The Political Wild Card

By MARK LEIBOVICH
NYT

WILMINGTON — Before she was a Tea Party cause célèbre, liberal laughingstock and perhaps the embodiment of a can-you-top-this-for-bizarre political season, Christine O’Donnell grew up in a “Brady Bunch” household of six kids (three Democrats, three Republicans), two parents (one of each) and an appreciation for the dramatic, the eccentric and the media spotlight.

“We were a big noisy family with a lot of backyard skits and carnivals,” said Ms. O’Donnell, whose mother, Carole, called her Chrissy the Pooh and whose father, Daniel, worked a series of small television roles before scoring his signature gig — playing Bozo the Clown.

Christine O’Donnell’s career has played out in what might seem like a big sound studio: as a spokeswoman for conservative social causes, a serial candidate for office and, most recently, as the unlikely Republican nominee for Senate in Delaware.

Her personal story has formed a backdrop of a camera-ready career — even though she has largely cloistered herself since her primary victory last month to avoid the media carnival that has arisen over her success as well as her apparent résumé exaggerations, past legal woes and old video clips showing her holding forth on issues such as chastity (good), masturbation (bad) and witchcraft (a teenage dalliance).

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