Rove Walks Back His Attack: I Endorsed O'Donnell the Other Night… I Helped Her Raise That $750,000 (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, September 16, 2010, 11:04 AM
Ingenious!
Here we all thought Karl Rove was bashing Delaware conservative Christine O’Donnell and all along he was just raising money for her senatorial campaign.
Karl Rove walked back his attacks on Christine O’Donnell this morning on FOX News.
O’Donnell is 11 down coming out of the primary.
Talking Points Memo posted part of the transcript:
“My job as a Fox analyst is to call it as I see them,” Rove explained this morning. “My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican.”
Rove listed all the reasons he’s said in the past why O’Donnell has destroyed the GOP’s (already outside) chances at a Senate majority — the problems with “honesty” he first mentioned on Hannity, her strange finances, etc — but then made it clear that he’s 100% behind the party’s rising star.
“Look, I endorsed her the other night,” he said this morning. “I was one of the first to do it.”
Not only that, Rove says, he’s actually responsible for the NRSC begrudgingly getting behind O’Donnell after trying to destroy her for weeks in opposition research emails blasted across DC. Rove said that after he called the NRSC and asked them “why the heck” they told Fox they weren’t going to give O’Donnell any money, they cut her a check right away (he also said Fox was incorrect in its initial reporting that the NRSC wasn’t going to back O’Donnell anyway.)
What’s more, Rove said, his criticisms of O’Donnell have led to thousands of dollars in contributions for the candidate. What could be more helpful than that?
“So many people have written me an email saying, ‘I’m irritated with you, saying what you said the other night, I’ve given her a campaign contribution, I’m sending her an internet contribution,’” Rove said.
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jenny commented:
What a load. He’s still a misogynistic blowhard.
Shooter McGavin commented:
Rove was right to oppose O’Donnell in the primary, as the seat is now guaranteed to fall into the hands of a self-avowed Marxist.
But now that the insane choice has been made, he is right to back O’Donnell and see if we can’t limit the damage to Delaware.
down with dems commented:
These are not the droids you are looking for.
bg commented:
++
good grief, like Fox News wouldn’t exist w/o him either, gah!!
again.. now i know why Bush nicknamed him TURD (he also sounds
like he’s on whatever everyone else in the White House seems to be
on, especially Gibberwockies)..
==
Vercingetorix commented:
He hasn’t walked back anything. Within 14 hours, he’s been on Greta’s and Martha McCallum’s shows, running down his list of Mike Castle’s talking points against her, saying she isn’t honest, and even getting huffy about it with the two TV hosts when they try to defend O’Donnell or mention all the criticism he’s getting.
kaffirgal commented:
the nrscc, rove…walkin’ it back, or coakroaches scattering when the lights come on?
Neo commented:
NUTS !!
JKB commented:
The national Republicans didn’t get their way so they throw a temper tantrum. But now that the adults are getting involved in the process, that doesn’t get them their way. In fact, it looks like they’ve realized that it could get them something to cry about.
garrettc commented:
His foot is caught in a bear trap that she tepped into without looking. We can forget about him now. Part of this revolution is to make people drop their mask so we can see who they really are. Check Karl off the approved list. And PS. I would rather have an avowed Statist (Coons) who is up front about it, then a stealth Statist (Castle) who is not.
bg commented:
++
Shooter McGavin @ 11:12 am #2
pffft! that’s how we got Obama in the WH..
they supported for the WRONG candidate, namely McCain, go figure..
==
Drider commented:
Rove was right about one thing.
The second I finished listening to his rant on Hannity, I jumped online and sent money to O’Donnell.
The real reason I sent the money is that from here on out, when I see the establishment prince and princesses whine about their “pets” not making the cut, I will gleefully be right there to administer a (pardon the word) liberal amount of salt in their wounds.
Paul commented:
removed myelf from his email updates from his website and told him to, well, go to hell.
Since he is taking credit for the monies going to O’Donnell, I am going to take credit for him now “supporting” her -
Kevin P commented:
Rove is now speaking Obamian!
Vercingetorix commented:
I don’t rember him ever running down Dick Blumenthal or Charlie Wrangel like this.
He’s doing more damage to O’Donnell’s chances than the entire democrat party could ever do.
Most of Rove’s criticism’s of her are ridiculous;
This morning it was: It took her a long time to pay back her college loan. Didn’t the Obamas admit the same thing?
And anyone who says she can’t win isn’t paying attention, in a year when a republican filled Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.
She’s only down 9 points right now, and her opponent, a former avowed marxist and Harry Reid’s “pet” has problems of his own.
donh commented:
Rove has sabotaged the very real possibility of a Republican Majority in the Senate inorder to indulge his personal misogynistic lust to kneecap a woman who dared to out a married gay man. He obsessed about it in both the Hannity and Gretta interviews. Rove acted like Kanye West at the Tailor Swift Grammy award. He cannot be trusted LIVE on the air and this creep should NEVER be seen again in the media. O’Donnell has a good criminal case for sexual harassment .
tarpon commented:
I don’t walk back my assessment of Rove, he is toast on my list of truth tellers.
victoria_29 commented:
IMO Rove was shocked when he got the backlash, he expected everyone to be good little Republicans & “trust” his analysis. That we refused to sit down & shut up & write off DE blew his, Steele & Cornyn little minds-they realized they had a small revolt that could turn into a major war. So they backed down, plain & simple in their world Money talks-we cut off the money…The GOP has admitted their fund raising sucks…I just read latest Christine figures 99% there to goal of 1 million & this is in about 24 hours. The RINOS hate Conservative probably worse than they hate Progressives.
bg commented:
++
Michael Steele On GOP Reaction To Christine
O’Donnell: ‘This Makes No Sense, So Stop It!’
[I don’t know if she can win until we try. How can you claim
defeat before you attempt victory. This makes no sense, so
stop it! Stop it! Let’s get behind our nominees and win the
election.]
Michael Steele: RNC Supports Christine O’Donnell ‘Without Hesitation’
[“I look forward to electing Christine the next senator from the state of Delaware,” Steele said at a press conference at RNC headquarters. “The Republican National Committee supports all of our nominees across the board, without hesitation, doubt. This is an important time for us. We’re looking forward to helping.”
