Halloween cobwebs shroud US midterm elections

Because elections are always held at the same time in America – on the first Tuesday of November – the campaign season always coincides with Halloween. So it is entirely normal to see candidates and campaigners knocking on doors that are covered in cobwebs, pushing past ghosts and ghouls to get at the voters. But rarely have the two events merged quite as deliciously as they have in Delaware.

The Republican candidate for the Senate, Christine O’Donnell, has come in for national ridicule ever since it was revealed that she used to “dabble in witchcraft”. She has spent a fortune on TV adverts that start with the line “I am not a witch” trying to refute the story. But that seems to have backfired and has just kept the story alive in voter’s minds.

I cannot have been the only person to walk by, make the connection and burst out laughing.

So you have to wonder why someone who supported O’Donnell enough to put up one of her campaign signs in her yard would also decorate her house with Halloween witches! I cannot have been the only person to walk by, make the connection and burst out laughing.

I was up in Delaware to try to interview Christine O’Donnell. But I knew it would not be easy. Her campaign has become notorious for avoiding the press – local, national and international. Usually political candidates crave media attention but O’Donnell has a habit of saying the wrong thing in front of TV cameras so her campaign tries to keep her away from journalists’ questions. Hoping that they can use social networking and TV adverts to get her elected.

The doorstep

Weeks of calling, emailing and leaving messages for her campaign did not result in a single call back let alone any arrangement for us to interview Miss O’Donnell. So we decided to take our chances at an event she was attending at an old folks home in Newark, Delaware. The media were invited – even though the press release only went out at 9.30am and the event was at 10am.

Luckily we were nearby, and initially welcomed in to take pictures of the photogenic Miss O’Donnell. And she happily agreed to answer a few question from me. As she has never held any kind of public office before I asked her why she thought she was qualified to be a Senator. She told me she thought she had plenty of experience – including being a “real person”. So I asked her why it was that the local Republican chairman had said she was not qualified to run for dog catcher.

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End of interview! She backed away like she had been scalded and her minders quickly moved in to throw us out of the event.

It was a cheeky question I admit. But given that O’Donnell is running to be one of only 100 US senators it seems legitimate to ask her about her qualifications. And by the time you are competing at that level in US politics surely a cheeky question from a foreign reporter should not phase you.

I asked her why it was that the local Republican chairman had said she was not qualified to run for dog catcher. End of interview!

I was immediately surrounded by irate O’Donnell supporters who wanted to know why I had not asked her about her policies. Because I had not had a chance I said. And then asked if I could interview them about which of her policies they were most attracted to. But the O’Donnell heavies stepped in to stop that happening too. We could not even film O’Donnell T-shirts and stickers because they kept stepping in front of the lens.

Running against the ‘liberal media’

It is a strange way to run an election campaign – but in a weird way it is working for O’Donnell and host of other notorious Tea Party candidates who have spent this election running from the media. They are running against the “liberal media” as much as they are running against Democrats. By demonising the press they think they can neutralise any negative coverage whilst at the same time rallying their base. It may work in some places but it does not seem to be doing the trick in Delaware.

This is a traditionally Democratic state where the Republicans had a double digit poll lead just a few months ago. But that as before O’Donnell won the Republican primary. She has turned that lead into a double figure deficit and seems likely to lose a seat another Republican candidate could have won.

Unless she can cast a spell over the electorate.