Christine O’Donnell and the danger of a radical Senate
Over the weekend, the Republican Party’s candidate for Senate in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, made headlines once again by refusing to appear on the Sunday talk shows.
Her disappearing act coincided with the revelation that she recorded a TV show in the late 90s in which she confessed to dabbling in witchcraft and even had a midnight picnic with a boyfriend at a Satanic altar.
Normally, this would be the stuff of a Maury Povich show, except for the fact that this woman is a heartbeat away from becoming a US Senator.
That’s no small thing. This is the most powerful nation on earth, perhaps the most powerful and dynamic society in human history.
As a Senator she would immediately emerge as one of the 200 or so most influential Americans, helping to confirm Supreme Court justices, ratifying foreign treaties, and passing judgment over our most important new laws.
What’s more, she would bear the mantle of upholding one of the most sacred secular institutions in our democracy, a legislative body that has protected our liberties for two centuries.
So how did it come to this?
How did we arrive at a moment when a former abstinence crusader with no experience at governance — or running a company, or doing anything of merit, really — has made it so close to the halls of the Senate?
It turns out this debacle is symptomatic of something far more troubling, a flaw in the nature of the Senate itself.
You see, the Senate allocates power based not on population, but on territory. Each of the fifty states receives two US Senators, regardless of the number of people who reside there.
Which means that in tiny or sparsely settled states, a very few voters — numbering in the tens of thousands — can decide who will (or will not) take a seat in the Senate.
What’s more, their Senators share equal power with lawmakers vetted and chosen by millions or tens of millions of people.
That is flagrantly undemocratic — a direct contradiction of our one-man-one-vote principles — but it gets worse.
In many low-population states, turnout for primaries like the one held last week in Delaware is usually incredibly low.
As a result, it’s fairly easy for fringe candidates to leverage a small but highly mobilized political faction to push their way into the general election.
Christone O’Donnell prevailed last week in Delaware with just 30,000 votes.
That is 3% of the population of a state which taken as a whole represents about a third of 1% of the American population.
You couldn’t get yourself elected mayor of a mid-sized American city with that many votes. Yet thanks to the broken structure of the Senate, O’Donnell has emerged as a powerful new force in our politics.
If this were an outlier — a case of one unqualified candidate slipping through the cracks — it wouldn’t matter. But O’Donnell is far from alone.
Joe Miller captured his party’s nomination in Alaska with just over 21,000 votes. Sharron Angle captured the GOP nomination in Nevada with just over 70,000 votes.
In Utah, meanwhile, veteran Republican Senator Robert Bennett was unseated by a few hundred ultra-conservative activists, without the opportunity to even make his case to rank-and-file Republican voters.
And the GOP isn’t the only party with this problem.
Alvin Greene, a virtual unknown who has since been indicted for showing pornography to a strange woman, won South Carolina’s Democratic primary this year with just 100,000 votes.
The danger here is very real.
Replayed over a dozen tiny, low population states, it’s possible for voters who represent vanishingly small parts of the population — with views well outside the political mainstream — to reshape the Senate in profound ways.
There was a time when the two political parties were powerful and confident enough to effectively police themselves, vetting candidates and marginalizing the ones who were too kooky or unqualified for such a lofty office.
But we’ve learned in 2010 that this is no longer possible.
Democratic and Republican officials alike have expressed horror at the quality and caliber of candidates who are prevailing in their own primaries.
And if this sounds elitist, that’s exactly what it is:
The House of Representatives was meant to be the chamber occupied by every-day citizens, including the kooky and erratic ones.
But the Senate was meant to be a chamber of states-men and -women, a body made up of the best qualified and most honorable of our public officials.
Sadly those days appear to be behind us.
Designed to be an institution that cools the public’s passions, the structure of our most powerful deliberative body now allows it to be hijacked by tiny minorities motivated by the very passions that threaten to tear us apart.
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No matter how this election turns out, I think this will ultimately help President Obama in 2012. The far right is emboldened by the tea party wins and any Republican who wants to run in 2012 will need to move farther to the right than they normally would. That ultimately may turn off moderate independents.
Nice try: What is Harry Reid, A Saint? and what is Pelosi, Moher Teresa? It’s about time we radicalized washington and woke it out of it’s complacency. So Bill Mahr isn’t on her christmas list, He isn’t on mine either. Christine O’Donennell will be elected, Rove and Krouthammer be dammned it’s time to give the people their government back. The more the left tries to marginalise Christine O’Donnell the more determined he supporters are to see that she gets elected. The Pundits, the wise guys, the political analysts will wonder what hit them on election day….She will be elected. The signs are all there but the elite just can’t read them, they are too busy spreading their particular brand of poison to get the picture. She’s unelectable? and just why is that? because the elite say so? Obama Reid and Pelosi have caused the tide to turn and they haven’t a clue why.