[..]
“Let’s not get so heady in this moment to think that what happened in 2006 and 2008 was just some distant memory, somebody else’s nightmare,” Steele said. “That was our nightmare, created by us and we cannot in this moment waste the opportunity by tearing each other down.”
[..]
“This isn’t thought up in some board room and then spilled out onto the streets of America. This is coming from the streets of America, this is coming from small towns, this is coming from neighborhoods wide and large,” Steele said. “And the establishment in this town is so clueless and so out of touch with what real people are going through every day.”]
Amen, i’m in total agreement..
==
DavidL commented:
Dirty Harry Reid twice called Chris Coons his pet. In cycle with a huge anit-cumbant wave, Reid has labled Coons a lapdog of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid organized crime machine. What say Mr. Coons?
Captain Fantastic commented:
Karl would like to have it both ways. He wants to play the analyst and not the cheerleader on Fox, unless he has a book coming out.
Betsy Ross commented:
Well, looky here, it appears that Karl has pooped in his own nest and is trying to clean it up…good luck with that…meanwhile, TEA party patriots are marching forward…
Vercingetorix commented:
Here’s Rove’s e-mail address;
http://www.rove.com/contact
I basically told him his cozy little world of professional politicians of both parties working in tandem to violate american taxpayers is crashing down, and he needs to accept it, head on over to the Country Club, and drown his sorrows in a couple martini glasses full of STFU.
donh commented:
Karl Rove accuses O’Donnell of being “nutty” for fearing she was being stalked with somebody hiding in her bushes. Clearly it was Karl Rove hiding in the bushes and O’Donnell has every right to feel stalked.
Highlander commented:
Let Rove “walk it back” without the taunts and catcalls. We need everyone pulling as much as possible in one direction to achieve our goals this November.
Kevin P commented:
Highlander – I’ll let him “walk it back” when he’s sitting in a “war room” making get out the vote phone calls on O’Donnell’s behalf.
kato commented:
If guys like Rove are to be believed, we need to get Republican majorities in order to stop the Obama train wreck, even if it means electing RINOs.
Yet, yesterday long-serving RINO George Voinovich opened the door to the government pissing away another $30 billion.
Who needs Democrats when one has reliable RINOs to expand the government and empty the taxpayers’ pockets?
All one needs to know about Rove can be summarized in two words: George Bush.
Peggy commented:
Gosh, I guess I missed where Rove endorsed Ms. O’Donnell.
Go, Christine! Make the Establishment angry! We’re behind you!
Betsy Ross commented:
#26:
Exactly. Apparently, dems need RINOs so they can call their crap bills
“bi-partisan”…
NO MORE RINOs
tjexcite commented:
It was all part of the plan. There is no way O’Donnell would have got a million dollar money bomb if Rove and Charles K came out as a cheerleader. It was all to rally the base, and if it was not it did anyways.
He knew he was going to get the hate that he has but nothing the right can toss his way even pails in comparison to the hate times 100 he gets every day from the left.
bg commented:
++
victoria_29 @ 11:31 am #17
re: [Steele & Cornyn]
i have problems with both, but where did you get your info??
i refer you to bg #18 & the following:
John Cornyn offers money, endorsement for Christine O’Donnell
btw: as far as i know, and albeit several
are cronies of his, Rove is not the GOP..
ergo, Rove no more speaks for the GOP than Rush does..
bottom line: they may have supported Castle pre-election, but i don’t recall either of them bashing O’Donnell ala: KR style.. not to mention they’ve both come out full blast supporting her post-election, whereas Rove still has a turd up his nose..
==
Robert commented:
That clip was even slimier than the last. Karl Rove, just stop, quit while you’re ahead. And you’re NOT ahead, by a Montana Mile.
Take the party back, just like we’re doing. No third party. This one is ours by right of ideological heritage. If the new crop is not suitable, loyal, and faithful then they can also be replaced. The RINO’s can go to the other party where they belong, and take this slimeball with them.
Andreas K. commented:
“My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican.”
He’s actually right with that.
davidt commented:
Rove worked for the Castle campaign and got beat by O’Donnell. Not good for Rove’s resume.
Maybe he’s worried about getting future work for other campaigns.
Maybe he thought he had to make sure O’Donnell loses in the general election so he wouldn’t look so bad.
Maria commented:
Forget Rove. O’Donnel will have every Dumbocrat and his brother after her now. She needs a clear message. She needs to have an answer for all of the things they’re saying against her. Then she needs to attack her opponent relentlessly and make it all about him. I hope she doesn’t do a McCain and try all the PC, “No matter who wins, it’ll be a good thing for the country” stuff. I believe he’s regretting saying that we didn’t need to be afraid of having Barack Obama as President.
Stanley commented:
“My job as a Fox analyst is to call it as I see them,” Rove explained this morning. “My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican.”
——————————————————–
Fox must be real proud of you, for giving that 125 percent. You know, taking your Analysis on a campaign trail. Interesting situation for Fox.
newton commented:
Meanwhile, O’Donnel raised a little over a cool mil between Tuesday and today…
No thanks to Rove!
bg commented:
++
kato @ 12:06 pm #26
still suffering from BDS i see..
as you seem to have a need to blame Bush
for every Republicans and then some faults..
like i’ve stated all along..
i’m surprised he accomplished as mush as he
did with both parties & the MSM against him..
i also believe he threw a huge monkey wrench in the powers
that be (including his Dad) NWO plans via going into Iraq..
God Bless George Bush!!
[disclaimer: Bush wasn't perfect, and he did make mistakes, but
not everything that has ever gone wrong in this world is his fault..]
==
Vercingetorix commented:
post #26 has it right.
Even one RINO sell-out like Voinovich (or Mike Castle) can do terrible damage.
largebill commented:
For Rove and some of the other “experts” their credibility is on the line. They have jumped up and down declaring O’Donnell can’t win. So, now some of them are going to work very hard undermining her chances in order to preserve what little credibility they possess. Rove knows that if she wins then he was clearly wrong. FOX also has some explaining to do regarding Rove’s behavior. Were they aware that Rove was working as an adviser to Castle? If so, why did they not require him to disclose his obvious conflict of interest?
