The MSM report has it from June 30th, but she really didn’t start to raise money until the primary on September 14:

Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell raised a substantial $3.8 million during the last three months, more than twice what her Democratic opponent raised, but it hasn’t yet thinned his substantial lead in most polls.

O’Donnell, backed by the Tea Party Express, gained national attention when she upset GOP Rep. Mike Castle in the Sept. 14 Senate primary…

It takes a while for such a sudden infusion of money to have its effect. Our here in Nevada, our Sharron Angle has raised $14 million since June 30th but it was only in this past two or three weeks that she’s really gotten up on the air to do battle with Reid’s smear campaign. You don’t just snap your fingers and get a good media campaign going.

The real problem O’Donnell is going to have is not the MSM/DNC smear machine, but the fact that she’s only going to have a limited time to set the record straight (she’s also handicapped by the fact that Coons is not as unpopular as Harry Reid; this has helped Angle). It should be kept in mind that Angle was smeared as every bit as much a crackpot as O’Donnell – in fact, that is still the theme the Democrats are running against her. We’ll find out if O’Donnell can come out with the right message to both take down Coons and build up herself by November 2nd. So far, the polls don’t show it, but we’ll see whether she manages to pull it off.

Interesting statement quoted by Allahpundit:

“The presenters did differ on where a secular morality might come from. In his new best-seller, ‘The Moral Landscape,’ Mr. Harris argues that morality is a product of neuroscience. (The good, he argues, is that which promotes happiness and well-being, and those states are ultimately dependent on brain chemistry.) Others believe morality is bequeathed by evolution, while still others would argue for ethics grounded in secular philosophy, like Immanuel Kant’s or John Rawls’s. But all agreed that nonbelievers are at least as moral as believers, and for better reasons…”

But what of a man who is happy in sloth? Or greed? Or sexual excess? The trouble with people who say they can be as moral without as with a divine moral code is that they are fooling themselves. Its really not that shocking a thing – even believers fool themselves on this matter. Non-believers just fool themselves more comprehensively.

It is only when belief comes in that a person fully realizes how creepy he is. A non-believer – or an alleged believer who doesn’t really examine his conscience – is a person who has an “at least I’m not as bad as all that” attitude. A man looks at the world and sees a tyrant or a murderer or con artist and figures, “well, I haven’t done anything like that and I’m fairly kind and generous to those around me, so I’ve got all the morality I need or, indeed, can be expected to have”. This is actually a blind – an unwillingness to really examine one’s life and actions.

When a person finally kneels and realizes that he can’t do it on his own, that is just the first baby step towards becoming a better person. It is after that point where the life really gets examined and the believer starts to say, “goodness, did I really do all that? What was I thinking?”. A review happens and all those acts of jealousy, rage, infidelity, theft, sloth, gluttony just come rushing in – to be reviewed, for the first time, in the light rather than hidden in the darkness…that pitch black sheet we put up between our real actions and our desire to love our selves. The person who refuses to believe never goes through this process – and will blindly go through life uncorrected and, even, unaware of just how much pain he is spreading around.

Being good is not just the absence of being a complete rat bastard. Being good means that act of generosity when one is concerned about one’s own finances. That willingness to forgive the person who is in the wrong. That understanding that the error we see in others is often far less than the errors we know are within our selves. That firm desire to love the unlovable. When we do that, then we have become good – then, and only then, have we done something worthy. A person who never examines his conscience because he is already “good enough” never gets there.

It is really rather impossible for a believer to get a non-believer to understand this. Even harder is making them understand that the act of surrender – that embrace belief which combines repentance with the prospect of redemption – is so easy, once done. Taking the step is hard as it requires a break down of that worst of human sins, pride – but once the step is taken, the rest of it becomes easy. Even those times – and they are inevitable – when the believer backslides and drifts back in to error become both endurable and easy enough over with.

