Several years ago, Sufjan Stevens started an ambitious project where he would produce an album based on each state of the union. His first two albums about Michigan and Illinois received much critical acclaim. Websites conducted surveys to help Stevens pick his next state. Then he dropped the project altogether, which is too bad.
Imagine the album Stevens would have been able to put together about Delaware. Sure, Delaware is the first state of the union, having been the first to ratify the Constitution, but it’s small in both in geographic size and population, dwarfed by larger and more influential states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.
Then a handful of the small population turns out for the Republican primary and nominates Christine O’Donnell to be the candidate for Senate. Suddenly, the press is fixated on Delaware, despite O’Donnell trailing badly in the polls. (Where’s the national press coverage of the Democratic candidate from Utah? Or the Republican running in Oregon?)
Why is this? It’s because O’Donnell is a train wreck that is fundamentally unprepared to participate in a neighborhood watch group, let alone the US Senate. Most high school civics teachers understand the functioning of government better than she does. There are people in federal prison with fewer skeletons in the closet than O’Donnell.
If the popularity of Jersey Shore has taught us anything, it’s that people like watching train wrecks, which is why I’m hoping that the election isn’t the last we’ve heard from Christine O’Donnell. If an enterprising cable TV producer has any sense, he or she will cast O’Donnell in her own reality series. And the rest of the country can breathe a sigh of relief that the new reality series isn’t the Senate proceedings on C-SPAN.
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