“Christine O’Donnell and the danger of a radical Senate” The senate could not be more radical than it is at present, she will be a breath of fresh air.
Our founding fathers designed the Senate to be elected by each states’ own legislature, not by popular election. Right now, your state has no representation in DC because of an ultra-progressive 17th amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1913.
I’m supporting O’Donnell, but I also support repealing the 17th amendment to give representation back to our state.
I can’t believe you are castigating her for something done when a stupid high school girl. How is it that all the nonsense Barack Obama was involved in gets a pass, but the “no-governing experience” of Christine O’Donnell is made a big deal out of?
Please sirs, use this measure of the Senate consistently. While O’Donnell seems unsuitable to you, I feel the same way about a long list of used-car sales men, thieves, perverts and power traders that have been produced in the New Enland states that have all been Senators. Her being chosen is a sign of the low caliber and dirt we have had to vote for up to now, and much less about her as a candidate.
“The danger here is very real.”
Brian, can you elaborate on what the “danger” is? I don’t quite get it. I see that you are campaigning hard against this woman but do we really know that she is a “danger”?
there is no danger when you have unqualified people like steal away” votes” al franken that is in the senate. we have a bunch of rich elitists in the senate now, so whats the difference!
If we are supposed to be tolerant of all religions including Islam, why not be tolerant of Witchcraft?
I’d rather have a Witch as Senator than a Muslim. At least they are more tolerant.
What! Someone with only a couple of years experience getting elected! That is as crazy as a President getting elected with under 5 years of TOTAL government experience.
She is fine, she is no worse than many of the other bozo’s who are there and better than some, if she were a liberal with the same level of experience everyone would be rejoicing over the single women who forged ahead.
Whoa Brian, slow down a little. I understand your worries but she hasn’t been elected yet. Yes, it’s crazy that some of these people are being nominated in a major party but none of them have been elected to office yet.
None-the-less I agree with your basic proposition that this is very scary stuff.
And Mervel, stop it. I can’t think of any Senator who has been this nutty. In fact one of the most sensible Senators we have is a socialist. I don’t think he ever had a Satanic picnic.
By the way, Alvin Greene was NOT a legitimate Democratic candidate. He was paid to run by operatives from outside the party in order to be a spoiler in, what was the state? Oh yes, South Carolina the state where they still fly the rebel flag.
She is frightening and what is more frightening is the handful of voters who chose her in the primary. One of her supporters was quoted as saying, “I voted for her because she’s just like me. I lost my job, my house and all my money”. Well hell, we sure don’t need folks like THAT running our country. Luckily, she does not stand a chance of getting into the Senate.
Our Senate is for the brightest and the best…..not for cheaters, liars and the irresponsible. They will be voting on Supreme Court Justices, international peace accords and matters of great significance.
We need someone with integrity, experience and honor.
Why would we knowingly elect someone who we already know lies, cheats and does not work to support herself???
According to CNN, she has violated federal campaign finance regulations by taking campaign donations and using them for her personal living expenses for 2 years (examples shown were numerous ‘one pizza’ dinners for under $30, bowling fees, utility bills, apartment rent and gas and mileage when she doesn’t own a car) to such an extent that her campaign finance adviser refused to be part of her lies and walked out before he was implicated in her scams. Remember part of her campaign donations were matched by federal (taxpayers) funds.
She’s defaulted on her student loans and lied about her degree.
Her home was foreclosed.
She filed a gender based $6M lawsuit against a former employer who fired her.
She’s angry and anger is not a substitute for qualifications!
What on earth could she possibly bring of value to help our country recover from the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression?
We need brains, integrity, creativity and people with honorable backgrounds…..to help dig us out of 8 years of Bush-Cheney policy.
“How did we arrive at a moment when a former abstinence crusader with no experience at governance — or running a company, or doing anything of merit, really — has made it so close to the halls of the Senate?”
Ditto… to the White House!
I used to think the Senate was undemocratic, until I though about the NYS legislature. We have one region, NYC, so throroughly dominate that people elsewhere in the state have no real voice in what happens in state government. If NYC bosses like SHelly silver don’t want something to happen, then it doesnt.
Hi folks –
It’s fair for critics to argue that Barack Obama had a woeful lack of experience.
But he was vetted and supported by tens of millions of Americans.
We all got to choose him (or vote against him). The same isn’t true for the US Senate.
In the Senate, a remarkably small number of Americans get to choose many of our Senators, who then hold incredible power over all our lives.
To the argument that Ms. O’Donnell isn’t yet elected: In many of these “small” states, winning a Republican primary is tantamount to winning the general election.
Barring some upheaval, Joe Miller and Sharron Angle are very likely to win election — despite the fact that both have extremely thin resumes and hold views well outside the mainstream even of conservative American politics.
