Sarah Palin is still a knee-jerk source of mirth for Times reporters. A Wednesday night blog post by Michael Shear (who reported 20 years for the Washington Post before becoming lead writer for the Times' political blog "The Caucus") captured a moment in that night's debate between Republican Christine O'Donnell and Democrat Chris Coons, who are running for the Senate in Delaware. The headline gave the slant away: "O'Donnell's Palin Moment? [1]"
Was it a Sarah Palin moment?
Christine O'Donnell, the Republican Senate candidate in Delaware, stumbled during the debate tonight when asked for a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that she disagreed with.
"I know that there are a lot," she said. But she couldn't come up with one, evoking memories of Katie Couric's 2008 interview with Ms. Palin when she could not identify newspapers or magazines that she read.
The Democrat (naturally) was more informed:
Given the same opportunity to name a case he disagreed with, Chris Coons, the Democratic candidate, quickly cited the Citizens United case which legalized political spending by corporations.
Shear demonstrated the same concern as Democrats over the Citizens United decision in a "Caucus" post last week [2]. Shear seemed puzzled as to why people had failed to heed President Obama's wise
warnings, which were surely untainted by any partisan considerations.
In January, during his first State of the Union address, President Obama predicted that a U.S. Supreme Court decision would "open the floodgates" of money into campaigns. He warned against elections that are "bankrolled" by powerful interests.
Now that flood of cash has arrived, mostly into new organizations that are working on behalf of Mr. Obama's adversaries and are not required to disclose their donors. The money is helping Republican candidates take advantage of a wave of anger and dissatisfaction across the country.
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