposed to be handled by an experienced campaign manager and other staff.

Remember that in late 2009, no one gave Christine O'Donnell any chance of either beating Mike Castle (who got in *LATE* after O'Donnell had been in the race for nearly a year) or beating the Democrat in a 293,000 Democrat to 183,000 Republican voter registration state.

So who would O'Donnell get as her campaign team with no money and supposedly no chance of winning (so they thought) when the election started around February / March 2010?

[indianrightwinger]

I don’t take that as an insult. That guy won two Presidential elections. Dear Ms. Christine showed her failure as a horrible candidate.

[indianrightwinger]

Rehabilitating ones self by blaming others for ones failure is the wrong path to rehabilitation. She obviously was a horrible candidate. Now, she will prove further her horrible nature by blaming everyone under the sun.

[bwc2221]

I have never been able to find anything that’s the least bit “right wing” about you.

[ilgipper]

She was a good enough candidate to take down the most powerful figure in the Delaware Republican party. She’s also eons better than about 70% of the losers in the Senate today.

[bwc2221]

I have never been able to find anything that’s the least bit “right wing” about you.

[tlb]

The O’Donnell campaign never ever runs out of excuses, “enemies”, and scapegoats. Does it. She had zero appeal outside her base. And that base in such a liberal state was just broad enough to allow her to lose humiliatingly.

Voter registration for Delaware’s 2010 election totaled Democrats: 47 %. Republicans: 29.4%. “Other” & Independents: 23.5%

http://elections.delaware.gov

Rove and the NRSC could have adopted her into their own homes and those numbers would have been the same.

I also recall the “I’m just like you” (I didn’t go to Yale) ad. She was quite proud of it at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxJyPsmEask&feature=player_embedded

I’ve spent the last 20 minutes or so browsing old FR O’Donnell threads from before the election. The disconnect from reality seen in them is just as bad as I remembered.

[indianrightwinger]

Sorry, comparing her to sitting Senators is meaningless. She did not win. Without winning a senate seat and establishing a record, we can all fantacize about million other people who will be better than current Senators.