Finally, Scratchy — our state legislature may seem undemocratic, but in fact it allocates power based on citizenry.
Yes, new York City holds most of the votes, because that’s where most of our fellow citizens live.
–Brian, NCPR
“But he was vetted and supported by tens of millions of Americans.”
I take issue with the statement “he was vetted”. He certainly was supported as you say.
Media bias prevented any real vetting of this president. In fact, you probably don’t even know the content, or even the subject, of many of his Harvard writings. Off limits, you see. Can’t ask that. Media bias.
Now that the un-vetted president has been seen in action, many people who supported him are turning away. He is still a “popular” or “likable” president, for whatever reason.
His policies are not at all popular. His health care support tanks, for example.
He is now seen for what he is. Unqualified, no experience running anything, no idea of how to get the economy going, leaderless on foreign policy.
The whole nation doesn’t vote on any senator. Let the people of Delaware decide who they want to represent them.
The representation formula for the senate was designed as to offset the ‘by population’ representation in the house. Low population states feared that they would be overwhelmed by the high population states. If there is an unbalance of power today, it is in the house since they stopped growing the size of the house at 435. They felt (logically) that it was getting too large to be functional but as the population continued to grow it meant that representation in the house is also skewed toward the low population states. Maybe it’s time that legislative district boundaries start cutting across state lines. What we are governing today is not the country we were governing in the late 1700s.
Once again, I am overwhelmed by the thoughtful and open-minded comments. It is refreshing to see such a healthy and civil debate about why any/all of the Republican nominees are unfit for election to any office.
Thanks for playing.
Brian Mann wrote- “How did we arrive at a moment when a former abstinence crusader with no experience at governance — or running a company, or doing anything of merit, really — has made it so close to the halls of the Senate?”
How did we arrive at a moment when a former community organizer with no real experience at governance — or running a company, or doing anything of merit, really — has made it to the WHITE HOUSE?
‘Nuff said on that one.
For those like Fran who speak of our elite, moral, thoughtful Senate- give me a freaking break! Al Franken, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Hillary- these are Lilly white, pure as the driven snow paragons of virtue you think so highly of? Drunks, perverts, cheats and liars- and we pay them to abuse us.
As for the Senate process, I find it arrogant and ignorant when I hear the same tripe repeated over and over. Read the history on WHY the Senate was designed as it is. It wasn’t a spur of the moment idea, it was given a lot of thought and discussed at length.
What? Again with the “small populations having undue influence”??? Read the paragraph above again Brian. The Senate system is designed (or was designed) to provide a check on sheer numbers walking over the rights and propertys of the minority. Again, read the reasons why the Seante and Congress are set up as they are. As I’;ve said before, with out the system we have the nations 7 largest cities would determine the outcome of every national election. How would that be fair and just?
The biggest ‘”danger” I see in these candidates getting elected is that it will further fragment the legislative process making it even harder to get anything done. With so many different ideological focus groups inside the senate, even simple majorities will be hard to achieve. The other concern I have is that these people are talking a great game about how they won’t be influenced by money, but this is naive. The lobbyists of K Street must be rubbing their hands together to think of all of these new and innocent lambs being delivered to their doorstep.
I also think we are vastly overestimating how these people are going to do on the larger electoral stage. Many squeaked out primary victories when competing within the confines of like-minded voters. Now they have the entire left as well as the moderate independents to win over. Their extreme right-wing rhetoric is not going to play well to a large part of the electoral spectrum.
Are some of you really trying to draw comparisons and make connections between Obama and someone like O’Donnel?
A Harvard educated former senator who you think could have used a few more years of experience, and someone who holds views that are West of Mars?
Witchcraft aside, this woman thinks that co-ed dorms are a radical agenda, a step closer to orgy rooms and menage trois. She thinks Physics… you know, the study of matter and motion and energy and all that… has done spiritual harm to people in line with the harm a pimp causes. Yes, you read that right. Physics is a spiritual pimp.
And we all know her fun point of view on masturbation.
This is not someone who comes within a light year of representing anyone other than a radical minority in a small state primary. And she could end up representing our country in the senate. Y’ouch.
Both sides can certainly improve upon the people they have been sending to the Senate recently, but this woman is ooooouuuuuttttt there. If these are the types of candidates who will be bubbling to the top of our political process, then I too have to question that process.
Brian Mann,
Actually most the people in NY live outside NYC. In statewide elections, less than 40% of the electorate live in NYC. The legislature uses what is known as the plus or minus 5% rule -which allows a poplulation deviation of plus or minus 5% in drawing district lines- to overrepresent NYC in the legislature. That is NYC districts have about 5% less people on average than upstate and suburban districts.
Yes Dave, and people like Dennis Kucinich, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders and Maxine Waters are perfectly normal.
Right……