Gman commented:
Can Rove just leave now?
PhilipJames commented:
Karl Rove the little scummy ratbag who gave the Democrat opponent a bunch of video clips of him smearing O’Donnell that will be used against her is now saying he is a Tea Party guy? not an establishment guy? Bullcrap. He is one of the most inside the suck the Republican money teat guys around. How many millions has he made over the years from the campaign contributions of Republicans. What a slimey little fart he is. I really dislike that little weasel.
bitterclinger commented:
Rush just mused about what would happen if another million people sent O’Donnell a dollar each — for her second mil.
Oldpuppymax commented:
He ENDORSED her??? I must have been fooled by an evil Rove look-alike! I could have SWORN Rove did everything in his power to DESTROY O’Donnell, at least in the interview I heard. This joker has revealed a great deal about himself over the past 2 days. It appears the big tent party he and the rest of the republican elite have supposedly been working to create, simply has no ROOM for actual CONSERVATIVES or those not given prior authority to defeat a RINO during primary season. Sorry Carl, but you’ve been EXPOSED for the Country Club class, DC insider RINO you are.
sandy commented:
Christine O’Donnell who I consider a Sally Field look alike has already won. She has become the hottest ticket on the media. Within 24 hrs she has raised 1 million dollars. Her career has definitely taken an upturn. While Rove sees his lucrative gig could be coming down on his head if he doesn’t get with the program. Republicans have circled the wagons so its time to stow the animosity at least in public.
Karl Rove told Greta last night that the Tea Party voters will leave less of a mark on the General Election because the Independents outnumber them will decide the race. He said they won’t vote for O’Donnell. First of all there are no Tea Party voters. There are only plenty of angry voters –Independents top the list and they left Obama and the Dems after the first Stimulus. So Rove did a 180 because those angry voters demanded it.
I know this back track is not enough for most of you guys here but for me its delicious everytime some pompous azz has to do even a partial mia culpa.
Rich commented:
he only did this becouse he was getting slamed on his facebook and twitter acc.
JD commented:
“COME ON MAN!”
Valerie commented:
I think a bunch of people fail to understand that the Tea Parties are not limited to Conservatives. The Tea Parties are all about getting rid of some very bad economic policies that most Americans expect to yield perverse results.
People who recognize disastrous economic policy span the US political spectrum. If my unscientific sampling is correct, there is a big group of Liberals in this country that have been turned off by 1) the cheating, 2) the corruption, 3) the poor-quality political nominees this administration has brought forward, and 4) the awful, easily predictable economic results of policies that have been demonstrated to have perverse results for other countries.
There are a LOT of Liberals who understand that socialism does not work because it places the power to make spending decisions in the wrong time frames and the wrong hands.
Freddy commented:
“Look, I endorsed her the other night,” he said this morning. “I was one of the first to do it.”
- – - – - -
Why didn’t Fox News cover this?
All I saw on Fox was Rove bashing O’Donnell again and again.
Did Carl issue this endorsement on MSNBC?
ClassicFilm commented:
Karl’s stupefying claim of an “endorsement” of O’Donnell is much like Bobby Ewing being in the shower for an entire season of “Dallas.”
It was all a dream… a bad, bad dream… don’t question it, now take the blue pill…
Kevin W. commented:
“Look, I endorsed her the other night,” he said this morning. “I was one of the first to do it.”
Congratulations Karl, you sound just like Bill Clinton.
Loser.
laddy commented:
Ras has the indies in DE going for O’D over Coons by 8 points with leaners.
bg commented:
++
Andreas K. @ 12:26 pm #32
gee, and here i thought his job was to be an
objective reporter, not a journolist advocate..
who pays his salarie/s ( as far as i know he
has a few other jobs aside from FN, ie..)??
==
Kevin W. commented:
Excuse me, I stand corrected, Karl, you don’t sound like Bill Clinton, you sound like John Kerry.
“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/29/politics/main646435.shtml
Now Karl Rove can say;
“I actually did support Christine O’Donnell before I started bashing her”.
Rock commented:
Well at least he heard us this time. Castle and Cap and Trade where a deal breaker from the get go. Hey, Karl a little late turning on your hearing aid don’t you think.
ss252 commented:
HERE WAS HIS REPLY BACK TO ME:
If we attack President Obama for putting people who can’t pay their taxes into his Administration, how can we defend a Republican candidate who doesn’t pay some of her taxes, her college bills, or her mortgage; has had no visible means of support; and sued a reputable conservative organization claiming she was the victim of sex discrimination? She didn’t win the lawsuit: her employer said she was fired for trying to run her own pr consulting firm out of their offices while on their clock. We conservatives want conservative candidates, but we do our cause little good by nominating conservatives with serious questions about their fitness and character.
Here are some of the articles that helped shape my thinking, in addition to my impression after meeting her briefly last year:
O’Donnell faces campaign debt, back-tax issues
The News Journal (Wilmington, DE)
By Ginger Gibson
March 20, 2010
When U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell first launched a bid for Congress challenging longtime incumbent Joe Biden, she capitalized on grass-roots support by preaching fiscal and social conservatism.
She gained the endorsement of the state Republican party and appeared on cable networks like Fox News and CNN and as a guest on “Politically Incorrect” with Bill Maher. More recently, she has marketed herself as a member of the tea party, a populist movement expected to influence the 2010 mid-term elections.
But while she was courting voters, she amassed thousands of dollars in campaign debt, was confronted by the IRS about unpaid income taxes and sold her Wilmington home to a campaign staffer to avoid a sheriff’s sale ordered to settle mortgage claims, a News Journal investigation shows.
O’Donnell, who entered national politics as an anti-pornography crusader, attributed her financial predicament to misunderstandings and errors.
“I think the fact that I have struggled financially is what makes me so sympathetic,” O’Donnell said.
She called the IRS lien “puzzling” and chalked up the mortgage mess to a technical error by the bank.
She’s working to settle the debts from her previous campaign, O’Donnell said, and has already raised $11,000 for her 2010 Senate campaign, now headed to a primary against Republican Rep. Mike Castle. She appeared to blame questions about back taxes and debts on her opponent.
