Christine O'Donnell's 'Witch' Ad Shows She's Not Like Us

To be or not to be. A witch. That is the question. Evidently. For Christine O’Donnell.

Huh. An interesting choice.

As you may be able to tell, I am left a bit speechless. The good news, I guess, is that Ms. O’Donnell, bless her Wicca-curious heart, has decided once and for all that she is not a witch. This is the message of her latest ad, and evidently, the burning issue of her campaign. Otherwise, why in the name of the Wicked Witch of the West would you run a highly publicized campaign ad opening with the line “I am not a witch”?

Truly, this is good to know, that she is not a witch. It relieves me. I would have reservations about voting for a full-blooded practitioner of the black arts for the U.S. Senate. There is enough incomprehensibility, smoke and mirrors, and downright scary stuff coming out of Washington already. We don’t need the hellish powers of a full-on witch added to the mix.

But she is not a witch. So don’t get the wrong idea. When I say that she is not a witch, I don’t mean for you to think that, well, maybe just maybe she is. Maybe her media consultant didn’t mean for you to get the wrong idea, either. Nonetheless, if there wasn’t anybody in the country who wasn’t already aware that O’Donnell confessed to dabbling in witchcraft--but heaven forbid never actually joined a coven in any official capacity--well, the O’Donnell campaign has made damn sure that they will have heard it now. And they will Google and bing their way to YouTube to see the clip--not the clip of her denying that she is a witch but the one where she giggles out that, yeah, why not, I did a little witch dabbling. Even began my first night touring a satanic altar. Blood on the altar and everything.

Witch and satanic tourist. Not. I mean, formerly was but not now. Chalk it up to youthful indiscretion, college experimentation. We know this now because the O’Donnell campaign has released an ad clarifying her commitment to witchiness. She’s moved on.

As a former campaign manager, I want to think this is all a hex. I mean hoax. That some evil genius on the opposing campaign designed the ad and put it up on the Internet to--once again--stir up controversy over one of the silliest and most bizarre aspects of an already peculiar campaign. But no. This was the proud brainchild of O’Donnell’s own campaign.

We are told that the idea behind the ad was to inform everybody that she is really a Jane Everywoman, that all the fuss in the mainstream media about her weirdness and witch dabbling is malicious and misinformed. I am you, she tells us. Right after saying she is not a witch, that is.

The problem is that she has erased any doubts about whether she is just like me. Like her, I too want to limit the arrogant and insatiable growth in government taking place in Washington today, the condescending paternalism of the current leaders of Congress, tax hike after tax hike.

But I can tell you, unequivocally, that I never dabbled in witchcraft.

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