I like Christine O'Donnell. I think she's a goof and a good sport, and it would be funny if she became a United States Senator. She's got a smile that could light up an abortion clinic bombing. Plus she needs a job.
But I wish the Tea Party Express hadn't mailed Delaware voters 80,000 fliers about her Monday, citing an endorsement from "Catholic Families of America." Because there's no such organization.
There is an organization called Catholic Families for America, but it was founded 13 months ago, has no apparent membership, and seems to be run out of the principal's office of a non-parochial Catholic school in an abandoned Cajun restaurant. You wouldn't brag about that endorsement. People would think you were a joke.
Must be some kind of mistake.
I think I know what happened here.
Delaware is 29 percent Catholic. Mike Castle, Christine O'Donnell's opponent for the senate nomination, is Catholic. Christine O'Donnell was born Catholic but renounced the church when she was in college, and became whatever backwoods claptrap was going. When she started running for office all the time, she converted back. Which sounds pretty convenient, but then, the prodigal son came home when he ran out of money, too.
An explanation that might not be good enough for 29 percent of Delaware. So O'Donnell needed some Catholic group -- no matter how dubious -- to endorse her. And she found Catholic Families for/of America in Lafayette, LA, just off the Evangeline Thrwy. (If you hit Barney's Firearms and Indoor Range, you've gone to far.)
They also have an address in Texas and one on K Street, at a office suite they share with a wedding photographer, a vanity press, a "scholarship search" agency, and the publishers of the SHADES of EBONY 10th Anniversary Limited Edition shirtless black male cheesecake calendar.
Most importantly, Catholic Families at/on/o'er America has a website, where they've thrown their awesome support behind 42 candidates for congress and the senate.
And raised them $70.
And all of this would just be fun and games. Obviously they're just clods and Christine O'Donnell is just a desperado clutching at straws. Except, to get the nod from Catholic Families atop America, you have to fill out a candidate questionnaire and check either yes or no on positions like:
Do you oppose the notion that abortion is a constitutional right?Will you support a human life amendment to the Constitution?
Will you oppose any effort to revive the Equal Rights Amendment?
Do you promise to advocate that judges who attempt to establish secular atheism as the state religion should be removed from office?
Will you oppose any effort for federal financing or regulation of childcare?
Will you vote to protect the sovereignty of Latin American countries, such as Honduras, against takeovers by Castro-Chavez lefists (sic) who are aided and abetted by our own president?
Will you vote against universal mental health screening in public schools?
I'm guessing -- but it's only a guess -- that O'Donnell gave the CFA all the right answers to get their endorsement, and a slice of that sweet $70 kitty. But I don't know.
No one knows.
I hope someone asks her to release her answers to that questionnaire.