“This type of malicious behavior from supporters of a desperate career politician is to be expected because he cannot defend his big spending, liberal voting record,” O’Donnell said Friday when asked about past legal troubles. “Just because the lords of the backroom have an obnoxious sense of entitlement to promote one of their own, doesn’t mean their gutter politics are in the best interests of the voters.”
State Republican Chairman Tom Ross said the party is aware of the “considerable amount of debt” O’Donnell has amassed in the last two elections.
“As a party, we take individual responsibility and fiscal responsibility very, very seriously,” Ross said. “Our hope is that Ms. O’Donnell will do the same.”
Debts long-ranging
O’Donnell owes the federal government $11,744.59 in taxes and penalties from the 2005 tax year, according to a lien filed by the IRS on March 2, 2010, with the New Castle County Recorder of Deeds.
According to the IRS Web site, liens are placed after a taxpayer has been notified of a debt and the person fails or refuses to pay within 10 days. Liens attach to all current and future property owned by the taxpayer, including vehicles.
O’Donnell said she is currently being audited by the IRS and contacted the agent responsible for her case when she received the lien.
“That’s a mistake,” she said. “The IRS agent handling my audit was even perplexed by that questionable lien notice because he’s in the process of resolving my audit.”
Her federal campaign committee reported $23,776 in debt, more than the $10,585 cash in her campaign account, according to her most recent filings with the Federal Elections Commission. The FEC has cited her eight times for failure to report her contributions between 2007 and 2009.
She owes outstanding payments to staffers, consultants and volunteers, according to a campaign finance filing from January.
“Many of the past campaign debts were from invoices that were not approved,” she said. “We’re in the process of processing the legitimate ones.”
O’Donnell said she is raising money to pay off the 2008 campaign debt and informing donors some of the money she gets now will be used to settle past campaign claims.
“It’s not unusual for candidates to have campaign debt,” she said.
O’Donnell also said she is doing “odd jobs” to pay her living expenses.
In campaign finance reports, O’Donnell lists her occupation as “self-employed.” Her previous campaign sites have described her work as freelance public relations.
Her legal woes date back to 1994, when her alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University, in Rutherford, N.J., sued her for $4,823 in unpaid expenses, according to New Jersey and California court documents. The university won a judgment in New Jersey for the entire amount. In 2000, the judgment was transferred to California, where O’Donnell lived at the time, as unpaid, according to court documents.
O’Donnell said the dispute was over student loans.
California reported the debt as satisfied in 2003, but she was never conferred a degree by Fairleigh Dickinson because of non-payment.
“They were withholding the diploma until I paid the bill,” O’Donnell said. “I finished the coursework.”
New residence
On Jan. 12, 2010, O’Donnell changed her Delaware address in the voter registration, according to Elections Commissioner Elaine Manlove.
She shares her new residence, a three-bedroom, two-bath town home in Greenville Place, with David Hust, a campaign staffer who is originally from Houston, Texas. Hust promotes himself on his Web site as a Christian rock music singer.
Greenville Place lists the prices of a town house rental between $1,645 and $2,020 a month, depending on the number of bedrooms and square feet.
O’Donnell said she pays half of her rent with campaign donations because she also uses the town home as her Senate campaign headquarters.
“I’m splitting it, legally splitting it and paying part of it,” she said. “This is our technical headquarters.”
O’Donnell said she has separate, private quarters and that staffers, like Hust, live in the other portion of the home.
“I am renting from the campaign,” she said. “I’m an unconventional candidate because I believe that we have to make sacrifices.”
While the Federal Election Commission frowns on mixing campaign funds with living expenses, Judith Ingram, an FEC spokeswoman, said the commission will consider approving unusual rental arrangements.
House foreclosed
O’Donnell moved to Delaware from Washington, D.C., in 2003 to work for the conservative publisher Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In D.C., she was the founder of the Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth, which lobbied Congress on moral issues.
She began working for ISI in Hockessin on March 12, 2003, and was to be paid an annual salary of $65,000, according to court filings.
She purchased a home on Lincoln Street in Wilmington in August of 2003, taking out a mortgage with CitiBank for $98,500, according to New Castle County property records.
O’Donnell was fired by ISI on Feb. 26, 2004, after she complained to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that she was the victim of gender discrimination, according to court filings. O’Donnell sued ISI in U.S. District Court in 2005, alleging she was fired in retaliation for complaining to the EEOC. In her suit, O’Donnell sought back pay, future pay and punitive damages.
ISI countered that O’Donnell was running a for-profit public-relations business while on the clock.
In January 2008, O’Donnell dropped the lawsuit against ISI, saying at the time she could no longer afford an attorney.
O’Donnell was also having trouble paying her mortgage, according to the lawsuit filed by the mortgage holder on March 5, 2008. The mortgage company secured a default judgment against O’Donnell for $90,421.31 on May 13, 2008.
A sheriff’s sale date was set for Aug. 1, 2008, in the heat of O’Donnell’s campaign against Biden, who was about to join Obama’s presidential ticket.
But a month before the sheriff’s auction, O’Donnell sold the house at 518 N. Lincoln Street for $135,000 to Brent Vasher, who was working as legal counsel for her Senate campaign.
O’Donnell said she sold it to Vasher, who was her boyfriend at the time, with the intention of buying it back.
“I had every intention of buying it back, eventually, even as of this fall I wanted to buy it back,” she said. “I chose to run for office instead.”
Vasher, an attorney at SEI Financial in Oaks, Pa., declined to comment for this article.
O’Donnell said she was not aware of the mortgage company lawsuit and that she never received a notice of foreclosure.
She said she used the money raised by selling the house to pay off a home equity loan.
“I sold the house to Brent,” she said. “I got out of debt so I could financially run for office and that’s why I chose not to buy it again this fall.”
Continues to rent
O’Donnell continued to live in the Lincoln town house until the summer of 2009, paying rent to Vasher, she said.
Next-door neighbor Kathleen Benedetto, 51, said O’Donnell arrived at the house one day last summer and couldn’t get in. Benedetto said the locks had been changed. Neither O’Donnell nor Vasher would confirm why O’Donnell moved out.