Our world is awash in lies. The lies are designed first to take away things from us here on earth (our liberty, our wealth, our self respect) and then, ultimately, to take away from us the life of the world to come. It is pitiable that some men are endowed with such great gifts of intellect and then use it in a petty and mean campaign to prop up their own self-regard. They don’t need that old, worn out Christian morality…they are smart enough to figure it all out on their own. Fools! No one is smart enough to figure anything out on their own – the greatest geniuses of all time only figured out a tiny, end-of-the-journey bit of truth…others, humble and great, had gone before them and done most of the work.

If everyone would at least show the humility necessary to understand our dependence upon others for our very survival, it would then be no great leap to figure out there was one greater than all who did all the real work of salvation.

In the end, that is what is plan amounts to – from the AP:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday offered his most explicit signal yet that the U.S. central bank was set to ease monetary policy further, but provided no details on how aggressively it might act.

Bernanke warned a prolonged period of high unemployment could choke off the U.S. recovery and that the low level of inflation presented an uncomfortable risk of deflation, a dangerous downward slide in prices.

“There would appear — all else being equal — to be a case for further action,” Bernanke said at a conference sponsored by the Boston Federal Reserve Bank…

To translate from the Bankster-ese, “ease monetary policy further” means “print up a bucket of money and give it to banks for more of their worthless assets”. What this means is that Bernanke will pick our pockets (printing money means the money we have becomes worth less than it was the day before Bernanke fired up the presses), and buy bonds from the banks. The theory is that the banks will then turn around and lend that money to us.

Please roll that around in your mind for a moment – Bernanke is going to take your money, give it to a bank on the understanding that the bank will lend your money back to you, at interest.

But it won’t work like that – banks can’t lend money as they need to keep high reserves on hands for all the worthless loans they’ve got on their books. Bernanke’s hope will fail him this time just as it did last time – the banks will likely just buy more US treasury notes…which means they’ll be taking our money to buy bonds from our government which we’ll then have to pay back to the banks with interest. This would be the biggest rip off in human history except that it looks like Bernanke won’t print up quite as much money as he did in the first round of easing monetary policy.

This just gets stupider by the moment. Definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result. Doubling the insanity is that the whole program is, ultimately, to spur inflation…because if we’re paying higher prices for things, Banksters think that is a sign of a healthy economy!

We don’t need to just audit the Fed, we need to abolish it.

UPDATE: Fire Bernanke!

Last night during the debate – from the Las Vegas Sun:

…Senator Reid, you were quoted as saying the following: “the war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence.”

Do you believe that your statement demoralized the troops, and were inaccurate as judged by the success of the troop surge?…

…Reid: …I said, the war can only be won militarily, economically, and diplomatically…

No, Harry, that is not what you said.

You said the war was lost. You lied last night to the people of Nevada and the United States of America. Get you gone, we’ve had enough of you.

From the AP via Rasmussen:

Confident of keeping a seat, Senate Republicans are canceling $4 million in TV ads for Florida’s Marco Rubio to put more money toward winning a trio of Democratic-held seats — in California, Pennsylvania and Illinois — where polls show races tightening.

The moves are just the latest in a constantly shifting battleground as Republicans seek to take advantage of a political tail wind by broadening their footprint. Democrats are narrowing their focus to places they must win to keep their Senate and House majorities…

The contest now isn’t whether the GOP will win, or not, but how big the GOP win will be. The Democrats are shifting money to save embattled incumbents, while the GOP is moving resources to better attack entrenched Democrats. California is especially important as it (or Murray’s seat in Washington) might end up being the 10th net gain for the GOP, thus giving them the Senate majority (which is still a very high hill to climb…the more likely outcome is 48 or 49 Senate Republicans) – latest polling shows Boxer in CA slightly up, a big push now could knock her down.

What do I think will happen? I think there will be more GOP voters on November 2nd than the polling takes in to consideration…any Democrat not up at least 5 points in the last week is probably going to lose. Now, then, is the time to really hammer the Democrats – give them no rest and keep them down and their base dispirited.

UPDATE: What we should be doing, given the enthusiasm gap.

