The American Spectator

From reading various online sites, the contest in Delaware to replace Joe Biden’s seat-warmer Ted Kaufman in the U.S. Senate is beginning to take on a feel like the Spanish Civil War must have as of about November 1936. Or at least the feel of November 2008. That is to say, it’s hard to find someone to root for.

That’s in part inevitable what with the formidable establishment, RINO, and other knives out for Christine O’Donnell — aided by certain O’Donnell, erm, indelicacies…none of which, I’m relieved to say, have threatened or do threaten to harm the economy or our security, ahem — just as they were out for Sharron Angle (the whispering campaign against whom I felt when visiting Nevada a short while back, but whose numbers rebounded when voters, seeing she was indeed the nominee, recalled what’s at stake).

If Mike Castle’s Senate Doppelganger John McCain* had won in 2008, even with coattails for other Republicans, in addition to other big-government transgressions seen since then we would without a doubt also have cap-and-trade and quite possibly what is euphemized as “comprehensive immigration reform”. But although Franco at least deprived Stalin of another satellite, Obama — for all of the various, largely reparable harms he has caused — is not Stalin, and his radicalism that many of us were willing to see two years ago has revived millions of apathetic citizens; his embrace has ensured that what McCain would have enacted through cap-and-trade and immigration (leaving them therefore still viewed as presumptively “not enough”), is not law but viewed as presumptively extreme by a critical mass of the awakened electorate.

So the best thing I can say about the Delaware race is that Mike Castle, in one elected office or another since 1966 and who most recently stood by his vote as one of eight Republicans providing Nancy Pelosi’s margin of victory in passing (and giving some, if not enough, political cover for) the Left’s anti-energy ambitions manifested in cap-and-trade, will probably cast at least one meaingful vote I’m comfortable with.

Unfortunately the odds are good that the last time will be his first vote, for majority leader. After that, I’m afraid, we will be reduced to clearing our throats to politely inform him that Maine’s two Senate seats are already taken.

*This is somewhat unfair to McCain who, when confronting strong opposition among his base did modify his unpopular stances; for example, when given the chance to walk back his years-long cap-and-trade fervor, he did just that, however sincerely.

UPDATE: Oh, dear. I forgot about that instant-seating quirk attached to at least two of the seats up in November. I suppose the fruits of this exercise in winning-for-the-sake-of-winning won’t take long to harvest.