“I told her she was a day late and a dollar short,” Benedetto said.
Benedetto said it was miserable living next door to O’Donnell for five years. She said Vasher gutted the home, removing piles of trash after taking possession.
Wilmington city records detail several complaints about the upkeep of the house while O’Donnell lived there.
In September 2008, she was ticketed for high grass and weeds, according to city records. The ticket was appealed and later paid. The ticket was a result of a complaint that the high grass was providing a breeding ground for opossums, according to Wilmington spokesman John Rago.
O’Donnell said the ticket was issued in the middle of the campaign season while she was busy running for office.
Benedetto said the opossums were getting into her own backyard and that the high grass also coincided with a mice infestation in several row homes. She said her house cat killed about a dozen mice that summer.
O’Donnell blamed neighbors for feeding the opossums, but refused to say which neighbors.
During the summer of 2009, O’Donnell moved out of the Lincoln residence and in with a friend, O’Donnell said. Three months later, she moved to Greenville Place. She said she consulted an attorney about using campaign money to help pay the rent.
“If there is anything questionable, it is not our intent to break a law,” O’Donnell said. “I do try to do what’s right.”
Citing “Mental Anguish,” Christine O’Donnell Sought $6.9 Million in Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against Conservative Group
…and falsely implied she was taking Master’s degree classes at Princeton.
Weekly Standard
BY John McCormack
11:50 AM, Sep 12, 2010
http://weeklystandard.com/tws/daily/daily.asp#blog-494794
Court documents obtained Saturday by THE WEEKLY STANDARD reveal surprising new details about the gender discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit filed by Christine O’Donnell in 2005 against her former employer, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative non-profit based in Delaware.* O’Donnell, who is now challenging moderate congressman Mike Castle in the September 14 Delaware GOP Senate primary, sought $6.95 million in damages. In a court complaint, she extensively detailed the “mental anguish” she suffered after allegedly being demoted and fired because of her gender. And, although she didn’t have a bachelor’s degree until this year, O’Donnell implied she was taking Master’s degree classes at Princeton University in 2003.
O’Donnell alleged in a July 1, 2005 complaint filed in district court that she had been demoted because ISI’s conservative philosophy dictated that women must be subordinate to men. She claimed she was fired when she contacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding her demotion. ISI told the Delaware News Journal that she had been “terminated for operating a for-profit business.”
O’Donnell’s finances, honesty, and stability have been called into question in light of her false and strange claims. The court complaint raises further questions on all fronts. O’Donnell, who made an annual salary of $65,000 at ISI, sought up to $6,952,477 million in damages, claiming, among other allegations, that ISI had defamed her and had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. O’Donnell sought:
–Up to $3,952,447 in “Direct Damages, including back pay” and “lifetime lost income and liftetime damage to reputation.”
–Up to $500,000 “for emotional distress, humiliation, emotional pain, embarrassment, depression.”
–Up to $3.5 million in punitive damages for “willful, legally-malicious and outrageous conduct” by ISI.
O’Donnell claimed that ISI had caused her to suffer “mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, mental and physical pain and anguish”–and that, according to an amended complaint, she had to “seek treatment for her distress.”
According to O’Donnell’s July 1, 2005 complaint submitted by herself:
Miss O’Donnell was and is profoundly humiliated by this demotion of being asked to perform clerical and administrative tasks, after appearing on national television as a media and public relations expert and spokeswoman, for a man who was hired straight out of college as ISI’s receptionist and clerical assistant, and whom she had been asked to train previously [emphasis in original]. [...]
For at least six months after being fired, Miss O’Donnell suffered enormous pain, cried frequently at the sense of personal loss and failure caused by ISI, and at the sense of injustice, and could not sleep at night, often wide-awake, replaying the whole scene in her mind, until 5:30 am, and has suffered from understandable and resulting depression.
“Miss O’Donnell’s mother and sister both noticed and spontaneously told her at the time, prior to litigation, that she was differently [sic], and urged her to seek medical evaluation,” according to the complaint.
According to an amended complaint filed by a lawyer on behalf of O’Donnell in September 2005 claimed that O’Donnell did, in fact, “seek treatment for her distress.”
“Ms. O’Donnell has suffered extreme emotional harm as a result of the actions taken or not taken by ISI, and statements made by and on behalf of ISI, in the form of grief, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, chagrin, disappointment and worry. This harm has caused physical manifestations, and caused Ms. O’Donnell to seek treatment for her distress.”
The amended complaint also claimed that in one instance a male colleague made a lewd comment to her. “On one occasion during her employment, a co-corker, Mr. Cain, in connection with Ms. O’Donnell’s efforts and work on the Gala, ordered or stated to Ms. O’Donnell to ‘strap it on,’ which was a crude and demeaning reference to an artificial male sexual organ used by some females in order to act like a male in sexual acts,” the complaint alleged. “To Ms. O’Donnell’s knowledge and belief, Mr. Cain was never disciplined or reprimanded for making this offensive statement.”
Curiously, the July 2005 complaint alleges that “ISI violated its promise to allow Miss O’Donnell time to take Master’s degree classes at Princeton,” thus causing a loss of “earning power.”
“Moreover, Miss O’Donnell has lost the increased earning power that a Master’s degree from Princeton would have created. In the future with proper finances, Miss O’Donnell should probably be able to return and complete that program, however that increased earning power has been disrupted and delayed for at least three years, given college application cycles, and the damage to her reputation, creating a loss of increased earning power estimated at up to $50,000 per year, for three lost years at $150,000.”
According to the amended complaint, O’Donnell had considered not taking the ISI job because “she had applied for admission to a Master’s Degree program at Princeton University, to start in the fall of 2003, and was concerned that the ISI position would not fit with her plans.”
But, in fact, O’Donnell had not yet received her bachelor’s degree at that time and had not been accepted to a Master’s program at Princeton.
