http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_O%27Donnell
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Personal life
O'Donnell is an unmarried<1> conservative Christian<20> known for her vocal opposition to abortion, pornography, extramarital sex,<21><22> and masturbation.<23>
Career
Following college, O'Donnell went to work for Enough is Enough, a Washington, D.C.-based anti-pornography group.<19>Over the following two years, she worked in conservative issue advocacy and for the Republican National Committee,<24> and served as a spokesperson for Concerned Women for America, a Conservative Christian political action group which seeks to apply biblical principles to issues of public policy,<19><25> and which opposes abortion.<26> In 1996, she left Concerned Women for America and attended the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego, California.<19>
O'Donnell then founded the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT) in 1996 and served as its president.<19> The organization lobbied the U.S. Congress on moral issues<4> and focused on advocating chastity and other Christian values in the college-age generation.<27> She made several high profile television appearances in her role. In 1996 O'Donnell appeared as a SALT representative on MTV's show, Sex In The 90's, in which she advocated "sexual purity" when dealing with our "God given sexual desires". O'Donnell also publicly opposed masturbation, biblically equating it with adultery.<28> Two years later, O'Donnell appeared as a SALT representative on Bill Maher's show Politically Incorrect, and argued that since America "took the Bible and prayer out of public schools" we were now "having weekly (school) shootings", and that the 1960s "sexual revolution" led to the AIDS epidemic.<29>
She was awarded a Lincoln Fellowship by the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank in 2002.<30>
In 2003, O'Donnell moved to Delaware to work for the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) in Hockessin, and bought a house in Wilmington.<4><21> She registered a gender discrimination complaint against ISI with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), after which she was terminated by ISI in 2004.<4> She then sued the institute in the federal court for $6.9 million for wrongful termination claiming that she had been fired in retaliation for filing the discrimination complaint and due to ISI's conservative philosophy that women must be subordinate to men. She said ISI's actions caused her mental anguish,<4><31> and would lose future financial earning power because ISI's actions would delay her education. ISI defended its action by accusing her of having conducted a for-profit public-relations business while on their time.<4> O'Donnell dropped the suit in 2008, stating she could no longer afford an attorney.<4><21><22> Amazing how the repukes who hate BIG govt, are so willing ot use its facilities when it serves their own ends!!!
In 2008, she was unable to pay the mortgage for her Wilmington house and the mortgage company gained a judgment against her for $90,000; the house was due to be sold at a sheriff's auction in August 2008 when she sold it the month prior to her campaign's lawyer.<4> The IRS has filed a lien and said that O'Donnell owes $11,000 in back taxes, but O’Donnell says that it was a mistake and a “computer error”.<32> O'Donnell noted that the IRS agent handling the matter claimed he was perplexed by the agency's actions.<4> She listed herself as self-employed and said she was doing "odd jobs" to make ends meet.<4>
O'Donnell has worked as a marketing consultant<3> She has provided political commentary on numerous Fox News television programs, such as The O'Reilly Factor,<33> The Live Desk,<34> and Glenn Beck.<35> She has been supportive of the Right to Life and criticized pornography, masturbation and premarital sex.<21><22>
Political campaigns
O'Donnell (far left) taking part in the 2006 Return Day parade in Georgetown, Delaware
2006
See also: United States Senate election in Delaware, 2006
O'Donnell ran for the Republican nomination in the 2006 United States Senate election in Delaware, finishing last of three candidates<36> in the Republican primary, with 17 percent of the vote, behind winner Jan C. Ting and second-place finisher Michael D. Protack.<37> She then ran as a write-in candidate in the general election against Ting and incumbent Democrat Thomas R. Carper, finishing with 4 percent of the vote as Carper won re-election.<24>
2008
See also: United States Senate election in Delaware, 2008
She was uncontested in the Republican primary for the 2008 Senate race<38> after beating businessman Tim Smith at the state party convention with more than 60 percent of the GOP delegate vote.<22> Her general election opponent was Senator Joe Biden, who was also running for vice president with Barack Obama on the Obama-Biden ticket.<24> O'Donnell questioned Biden's dual campaigns, claiming that serving his constituents was not important to him and criticizing his unwillingness to participate in debates and candidate forums.<24><39><40> Opinion polling during the race showed that O'Donnell was behind by a two-to-one margin. In the general election on November 4, 2008, Biden defeated O'Donnell by 65 percent to 35 percent.<41> He had outspent her by $7,582,189 to $116,050.<42> Biden's percentage of the vote was the largest of any of his senatorial campaigns, but O'Donnell was close to the 37 percent of the vote that the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket gained in Delaware's presidential voting that year.<41>
Her 2008 campaign ended with $23,000 in debt.<4> As of March 2010, O'Donnell owed payments to staffers, consultants, and volunteers from the 2008 campaign, according to a former employee.<4><43>
Because of financial difficulties, she moved to a Delaware townhouse, where she paid half the rent with campaign funds because she also used separate quarters in the residence as her campaign headquarters for her 2010 Senate run.<4> Between 2007 and 2009 the Federal Election Commission cited her eight times for failing to supply contributions reports on time.<4>
2010
