Political Cauldron Stirred by Old Video of Candidate

By BRIAN STELTER
NYT

Critics of Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Delaware, are going to the videotape, and there is plenty of it.

New VHS-era video clips of Ms. O’Donnell have popped up on television and on YouTube on a daily basis since last Tuesday, when she secured the nomination for the seat.

And there is the prospect of more to come. On Friday night, Bill Maher, the host of “Real Time” on HBO, broadcast a 1999 clip in which Ms. O’Donnell said she had “dabbled into witchcraft” — though she said, “I never joined a coven.”

“One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it,” she said. “I mean, there’s a little blood there and stuff like that. We went to a movie and then we had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar.”

Mr. Maher gleefully told his audience that Ms. O’Donnell had been a guest on 22 episodes of his defunct ABC series “Politically Incorrect” in the 1990s, and that he still has all the clips.

(More here.)