The Delaware News Journal reported on Saturday: “[O'Donnell's] alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University, sued her in 1994 for about $4,000 in unpaid tuition. She satisfied the debt in 2003 and received her diploma this month after completing an additional course.” O’Donnell’s campaign manager Matt Moran acknowledged in an email received at midnight Saturday that O’Donnell “was not admitted to a Masters Degree program at Princeton. She took an undergraduate non-matriculated class at PU on constitutional government.” Moran has not yet replied to a subsequent email asking why O’Donnell claimed “ISI violated its promise to allow Miss ODonnell time to take Master’s degree classes at Princeton in return for a salary as small as $65,000 for her credentials and expertise, and as a result of ISI’s breach of its agreement, Miss O’Donnell was forced to quit her courses at Princeton, losing her time and money invested in this course of study at Princeton. [emphasis added].”
O’Donnell decided to drop the lawsuit in 2008, claiming that she couldn’t afford the legal fees. “I definitely felt that there was gender discrimination,” O’Donnell told me in a September 2 phone interview, but she declined to elaborate. “I believe that right now that if we unite in the conservative movement, the bigger picture is at stake, and we need to put that behind us.”
Still, the implication that O’Donnell was accepted to a Master’s degree program at Princeton is the latest of many false statements to come to light in recent weeks. Conservative radio host Dan Gaffney challenged O’Donnell on September 2 for claiming she had won two out of three counties in Delaware when she ran for Senate in 2008. In fact, she didn’t win any.
According to her financial disclosure form, O’Donnell only made $5,800 last year. “I made more than $5,800,” O’Donnell told me in the September 2 interview, but said she did not have to and would not disclose how much.
As the Delaware News Journal notes, O’Donnell “has denied that she was ever sued by her mortgage company or that a foreclosure sale date had been set.” But:
“During her 2008 run, her mortgage company sued her, claiming she stopped making payments in October 2007, according to court documents. It received a judgment and the home was set to go to sheriff’s sale, according to court documents. She sold it days before to her then-boyfriend, who was acting as her campaign legal counsel, she said.”
“She has a shady history and we’re not talking ancient history,” conservative radio host Dan Gaffney tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “We’re talking current history, and she lies about it.”
“You know, everyone is allowed to have financial difficulties,” Gaffney continued. “Everyone is allowed to take time to go to college. But misrepresenting yourself, lying about it, that’s what I have a problem with. I don’t understand why she has to lie about stuff she doesn’t have to lie about.”
Even more disturbing, says Gaffney, is O’Donnell claim in her recent WEEKLY STANDARD interview that her home and campaign office were broken into and vandalized and burglarized in 2008. O’Donnell did not report the alleged burglary and vandalism to the police, but suggested that Castle supporters may have been the ones who committed the alleged crime.
“If that’s true and she didn’t call the police, she’s not only endangering herself but her neighbors,” says Gaffney. “She also likes to say there are people hiding in her bushes.”
“It doesn’t sound stable when you add it all up.”
*Disclosure: I had a 2006 summer internship at National Review and a 2007-2008 writing fellowship at The Weekly Standard that were funded by the Collegiate Network, a program administered by ISI. To the best of my recollection, I’ve only spoken to one person named in O’Donnell’s lawsuit, Kenneth Cribb, only once in my life, back in 2005. I have not spoken to any current or former ISI/CN employees in months and did not obtain any information in this report from current or former ISI/CN employees.
O’Donnell remarks erode her support
The News Journal (Wilmington, DE)
By Ginger Gibson
September 3, 2010
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100903/NEWS02/9030345/1007/-Followers–may-cost-O-Donnell-followers
U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell alleged in a published interview Thursday that her political opponents follow her home at night and hide in the bushes, suggesting Republican leadership is behind a plot against her since 2008 when she was their endorsed candidate.
Only a few days ago, O’Donnell saw an upswing in national attention as she was pegged as the next great tea party candidate in the wake of Joe Miller’s Senate primary victory in Alaska. The California-based Tea Party Express pledged to spend up to $250,000 on her campaign ads.
Following publication of the interview, however, several national conservative bloggers who had trumpeted Miller in Alaska endorsed U.S. Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware, O’Donnell’s opponent in the Sept. 14 Republican primary.
Castle also has the party’s endorsement.
The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine based in Washington, reported Thursday that O’Donnell said unnamed opponents are following her.
“They’re following me,” the magazine reported O’Donnell said. “They follow me home at night. I make sure that I come back to the townhouse and then we have our team come out and check all the bushes and check all the cars to make sure that — they follow me.”
O’Donnell said she has never reported the alleged incidents to police.
State GOP Chairman Tom Ross called the claims “disgusting,” adding that in 2008 the party did everything possible to help her.
Mike Castle’s campaign issued a one-word response: “delusional.”
Neither O’Donnell nor her campaign responded to multiple phone calls and e-mails seeking a comment. They have declined interviews with The News Journal for more than a month.
During the interview with The Weekly Standard, O’Donnell raised questions about where she lives, saying she leaves her townhome at Greenville Place Apartments every night. The townhome is rented using campaign funds and is listed as her address on voter registration. O’Donnell refused to say where she sleeps for “security reasons.”
O’Donnell suggested Ross and Castle were behind the stalkings, saying her campaign office was vandalized in 2008, when she was running against Democrat Joe Biden.
“I’m not sure who did it, but I know for a fact that Mike Castle and Tom Ross were campaigning against me,” O’Donnell told The Weekly Standard. “They’ve been sabotaging my candidacy since 2008. So who knows who did it back then.”
She suggested they could also be behind the most recent incidents.
“What makes me think they won’t do the same distasteful things they did in 2008, when the stakes are even higher, when we’re even more viable,” she said in the interview.
Ross said the Republican party paid for O’Donnell’s filing fee in 2008 and let her use their office space. “To be frank, she is a delusional liar,” he said. “We tried to help Christine, but quite frankly she’s beyond help. She is so delusional and so far out there, eventually you just, you really do just have to stand up and say, ‘enough is enough.’ ”
The interview with The Weekly Standard on Thursday followed a contentious on-air clash between O’Donnell and conservative Sussex County radio host Dan Gaffney on WGMD.
Gaffney, who supported her candidacy in 2006 and 2008, challenged O’Donnell on the truth of several statements she made campaigning this year, her third bid for the U.S. Senate.
