'The small elite don't get us. They call us wacky. They call us wingnuts,' Christine O'Donnell said. O'Donnell hits the national stage

Delaware GOP Senate candidate and tea party sensation Christine O'Donnell torched "ruling-class elites" and their "anti-Americanism," in her debut on the national stage Friday, encouraging the room of conservatives to lead a constitutional comeback in this year's midterm election.

O'Donnell's 17-minute speech before the Family Research Council's Value Voters Summit made no direct mention of her primary upset of nine-term Rep. Mike Castle Tuesday; it instead focused on the enthusiasm that's reinvigorated the conservative movement in the two years since President Obama took office.


"The conservative movement was told to curl up in a fetal position and just stay there for the next eight years, thank you very much. Well, how things have changed," O'Donnell said, to cheers.

O'Donnell, who defeated Castle by a 6-point margin despite sustained attacks on her misstatements and financial troubles – past and present — repeatedly chided "the ruling class" and championed "a rowdy revolution of reason."

"The small elite don't get us. They call us wacky. They call us wingnuts. We call us, 'We the people,'" she said to sustained applause. "We're loud, we're rowdy, we're passionate. … It isn't tame, but boy, it sure is good."

She also addressed the personal scrutiny and criticisms she has endured since her candidacy vaulted into the national spotlight just weeks ago, when she appeared to be gaining momentum against Castle in her third shot at a Senate seat.

"Will they attack us? Yes. Will they smear our backgrounds and distort our records? Undoubtedly. Will they lie about us, harass our families, namecall to try to intimidate us? They will. There's nothing safe about it. But is it worth it?" she said.

"Well, let me ask you. Is freedom worth it?" she asked, as the crowd chanted "Yes." "Is America worth it?"

She used her middle-class upbringing in New Jersey to briefly explain one of the most perplexing charges that has dogged her campaign — why it took her more than 15 years to earn her college degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

"I never had the high-paying job or the company car. It took me over a decade to pay off my student loans. I never had to worry about where to dock my yacht to reduce my taxes," she said, jabbing at Sen. John Kerry for dodging a six-figure yacht tax in his home state. '"And I'll bet most of you didn't, either."

O'Donnell argued that while Beltway elites are attempting to marginalize their movement, it’s conservatives who represent the core of mainstream America.

"We're not trying to take back our country. We are our country," O'Donnell said, before making a subtle reference to a phrase Obama has been using on the campaign trail. "That's what's happening in America today, the grown-ups are taking away the keys."

Continuing on that theme, the former television commentator lamented Washington bureaucrats who have "weaseled" their way into personal decisions that should be left up to individuals, using a line of attack first delivered by Sarah Palin.

"They even want unelected panels of bureaucrats to decide who gets what life-saving medical care and who is just too old, or it's too expensive to be worth saving," she said, a nod to the fictional "death panels" that Palin first used to attack the health care bill. "They'll buy your teenage daughter an abortion but they won't let her buy a sugary soda in a school's vending machine."

While O'Donnell lacked the sizzling electricity that is Palin’s trademark, her speech was smoothly delivered and well-received by the sympathetic crowd at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Back in May at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the president said Republicans wanted the keys back after "they drove the car into the ditch."

O’Donnell’s only other veiled reference to the president came when she spoke of "anti-Americanism" and criticized leaders for apologizing for America.

"When I talk to people out on the campaign trail in Delaware, I'm hearing frustration, not only with the direction our country is headed but with the anti-Americanism that taints every outlet of the ruling class. Americans want our leaders to defend our values, our culture, our legacy of liberty and our way of life, not apologize," she said.

O'Donnell's appearance at the Values Voter Summit marked O'Donnell's first address to a national audience. She began reintroducing herself to voters Thursday night in her first joint appearance with Democratic nominee Chris Coons at a candidate forum in Wilmington.

"It's no secret that there's been a rather unflattering portrait of me painted these days," she said during the forum. "I am fighting two political parties here in Delaware."

Just before she took the stage, O'Donnell announced via tweet that her campaign had raise more than $1.5 million in under 72 hours. "You are all amazing," she wrote.

Democrats issued no immediate reaction to O'Donnell's speech, signaling the delicacy with which they are initially handling her insurgent candidacy.