Backed by the National Organization for Women, a spokesperson for Delaware senate candidate Christine O’Donnell condemned a post by an anonymous man on Gawker who claimed he had a sexual encounter with the candidate. -db
Politico
October 28, 2010
By Andy Barr
Christine O’Donnell’s campaign late Thursday night responded to an anonymous Gawker post claiming a drunken encounter with Delaware’s Republican Senate nominee, calling it “sexism and slander.”
“This story is just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with — from Secretary [Hillary] Clinton to Gov. [Sarah] Palin to soon-to-be Gov. [Nikki] Haley. Christine’s political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks — all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race,” O’Donnell Communications Director Doug Sachtleben wrote in a post on Facebook.
The gossip website Gawker on Thursday posted an anonymous account of a man who said he had had a one-night stand with O’Donnell three years ago on Halloween.
Gawker reportedly paid the man in the “low four figures” for the account and pictures of O’Donnell dressed up like a ladybug.
The site has been widely criticized by media outlets for posting the item and was denounced Thursday by the National Organization for Women.
“NOW repudiates Gawker’s decision to run this piece,” the organization said in a statement. “It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O’Donnell but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere.”
O’Donnell trails Democrat Chris Coons by 21 percentage points, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Thursday.
The Republican’s Facebook post attempts to link the post to the Coons camp.
“Even the National Organization for Women gets it, but Christine’s opponent disturbingly does not,” Sachtleben wrote.
“Classless Coons goons have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency or common sense with their desperate attacks to get another rubber stamp for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. Such attacks are truly shameful, but they will not distract us from making our case to Delaware voters — and keeping the focus on Chris Coons’s record of higher taxes, increased spending and, as he has done again here, breaking his promises to the voters.”
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