He asked her about a statement she made this summer at a Pennsylvania event in which she claimed she “won in two counties” in the ’08 challenge to Biden.
“I don’t think I ever said I won two out of three counties,” O’Donnell said.
Then Gaffney played the video clip in which she is heard to say, “I won in two out of three counties.”
“I meant tied,” she said.
“You didn’t tie him either,” Gaffney responded. Gaffney pressed her on the issue, insisting that since she got less votes, she had not tied.
“We absolutely did,” O’Donnell said.
According to the Department of Elections, O’Donnell lost to Biden by 272 votes in Sussex County, 9,093 in Kent County and 116,944 in New Castle County.
O’Donnell tried to distance herself from a video posted Wednesday by her recently departed campaign spokesman Yates Walker on the Liberty.com site that suggested Castle was having an affair with a man.
“That’s tacky,” O’Donnell said. “I never called him gay.”
Gaffney also questioned O’Donnell about the fact that she has more than $11,000 in unpaid campaign debts from 2008 and that she sold her Wilmington home to her boyfriend to avoid a sheriff’s sale. He also suggested that her campaign workers appeared to bully critics at recent political events.
In response, O’Donnell charged Gaffney with being paid off by the Castle campaign, which he called “ridiculous.”
When O’Donnell tried to turn questions about her finances into an attack on Castle, Gaffney muted her microphone.
Despite the shift by prominent conservative bloggers to endorse Castle, Tea Party Express is standing by its candidates.
“The two candidates are taking everything extremely personally, and it’s going to be a mean fight right down to the end,” the group’s spokesman Levi Russell said. “I don’t think it’s going to be all clean and smiles.”
17 years later, O’Donnell earns degree
By: David Catanese
September 3, 2010 12:21 PM EDT
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D86704A0-18FE-70B2-A8C2EA13A35BA191
Seventeen years after she attended the school and two weeks before her Republican primary against Rep. Mike Castle, Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell officially earned her college degree, according to an official from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Scott Giglio, assistant director of public relations at the Madison, N.J., university, told POLITICO the Tea Party Express-backed Senate hopeful was officially awarded her bachelor of arts degree in English literature on Wednesday.
Citing privacy reasons, Giglio could not explain the reasoning behind the timing, but O’Donnell’s campaign manager said Friday the candidate met a final course requirement this summer.
“She’s gone through the process to receive her degree, that’s not the story. She fulfilled the last course requirement this summer. It was just a general elective course,” said O’Donnell campaign manager Matt Moran.
But that contradicts previous explanations O’Donnell has given about her education history.
Her 2006 Senate campaign website described her as a “graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University.” In March of this year, she told the Delaware News Journal that FDU was withholding her diploma because she had not yet paid off her student loans. “I finished the coursework,” O’Donnell told the newspaper.
After attending the cap and gown ceremony in 1993, Moran said it took 12 years for O’Donnell to pay off the outstanding debt. He said she met with FDU President Michael Adams after her 2008 Senate campaign to make sure “she went through all the proper measures to achieve [the degree].”
But when pressed about why the university didn’t award the degree until this week, Moran said, “They don’t issue these in a heartbeat. They award them three times a year.”
Several articles that chronicle O’Donnell’s 2006 and 2008 campaigns say she was awarded a degree from FDU, however, her current campaign website only notes she attended the university.
Tom Ross, chairman of the Delaware Republican Party — which is strongly backing Castle’s bid – said the latest revelation is just more evidence of the O’Donnell campaign’s inability to tell the truth.
“Christine O’Donnell keeps demanding a debate. The debate I would like to see is Christine O’Donnell versus the facts. She’s said so many different things . . . I’m not sure Christine even knows what the truth is anymore,” Ross told POLITICO.
Without provocation, Moran said Ross was anything but a fair arbiter. “Tom Ross is clearly a whack job,” he said.
As O’Donnell’s campaign has attracted notoriety, it’s also found itself increasingly on the defensive over previous statements about everything from campaign debt to her electoral success in prior races. On Thursday, O’Donnell told The Weekly Standard that her political enemies were following her home at night and hiding “in the bushes.” Conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who has said he would prefer a Democrat be elected to the Senate over Castle, announced on RedState.com that he was “pulling the plug” on her candidacy because of her association with Liberty.com.
The conservative group, which employs a former staffer of O’Donnell’s, posted a video this week implying that Castle was having a gay affair.
Though running as a fiscal conservative, O’Donnell has fended off questions about her own personal financial responsibility and campaign debt she has yet to pay off from her 2008 run against now-Vice President Joe Biden. Her latest campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows $9,950 in campaign debt with $20,374 on hand to spend.
On Sep 15, 2010, at 5:22 PM, sean252s@aol.com wrote:
FIRST NAME: sean
LAST NAME: sheridan
ADDRESS:
CITY: oakley
US STATE: California
PROVINCE:
POSTAL CODE: 94561
COUNTRY: United States
PHONE:
ORGANIZATION:
EMAIL: sean252s@aol.com
INQUIRY TYPE: Other
CREATED AT: September 15, 2010 @ 05:22 PM
SUBJECT: Hannity/Rove Debate 9-14
MESSAGE:
******************
Mr Rove, as some one who has totally respected you as a true conservative?
That has just left me 100% after your childish lame rant on HANNITY last night over Odonnells victory.
Now I know why I re-registered 5 years ago as a ind. from the GOP…
I am a conservative 1st and could care less about your party crap..
Wake up, you are now part of the problem..
Sincerely Sean from Oakley
=
Rock commented:
@ #56
“HERE WAS HIS REPLY BACK TO ME”
Man if all that is true, she should have run as a Democrap, she be a shoe-in with that resume. But after today’s so called rollback on his attack Karl has lost the trust of the Conservative movement. Which story are we to believe?
soylent green commented:
I think its time for the O’Donnell supporters to stand down the attacks against the Castle supporters. It’s unseemly.
It’s over and the O’Donnell folks won. Now its time to get her elected. I think she can still win. I hope she does.
Regardless of whether Castle pulls a Dede Scozzafava and endorses “My Pet” Coons, piling on against Rove – and, yes, he was wrong to attack her so vigorously – doesn’t serve anyone’s interests. Ditto for bloggers who wanted the sure-election, rather than the more conservative candidate.