See also: United States Senate special election in Delaware, 2010
Primary election
Following the 2008 election, Biden resigned his Senate seat to become Vice President, and the Governor of Delaware appointed Biden's chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, to serve out the first two years of Biden's six year Senate term. A special election would be held co-incident with the 2010 general elections to choose who would fill the Senate seat for the remaining four years. O'Donnell quickly announced that she would be running in that election, <44> and began fund-raising appeals in February 2009.<45> She said that her biggest mistake in her earlier campaigns was not having enough funds.<45> In October 2009, she reiterated that she was running despite the entrance into the race of Republican Congressman and former Governor Mike Castle.<46> In January 2010, Beau Biden, Joe Biden's son, indicated he would not run, and Castle became the favorite to take the seat.<47>
On March 10, 2010, O'Donnell officially announced her candidacy before a small group of supporters at University of Delaware – Wilmington.<48><49> In her remarks, O'Donnell criticized excessive government spending,said that Castle was the most liberal Republican in the House, and that the Tea Party movement and grassroots anti-incumbent trends would devolve in her favor.<48><49>
When a report from The News Journal in March 2010 detailed her personal fiscal difficulties, O'Donnell attributed the problems to misunderstandings and errors.<4> She later admitted that she had "fallen on hard times",<50> and also said, "I think the fact that I have struggled financially is what makes me so sympathetic."<4><51><52> Nevertheless, her financial problems became a focal point of establishment Republican attacks against her.<53> with somee commentators saying the attacks showed elements of sexism.<14>
As of early July 2010, she had raised more than $55,000 for her Senate bid. In addition, she noted to a reporter in Philadelphia that she had generated $30,000 in online contributions roughly 30 hours after her appearance on conservative talk radio. In the final weeks prior to the primary, O'Donnell became firmly allied with the Tea Party movement which provided last minute funding to her campaign amounting to more than $150,000, according to CNN.<7>
By July 2010, she had received endorsements from the Tea Party Express, which called her a “strong voice for conservative constitutionalist principles,” the Susan B. Anthony List, <54> the National Rifle Association,<55> and the Family Research Council.<56> With days to go before the primary, O'Donnell was further bolstered by an endorsement from Sarah Palin.<57> She was then endorsed by Senator Jim DeMint, while establishment Republicans continued to worry that she would be less electable than Castle.<58>
A July 2010 Rasmussen Reports poll showed O'Donnell running ahead of Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons by a margin of 41 to 39 percent in a hypothetical matchup,<59> while a similar poll in August had her trailing Coons by ten points (46 to 36 percent).<60>
O'Donnell supporters were heartened by the late August primary victory in Alaska of little-known, Tea Party-backed candidate Joe Miller over incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.<53> The Tea Party Express then said it might spend as much as $600,000 backing O'Donnell.<53>
The O'Donnell campaign generated some controversy in early September when a political consulting firm hired by O'Donnell released a Web video insinuating that her opponent, Mike Castle, was having a gay affair.<61> O'Donnell quickly distanced herself from the claims, pointing out that the firm in question was no longer working for her campaign, though the manner in which she denied involvement in the rumor led some to suspect that she was intentionally engaging in a whisper campaign by deliberately repeating the rumor while denying it.<62> O'Donnell later appeared on Mark Levin's radio show, and blasted Castle's "unmanly tactics" during the campaign, saying, "this is not a bake-off, put your man-pants on."<63> She won the September 14, 2010, primary election by six percentage points over Castle,<64> garnering more than 30,000 votes altogether,<1> and becoming the eighth Tea Party-backed candidate to oust a GOP establishment candidate in a 2010 primary contest.<3> According to the New York Times, her support largely came from the southern part of the state where Republican voters are socially conservative and against all gun control.<16>
The added "buzz" about O'Donnell's campaign brought national attention<25><53> but also additional scrutiny of her record, including a contentious interview on WGMD radio.<65><66> O'Donnell faced repeated questions about her misstatements and truthfulness from political leaders and news media including Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President George W Bush<9> the Delaware GOP<10> and the state’s largest newspaper, The News Journal<11> O'Donnell often corrected the information, brushed it aside, or downplayed the discrepancies.<65><66><67><68> She faced criticism from former campaign staffers Kristin Murray and David Keegan regarding her financial practices, with Murray charging that during her 2008 campaign, O'Donnell used campaign funds "for rent and personal expenses, while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt."<12><69> CNN reported that O'Donnell's 2010 campaign paid $3500 to the candidate's mother for bookkeeping and financial consulting. The report noted that it is not illegal for candidates to employ family members on their campaigns.<69>
General election
Following her primary victory, a non-partisan Washington D.C. watchdog group alleged that O'Donnell illegally used more than $20,000 of her campaign funds as "her very own personal piggy bank", and made false statements on Federal Elections Commision filings. A spokesperson for the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said they will be filing a complaint on September 20, 2010 with the Federal Elections Commission and requesting that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware investigate.<7>
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