WASHINGTON — The Tea Party’s latest darling, Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, aligned herself squarely with the Republican Party’s social conservative base Friday in criticizing Democrats and “ruling-class elites” in her first national appearance since her upset primary victory.
“They’re trying to marginalize us and put us in a box,” O’Donnell said to cheers. “They’re trying to say we’re trying to take over this party or that campaign. They don’t get it. We’re not trying to take over our country. We are our country. We have always been in charge.”
It wasn’t clear whether she was talking about the Tea Party or the conservative movement or both. But it didn’t seem to matter to the friendly crowd at the annual Values Voters Summit just days after she shocked the GOP with her upset of nine-term Rep. Mike Castle.
Since then, O’Donnell has seemed to focus on trying to repair a reputation battered during the primary’s final days.
She scheduled interviews on two Sunday- morning news programs and made a last-minute appearance at Friday’s gathering, which serves as a testing ground for presidential candidates and up-and-coming Republicans.
She repeatedly struck a populist, outsider tone, dismissing the “D.C. cocktail crowd,” chiding the “Beltway popular crowd” and blistering “the ruling-class elites.”
“They call us wacky. They call us wing nuts. We call us ‘We the people,’ ” O’Donnell said, invoking conservative stalwart Newt Gingrich’s saying “There are more of us than there are of them.”
O’Donnell trails Democrat Chris Coons in a state where Democratic voters far outnumber Republicans.
In the days since O’Donnell’s victory, establishment Republicans, some grudgingly, were starting to embrace O’Donnell as their GOP nominee, mindful not to alienate Tea Party activists who shepherded her to victory and who are injecting a huge dose of energy into the Republican Party ahead of the Nov. 2 elections.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the National Senatorial Campaign Committee, was planning to meet with O’Donnell. She was doing her part, too, to bridge the divide between the Tea Party and GOP establishment by appearing at the meeting.
