Its been one month now since the national ear heard the name Christine O’Donnell after her win in the Delaware Republican senate primary, and in that time we’ve had the chance to see several versions of her put forth. There is the successful, insurgent, mad as hell Tea Party candidate dramatically standing up to the elites of her own party. There has been talk of a financially burdened socially conservative political advocate facing foreclosure. A much younger Christine O’Donnell who once dabbled in witchcraft and had a first date on a satanic alter. The O’Donnell who publicly denounces the evils of masturbation, and now there is news of a candidate Christine O’Donnell performing poorly in polls and debates and implying that “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution. Its astonishing to me the lengths to which the media will go to avoid ever talking about the political opinions and policy proposals of a candidate. Instead there has been a frenzied discussion of obscure and inconsequential personal details and an absolute refusal to address and assess far more relevant aspects of her candidacy. This merely isn’t the case of a candidate not being taken on her own terms, its a refusal to treat her like a candidate. As is the case with many other marginalized public figures a character reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster has been created for the purpose of running gossip tabloid stories as respectable political commentary.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that O’Donnell is being mistreated by the media as part of a larger liberal cabal bent on the character assassination of conservatives who dare run against the political mainstream of both parties. The same reasoning MTV uses to produce Jersey Shore is applied to running glorified gossip of O’Donnell; people love to watch foolish people embarrass themselves. So on this level those indulging in this national dialogue about O’Donnell are justified, Christine O’Donnell does indeed say laughable things and should be called to account for them, no candidate is above the scrutiny of the media. Our error arises from our inability to see the forest for the trees, or to see a candidate for the embarrassing soundbites. How many of you off the top of your head can name the Democrat running against O’Donnell?

The current chapter of the Christine O’Donnell saga is incapable of fully demonstrating all that makes her noteworthy as a candidate. O’Donnell’s professional history, which came under attack by the Republican establishment in the primary season, reveals what I estimate to be her greatest asset as a candidate. Coming into the woman we would now recognize as having the political personality of Christine O’Donnell the candidate while attending Fairleigh Dickinson University she joined the College Republicans chiefly over the issue of induced abortion and volunteered for the Bush/Quale campaign. Without completing her degree she went to work for Enough is Enough an anti-pornography organization, followed by a job with the Republican National Committee which she quit over what she deemed to be a lack of emphasis on abortion in the GOP and spent a year with Concerned Women for America, a fundamentalist Christian foil to the National Organization for Women. In 1996 O’Donnell founded Saviour’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth, this is the era in which the infamous clips from Politically Incorrect featuring O’Donnell criticizes masturbation and admits to dabbling in witchcraft. A job with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute brought her to Delaware, but would remain for only a year before being fired for using their resources to work on her media consulting jobs while on paid time, a claim she disputed with a federal lawsuit that was dropped in 2008 due to a lack of funds. It is in this time that had significant financial problems that resulted in lawsuits from Fairleigh Dickinson University, defaulting on her mortgage, and an IRS lien. She would begin her political career by running for Delaware Senate in 2006.

I bring all this up to point out that this isn’t the resume of someone who is drawn to politics for power or to skew the law to favor their business. She has no family connections or Ivy League law degree (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Instead we have a woman who jumped headfirst into politics and advocacy based on a personal commitment to her opinions and worked for extreme and unpopular organizations and left the GOP because she wasn’t getting out of it what she thought was important. This is the biography of a person who says what she means and means what she says, and that is remarkably hard to find. She is deserving of the admiration of character that was unfortunately offered to George W. Bush in 2004 for “sticking to his guns”, because she hasn’t merely refused to compromise her fast held beliefs, any fool an bury their head in the sand and pass it off as moral fortitude, she has lived to promote her ideals despite a lack of financial stability and completed university degree.