It’s off message and plays into the Democrats’ hands if the meme is that O’Donnell is the lightning rod in a ongoing conservative “civil war.”
SM-Illinois commented:
Time to stop the circular firing squad. Save the political ammo for Dems! Like Rudy said on Huckabee show, ” can’t stand 2 more years of what we’ve been going thru since Barry got elected!”
exceller commented:
Rove is toast, I wouldn’t trust that weasal any further than I could throw him. His doublespeak is appaling. when has he ever ran down ANY politician like that. I used to think pretty highly of him, but I am not the forgiving type. There is no way he can try to spin his way out of the fact that he has the long knives out for this woman, and he still is not letting up. Moral rectitude my ass.
exceller commented:
there is nothing I hate more than being told that I should stop talking about something. This needs to play out, and no this is not going to distract us from taking down every Democrat this fall. this stuff is important. Its phony to try to elect Rino’s and its phony to just try to sweep this under the rug.
neomom commented:
SM-IL, #59,
I respectfully disagree. We need ammo for D’s and R’s. We are not a circular firing squad, we are politically surrounded. We are shooting outward from a circle not inward. We have broke through their lines and it explains their vitriol. All anger is based in fear, all of it. Rove is afraid, Krauthammer is afraid, the MSM is afraid and most of all our own Gov. is afraid of us. It is afraid of the people it serves. That’s why they attack. They know Sarah, Sharon, Christine, Nikki, the big guy in Jersey, and a host of others are real. They care more about God and Country then they do about themselves. Rove does not have an answer for us because he is not like us. Evil will never defeat good in the arena of honor, Integrity and Justice.
Scott commented:
Washington has become the “Hollywood” of politics…It’s la la land, up is down, yes is no, black is white. He spent too much time in Washington, now its about time Karl retire…
Larry Sheldon commented:
Gimme a “B”!
B!
Gimme a “U”
U!
Gimme an “L”
L!
Gimme an “L”
L!
WADWEGOT?
KARL!
Gimme an “S”
S!
Gimme an “H”!
H!
Gimme an “I”
I!
Gimme a “T”!
T!
WADWEGOT?
ROVE!
bg commented:
++
re: [Which story are we to believe?]
please don’t forget it’s facts vs “out
of context” opinionated writings..
posted the following @ bg #53 yesterday, and someone has
already re-written/altered it, and who knows what else..
Christine O’Donnell
[O'Donnell attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she completed or nearly completed the work for a B.A. in English and Communications. She attended the commencement ceremony in 1993 but did not receive a degree, due outstanding unpaid expenses and her failure to complete a general elective course until seventeen years later in the summer of 2010. Her debt was satisfied in 2003 or 2005. After O'Donnell completed a final general electives course in the summer of 2010, Fairleigh Dickinson awarded her a bachelor's degree in English literature on September 1, 2010.]
which is why i always include a standard disclaimer: source Wikipedia..
==
bg commented:
++
re: bg #66
sorry, that was a reply to:
Rock @ 2:55 pm #57
==
bg commented:
++
why does it seem like only strong Republican
women are attacked by both party’s elites??
==
bg commented:
++
hey KARL,
when you’re finished airing Christine’s supposed dirty laundry since she
was two, and slinging all sorts of mud w/out something to back it up..
PLEASE DIG INTO OBAMA’S BACKGROUND FOR US.. PERHAPS EVEN HIS BC (not that it’s needed for proof of anything, as only one of his parents was born in the US), MAYBE EVEN LOCATE HIS MISSING ON PURPOSE SENATORIAL FILES, SCHOOL RECORDS, MEDICAL HISTORY, OR ANY ONE OF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS EVERYONE ELSE HAD LOOKED INTO FOR US?? PLEASE PLEASE, SAY YOU WILL TURD BLOSSOM!! THANK YOU..
oh btw Karl, everything ever written about Bush (not to mention you) was true wasn’t it.. oh wait, almost forgot, it was fake but accurate (well about Bush anyways).. /s/
[disclaimer: not saying everything about Christine is either true or false, just saying i have no clue, as it's kind of hard to discern when everything is presented totally out of context yet touted as supposed facts.. you ought to know better than that KR, much better.. you're sounding more like Obama than Obama, go figure..]
==
AliceL. commented:
I was disgusted by Baby Karl’s attack and sent a donation to Christine. I don’t know very much about her, but after I saw Rove go apoplectic I figured that she must be doing something right. Rove’s attack was almost entirely personal. It bordered on libelous. He seems obsessed with her as a woman. He and the anorexic Dana Parino are a couple of backstabbers. People were loyal to Rove while Fitzpatrick was investigating him. This is how Rover repays Republican loyalty to him. It must be very sad to be Rove, these days. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave over the level of attack that Baby Karl levelled at this lady. I am glad that she was so quickly able to raise money. As for Castle, he was in office for too long and needed a primary – a long time ago.
dallasdan commented:
Rove flashed his big ass, and he is a POS for trying so hard to trash the now Senate republican candidate. He lost his credibility with me and, I’m fairly confident, many, many others. Hannity should have turned off Rove microphone.
jainphx commented:
Alice—– very well said!
jainphx commented:
Castle after 40 years in office, where the heck did he get those Millions he has. I’m not sure, but I would hazard a guess, can you say “graft”
There are so many that have been in office for 30 years or more that are Millionaires, that didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
HMMMM I wonder how that happened.
jainphx commented:
Term limits is the only thing that can stop this.
raybojabo commented:
Karl, Karl, Karl, give Odumbo his ego back before you drown yourself trying to walk on water. Iknow turds float but your big head will drag you under.
Leo commented:
Shooter..
We do not need rinos in office to batter and taint our message.
They also give the dems the talking point of bipartisanship.
We need to remove the rinos from office.
Elmo commented:
Well I’ll be … they removed that covenant over at Private Eye Dee Ho. Now even worthless little (rino) horned toads … can buy property. It’s a miracle!
Rose commented:
She has now raised more than $1.5 mill and Rove is SO TOAST!