Can Christine O'Donnell Out-Palin Palin?

Christine O’Donnell may trail her Democratic opponent in the polls by 15 points, but she filled 30 percent of the newshole last week. And the “crazy” clips haven’t even all been released yet. Does she have a shot?

Well, hopefully 60 percent of likely Delaware voters will continue to believe, as they do now, that she’s unqualified.

In the meantime, she is denying she misused $20,000 in campaign funds from her last go-round, despite an FEC complaint alleging that she did.

No matter what her political career, television is more excited about her than ever. And the connection with Sarah Palin isn’t lost on anyone: Bill Maher told the AP he thought O’Donnell could actually out-Palin Palin. O’Donnell’s “ideas are just as loony, but she’s not nasty,” he said. “She’s nice. She’s got that Reagan thing going for her.”

And Bill O’Reilly isn’t content to let Maher have all the fun:

“She’s been on this program a number of times, and we have some kind of crazy stuff that she said,” he said. “We’re not going to play it yet. I don’t think it’s relevant yet. We’d still like Ms. O’Donnell to come on `The Factor.’ I’m not in the business to injure her.”

Clever form of blackmail, Bill! But so far, O’Donnell is ignoring O’Reilly and opting for his Fox colleague Sean Hannity, with whom she’ll sit down tonight. (She canceled on Fox News Sunday earlier this week. Hannity is a more devoted soldier of conservative extremism than either O’Reilly or Chris Wallace.)

Even if he ends up releasing “crazy” clips, O’Reilly claimed that “the more they do this to O’Donnell, the stronger she’s going to get.” As in, mock her. How strong can she get? Well, The Washington Post‘s Fix blog crunched the numbers and finds a win highly unlikely for mathematical reasons. Let’s hope that logic holds, and O’Donnell is back bloviating on Fox News where she belongs.

Can Christine O’Donnell Win? [The Fix/WP]
O’Donnell Sidesteps Specifics On Funds, Says ‘No Truth’ To Allegations [WP]
O’Reilly, Maher Both Have Old O’Donnell Footage [AP]