The apologetics for Ms. O’Donnell end there, for she may have a remarkable devotion to her causes, her life’s work is based on beliefs and opinions that are in most cases repugnant and at times demonstratively false. As a candidate that runs on a strict interpretation of and adherence to the Constitution not being able to identify the 14th and 16th amendments, both are common points of discussion for Tea Party candidates is unacceptable and she should be embarrassed. But as I write this, the current hot topic was her far to literal question asking where the “separation of church and state” appear in the constitution. Having reviewed the video several times I believe she was being earnest and literal in the question, she was very foolishly and unsuccessfully deploying a tactic used by religious conservatives who want to endorse a liberal reading of the establishment clause of the first amendment. Liberal viewers of the debate saw what they wanted to see, and with her ambiguous and poorly timed delivery I can’t blame them, conservative viewers likewise were hesitant to be critical of O’Donnell and interpret the events differently. No matter whose interpretation is right, the exchange paints O’Donnell in a dangerous light. She is either shockingly ignorant of one of the most publicly quoted and discussed amendments to the Constitution that she has promised to have a strict interpretation of. Also being an amendment that directly effects most of the advocacy work she did while working for conservative christian non profits such as the one she founded, and will therefore be by anyone’s estimation unfit for national office. Or, as Christine herself asserted at the debate and in her press release afterword that she was drawing attention to the popular phrase, and does so in the context of a discussion on the role of religious doctrine being taught in public science classes, which indicates that despite her professed view being that local school boards should have the final word on curriculum, she favors and would do nothing to stop publicly funded religious instruction in science classes. This would allow religious bias to use public schools as a mouthpiece dictate what children are allowed to learn,leading to the teaching of unscientific and demonstratively false claims in lieu of significant and widely regarded scientific findings. This is threatening to the goal of a well educated society and to the goal of a secular government where no religious faction has the opportunity to gain any ground in claiming to be the legitimate religion of the United States.

According to her own website there are five issues she is willing to go on record for, they are: Raising taxes, energy, war on terror, healthcare, government spending and jobs. Predictably O’Donnell states that she intends to cut federal taxes for small businesses and farmers. Her energy policy rejects cap and trade proposals and instead offers an unspecified market based approach to energy independence, from which I feel we can safely assume will translate into no reliable votes for climate and energy solutions in congress and proposals that will amount to doing nothing to help a dire situation, even the aspect of the situation she mentions to care about, keeping energy bills low and national energy independence which haven’t fixed themselves on their own and won’t. She gives no mention or stance on either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, only pledging full funding for the military and to not give miranda rights to “terrorists”. One pledge is ironic for a supposed fiscal conservative and the other a paradoxical statement. Given that the largest portion of the federal budget is spent on the military we can conclude that she has embraced an ironic double standard with federal spending. The statement which her campaign has underlined in the literature, states that no Miranda rights should be given to terrorists we must then entertain the implied notion that anybody arrested for terrorism is already guilty as Miranda rights only are useful to those who are about to be awaiting a trial. Interestingly enough, many of the individuals being held as prisoners of war in the War on Terror have never been charged with any crime, and so their Miranda rights should wait until they are charged, and in that respect she already has her wish. This diabolical policy is the antithesis of Constitutional due process, indicating that while O’Donnell reveres the founding document, she believes that the rights therein are not rights at all, but privilege that should be extended to an unspecified group that excludes terrorists, who in her estimation is deemed to be a terrorist before the trial that determines their status as a terrorist has begun, which should not be based on constitutional principles. Given how paradoxical her position is on detainees, why doesn’t she just clarify her position and advocate the indiscriminate execution of those she considers terrorists? O’Donnell pledges to de-fund the 2010 healthcare reform law which includes money given to the private health insurance industry. Her last significant pledge she is incapable of performing as it implies she will fight to prevent the Bush tax cuts form expiring on January, 1st 2011, before she takes office. Given the simplicity, hyperbole, and self contradictory pledges, her very reason for running, I find it frustrating that the media would pass up soft balls for criticism that are actually useful to voters and instead on the novelty of a first date on a satanic altar.

Christine O’Donnell is a far more serious matter than a collage of humorous soundbites. As much as I welcome an outsider entering politics who has honest convictions and will speak frankly to the public when asked, Christine O’Donnell and other like her are come bearing dangerous ideas and policies that are only made more worrisome by political courage.