Something for people to think over at they decide what vote to cast next month:

The number of homes taken over by banks topped 100,000 for the first time in September, though foreclosures are expected to slow in coming months as lenders work through questionable paperwork, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday…

Our housing market is a complete nightmare right now – really, who would buy a house right now? Prices are almost certain to go down, and if you’re thinking of buying a short sale or foreclosure, would you now that there are so many questions being asked about the process?

We need to clear out the rot – and that means, most of all, finding the true bottom to housing prices. We need to know what our homes are really worth…government attempts to prop up the market via low interest rates and various “extend and pretend” banking policies are just putting off the day of reckoning – and ensuring it will be worse when we get there.

I know from personal experience how rough this is. Buying at the peak, loss of household income, house massively “underwater”, banks clueless on what to do. Its terrible – I don’t like it; I want it to end. Even a bad ending is better than endless misery. I’ve suggested plans, and so have others…but the banksters and bureaucrats just aren’t moving. They are living in a fool’s paradise where some how, some way, housing prices will magically recover and no one will have to make hard choices. It won’t happen that way – we have to brace ourselves to what has happened and just deal with it.

We can only hope that those we vote in to office on November 2nd will be willing to show some guts and get us on track to recovery via de-facto bankruptcy reorganization of the housing market. One way or the other, this will happen – better if we guide it as we wish, rather than just suffer from an inescapable collapse.

From CNN World:

Eight NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan Thursday, bringing the number of foreign troop deaths in the past two days to 14, the International Security Assistance Force said.

An improvised explosive device attack killed three service members in the west, and two died in an insurgent attack in the south.

One died after an insurgent attack in the east, one died in an insurgent attack in the south and another was killed in an IED attack in the south.

It’s the first time since August 30 that so many international troops have been killed in hostile incidents in Afghanistan in a single day, according to CNN records. On that day, seven Americans, a Canadian and an Estonian were killed…

While we go at it hammer and tongs in this election battle, we should remember that a far more important battle is happening half a world away in Afghanistan. What we do here pales in significance compared to what they do there.

Remember them, always; pray for their safety and their victory. Upon the progress of our arms hangs the safety of the world.

The “double dip” becomes ever more inescapable:

Lower- and middle-income Americans’ self-reported average daily spending in stores, restaurants, gas stations, and online averaged $48 per day during September — down $6 from August and $16 from July. Consumer discretionary spending by these Americans making less than $90,000 a year is now at its lowest level since Gallup began daily tracking in January 2008, as the recession was just getting underway.

I’ve noticed it in my line of work – we’re just not getting as much traffic as we used to get, even considering that October is usually pretty slow. No one wants to spend – thought it might be that no one can spend. Credit cards maxed out; income down, no more piggy bank in home equity…a tapped out nation needs to build more wealth before it can spend again, and we simply don’t have the policies in place which will allow that.

I’ve moved the live blog here.

Watching the debate, Reid was rambling and kept trying to bring up things which didn’t relate to the questions asked. Angle was focused and kept hitting the strong arguments against Reid, and the best points for herself.

I was worried about this one as Angle hasn’t been the most polished candidate…but Angle clearly won this debate. She is the better hope for the future, Reid is the tired, broken past.

On to November 2nd.

UPDATE: K-Lo’s take –

The grandmother from Reno just won the only Nevada Senate debate, against the United States Senate Majority Leader. She held her own against someone who has been in the Senate since 1987. Congratulations, Mrs. Angle. I suspect you made more than a few Americans frustrated with this Washington proud. I love how the tea party has ignited a whole new spirit of urgent civic activism. And you’re a good, hardworking spokeswoman for it.

Exactly.

UPDATE II: From the comments over at Hot Air –

Been looking at blogs and Twitter and it’s almost unanimous that Angle won. Libs are bashing Reid, calling him terrible, saying that Angle looked better prepared and was better spoken. This is at DailyKos. If they are saying that then Reid is done.

Ouch!

All Angle had to do tonight was to show she wasn’t the raving nutjob Reid has been making her out to be. What she ended up doing was showing that she will be a new and positive voice in the Senate. It’ll be interesting to see what the polls say a week from now.