ABC's Crystal Ball: Defeat of 'Mainstream' Castle 'Eliminates' GOP Chances for Winning Senate
Good
Morning America's Juju Chang switched into prognostication mode on
Wednesday and proclaimed that, along with other Tea Party wins, Christine O'Donnell's upset victory in
Delaware "pretty much eliminat[es] the Republicans' chances of taking
back the Senate." [MP3 audio
here.]
She
trumpeted, "We begin with an upset victory for the Tea Party and maybe
for Democrats." The news anchor announced, "Christine O'Donnell
has defeated a mainstream Republican candidate for the Delaware Senate seat, thanks to help from Sarah Palin."
Mainstream? Mike Castle's lifetime American Conservative Union score is
52.
He has an F grade from the NRA, supported cap and trade and is
aggressively pro-abortion. These are generally not known as "mainstream"
GOP positions.
Chang
closed by predicting, "Most [tea party candidates] are not expected to
prevail in the general election, pretty much eliminating the
Republicans' chances of taking back the Senate." It's not clear what the
journalist is basing this on.
Senatorial candidates such as Joe
Miller and Rand Paul are ahead of their Democratic opponents. Sharron
Angle in Nevada is tied with Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Additionally,
isn't it the job of a supposedly straight news anchor to simply tell
what has happened, not predict events 48 days in the future?
A transcript of the segment, which aired at 8:02am EDT on September 15, follows:
JUJU CHANG: We begin with an upset victory for the Tea Party and maybe for Democrats. Christine O'Donnell has defeated a mainstream Republican candidate for
the Delaware Senate seat, thanks to help from Sarah Palin. Tea Party
candidates have now defeated establishment ones in at least seven
Republican Senate primaries, with New Hampshire undecided. But, most
are not expected to prevail in the general election, pretty much
eliminating the Republicans' chances of taking back the Senate.
—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.