Chris Wallace Not Buying Into Coventional Widsom on Tea Party Candidates

Like Dagen McDowell before him, Chris Wallace was (smartly) hesitant to say nasty things about his colleagues at the Fox News Channel’s morning show “Fox & Friends,” or as Imus calls it, “Fox & Fiends.”

This morning, he was annoyed that NASCAR star Carl Edwards was on their show, and not his. “I have to get over it,” Imus said, and was stunned when Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, knew that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had finished second at Daytona this year.

This pleasant exchange was followed by some moments of silence, accusations of ineptitude, and virulent name-calling, or as we like to call it, Thursday at 7:30am.

Wallace chalked Tuesday’s Republican primary victories by Tea Party candidates up to dissatisfaction with the Washington establishment. While conventional wisdom says that these candidates, like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware or Sharron Angle in Nevada, are too far to the Right to actually get elected, Wallace isn’t so sure.

“They’re really tapping into an anger out there,” he said. “I don’t write them off at all. If they come to Washington, it’s going to be a different Party.”

As it turns out, not being different from voters could be why O’Donnell beat the more moderate Republican, Congressman Mike Castle, for the nomination. According to a story in the Washington Post today, the people of Delaware don’t have a problem with O’Donnell’s admitted personal financial problems.

Christine O'Donnell“She almost had her house foreclosed on, but you know what? That’s true of a lot of us right now,” said Wallace, who is not a part of that group. “I think in a funny way, rather than working against her in flush time, in tough times, it makes her more one of us.”

But even members of O’Donnell’s own Party are questioning her viability, the most prominent being Republican operative Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s longtime advisor.

“He has really gone after her and said that she’s not ready for primetime, and he worries about her character,” Wallace said. The cherry on this cake of Republican in-fighting is that now Rush Limbaugh appears to have turned against Rove, saying, “I haven’t heard Karl Rove as animated against Democrats as he is against fellow Republican Christine O’Donnell.”

Knowing the I-Man as he does, Wallace speculated he was pleased with this disarray. “It just doesn’t get any better than this,” Wallace, also a lover of political bloodsport, said. “You’ve got Republicans fighting with Republicans, and a power struggle within the Party, and Sarah Palin up in Alaska anointing people who, with remarkable frequency, seem to win.”

It remains to be seen whether O’Donnell will be able to carry this momentum into the general election, but Imus made sure to note, and then ridicule, that she believes there is scientific evidence the world was created in six 24-hour periods,

When Wallace questioned if Imus had any scientific proof that O’Donnell’s theory is wrong, Imus told his guest not to worry about his faith. “You just hope I’m not sticking pins in a little doll of you," he said.

Sweet.

-Julie Kanfer