Topic category:  Government/Politics

National Review intern Katrina Trinko's "How O’Donnell Can Do It: She is behind, but she has the right message" (www.nationalreview.com/articles/247819/how-o-donnell-can-do-it-katrina-trinko?page=1) provides a realistic view of the challenge facing Christine O'Donnell, who beat Delaware Republican icon Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican Senate primary and faces Democrat County Executive Chris Coons in the general election.

Trinko:

"By the numbers alone, Delaware is a tough state for GOP candidates. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 100,000 in a state with only 620,000 voters. The last time the state went for the Republican presidential candidate was 1988, and it hasn’t sent a Republican senator to Washington since 1994.

"Even if Christine O’Donnell did not carry her burden of controversial television clips, she would face an extremely difficult challenge. Recent polls haven’t been promising: The September 16 Rasmussen poll has her opponent, Democrat Chris Coons, ahead by 11 points, while the September 18 Fox News poll gives him a 15-point lead. Both polls show that a large number of voters already have negative feelings about O’Donnell — 60 percent in the Fox poll say that she is not qualified to be a senator, while 54 percent in the Rasmussen poll viewed her unfavorably."

All true.

What can O'Donnell do?

Explain that she is the Republican Senate candidate who can win a Senate seat currently occupied by a Democrat and go to the upcoming lame duck session and stop the Obama steamroller.

On September 29, 2010, Laura Ingraham reported that Team Obama has 20 bills to pass in that session, before a new Congress is convened.

Trinko: "Coons’s website urges voters 'to show Delaware won’t elect a Tea Party senator.' And, unfortunately, that message has some resonance. Forty percent of voters in the Fox poll were strongly opposed to the tea-party movement, while another 9 percent were somewhat opposed. '[Delaware] is still a state that is very centrist in its own politics. I don’t think that fact has changed in the last two weeks or two months, to be honest,' said GOP strategist Don Mell."

A challenging task? Yes. An impossible task? No.

Trinko's prescription: "How can O’Donnell prevail in such circumstances? She will have to sell two ideas to voters: that Republican policies will benefit the state more than Democratic ones would, and that she herself is qualified to represent Delaware in the Senate. And that is what her campaign has set out to do."

Not quite.

O'Donnell only needs to show Delaware's voters that she's a better choice than Coons and she, not Coons, will stand strong for traditional American values.

That is doable!

Trinko:

"O’Donnell’s first step is reintroducing herself to the voters. 'It’s no secret that there’s been a rather unflattering portrait of me portrayed,' she said during a candidate forum last week. According to a campaign spokesman, she plans on 'traveling throughout the state, unveiling her positions on a variety of issues over the course of the campaign and . . . contrast[ing them] with those of her opponent in the race.'

"Signaling her determination to concentrate on Delaware, O’Donnell announced last week that she would no longer appear on national media outlets. In an interview with Sean Hannity (her last such appearance), she said the exposure wouldn’t help her get votes. 'I instead want to go to as many town-hall forums, as many candidate forums, as many church picnics that I can fit into my schedule, so that I can meet the voters,' she explained."

THAT IS A HUGE MISTAKE!

O'Donnell should be making the race a referendum on the radical agenda pursued by President Obama and connecting Coons to that radical agenda in general and Delaware ACORN in particular.

Trinko: "O’Donnell is also working to reassure voters that she has no intention of implementing her non-political convictions. 'I have my personal beliefs, but our Constitution defends our right for the voters to disagree with me. And that’s the right that I’m going to defend,' she told Hannity."

O'Donnell's "non-political convictions" are the distraction Team Obama, Coons and their liberal media establishment inside and outside Delaware need.

O'Donnell needs to put the focus on the radical "political convictions" of Obama and Coons.

Trinko:

"Next, she’ll have to sell her policies. While much of the country, tired of high unemployment and the economic fallout from the recession, is turning right on the economy, Delaware seems relatively indifferent.

"That may be attributable to Delaware’s unemployment rate of 8.4 percent, lower than the national rate of 9.6 percent. There is discontent over the state of the economy — 66 percent rate it as 'not so good' or 'fair' in the Fox poll — but there doesn’t seem to be any clear consensus that it’s the Obama administration’s fault. Thirty-five percent think Obama’s policies have hurt, while about the same number believe they have helped.

"O’Donnell’s campaign thinks that her fiscally conservative message will appeal in Delaware. A campaign spokesman said that her 'fresh, outside approach' would be attractive to Delaware residents 'trying to make ends meet and provide a better life for their children and families.'"

O'Donnell has about a month to prove to Delaware voters that they have been fooled by Team Obama and Coons.

Coons' repeated breaking of his pledge not to raise taxes shows he can't be trusted.

Obama's lies about his relationship to ACORN and the illicit relationship between the Obama presidential campaign and ACORN/Project Vote (a story buried by The New York Times before Election Day 2008) show that he is hell-bent on "fundamental change" America in general and Delaware in particular don't need or want.

Trinko: "National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Brian Walsh compares her approach to Scott Brown’s. 'Brown focused on a simple message — less government and lower taxes — and it clearly resonated, even in one of the bluest states in the country,' Walsh says."

It's a sound message, but O'Donnell's no RINO and she can (and must) show that something is rotten in Obama World.

Trinko: "Chris Coons is now receiving more serious scrutiny. The man dubbed 'my pet' by Senate majority leader Harry Reid is a committed liberal — and O’Donnell’s campaign plans to highlight that, hanging Reid, Democratic tax hikes, and Obama’s unpopular agenda around his neck."

It's a good start, but ACORN is the albatross that can sink the Coons campaign.

Trinko:

"In a small state like Delaware, O’Donnell’s significantly higher fundraising haul — thanks to a massive outpouring of conservative support around the country — and the advertising opportunities it gives her pack a significant wallop. There is some fertile ground for her: Fifty percent of voters in the Fox poll want to repeal Obamacare, 53 percent prefer a 'smaller government that provides fewer services,' and 49 percent agree that 'the federal government has gotten totally out of control and threatens our basic liberties unless we clean house and commit to drastic change.' They may not embrace the tea party, but they’re not huge fans of the status quo, either."

They are Americans who will know what to do when the whole truth about Obama, ACORN and Coons is shared with them.

For O'Donnell, opportunity is loudly knocking. If she responds boldly, an election day victory will not be shocking.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.