WASHINGTON – Senator John McCain’s daughter has said Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware, a Tea Party favourite, is “seen as a nut job”.
“Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office,” Meghan McCain said of her father’s fellow Republican, who recently ran an ad declaring, “I’m not a witch”.
Appearing on ABC's This Week, Ms McCain said Ms O'Donnell "has no real history, no real success in any kind of business". "And what that sends to my generation is one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter [what] lack of experience you have," said Ms McCain (26), author of a new book, Dirty Sexy Politics.
Ms O’Donnell stunned the Republican establishment in September when she defeated Mike Castle, a former two-term governor and longtime member of the US House of Representatives, to win the Republican US Senate nomination from Delaware.
Ms O’Donnell prevailed with the help of the conservative Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor who was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 White House race.
Ms McCain, who became known for her online chronicle of daily life on her father’s failed presidential campaign, ripped into Ms O’Donnell’s candidacy. “It scares me for a lot of reasons, and I just know in my group of friends, it just turns people off, because she’s seen as a nut job,” she said.
Ms O’Donnell has benefited from an anti-Washington environment fanned by the Tea Party and voter anger about the weak US economy. – (Reuters)