DOES CHRISTINE HAVE A CHANCE – AT 7:05 P.M. ET:  I watched Christine O'Donnell on Sean Hannity's show last night, and I must tell you that she was delightful.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that it may be too late.

O'Donnell thoughtfully answered the charges against her, especially the one about owing back taxes.  She explained that this was an IRS error, and that she has the papers to prove there was nothing owed.  She was poised and mature in handling these issues.

Trouble is, she should have done this weeks ago.  Instead, her campaign referred questions to her website, which means voters who weren't participating in the Republican primary (which she won) never had a chance to hear her defend herself on TV.

Two basic rules of politics:  1) Never let anyone else define you, and 2) answer every attack and pulverize the attacker. 

I've never seen a candidate savaged the way Christine O'Donnell was savaged after she won her primary.  I was watching CNN yesterday, and you'd think O'Donnell doesn't even have an opponent in the general election.  There were no questions about him, none whatever.  I watched over the weekend as Bob Schieffer ridiculed O'Donnell's "witchcraft" past – she fooled around with some weird folks in high school – but never heard Schieffer or anyone else note that Hillary Clinton once tried to channel Eleanor Roosevelt while Clinton was first lady.

The result of the assault is that O'Donnell didn't get the usual post-primary bounce.  A poll put her 11 points behind her opponent a few days after the primary.  She's now, according to Rasmussen, 15 points behind.

It was a late O'Donnell surge that allowed her to win the Republican primary, that and dissatisfaction with the liberal tendencies of her opponent, Congressman Mike Castle.  Can there be another surge?  Well, it's tougher in the general election, when you're dealing with Democrats and independents.  And it's tough in a traditionally Democratic state.

The odds are against Christine O'Donnell.  She doesn't have much of a record, and she's made some whopping mistakes.  But miracles happen, and she's got to fight.  She's already made one good decision – not to do more national TV, but concentrate only on Delaware.

If I were a betting man, I wouldn't bet on her.  I want to be proved wrong.

September 22, 2010