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The misadventures of O'Donnell and Toomey in center-left America

The political universe is buzzing today about Christine O'Donnell...what else is new, right? This time it's her remarkable new debate performance against Delaware Senate rival Chris Coons, in which she said, paraphrasing: "There's separation of church and state in the Constitution? I did not know that!" There's a lot of fodder there -- Glenn Beck and his pseudo-academic minion David Barton have been bogusly telling the Tea Party crowd exactly that for months, and apparently O'Donnell has been paying attention.

Not so the rest of America -- especially not in the center-left blue Blue Hen State. Listening to the soundbite of the Tea Party princess botching the Constitution, the most telling part was the audience reaction. People at the debate laughed uproariously -- it sounded like a 1960s sit-com laugh track, like "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or something. That's because the majority of Americans understand what the Constitution is all about, better than the angry Tea Partiers who've adopted the document to claim things like there's nothing in there about unemployment insurance or health care. And most of us -- the new silent majority, for better or worse -- want to live in a nation that allows Christians and Muslims and atheists to follow their beliefs, with the government and public schools out of the way. And here comes Christine O'Donnell like Rob Petrie tripping over the couch -- no wonder they're laughing

On the same day, polling data in the Pennsylvania Senate race suggests that the Democrat Joe Sestak is catching up with the GOP favorite, Pat Toomey. I still think Sestak is the underdog in a throw-the-(mostly-Democratc)-bums-out year, but the race will likely go down to the wire.

How did Sestak close the gap? I think it traces back to one thing -- the Sestak campaign, with the help of political ad guru Neil Oxman and his Campaign Group, found the right message for Pennsylvania, which like Delaware is increasingly a center-left state. The commercials from outside groups attacking Toomey as a tool of Wall Street, while rooted in truth, did nothing to move voters here. But the ads produced by the Sestak campaign showing Toomey boasting that his voting record is like Rick Santorum's, touting his affinity for Sarah Palin and quoting his extreme anti-abortion rhetoric clearly is reminding Pennsylvania voters why they tossed out Santorum by a 59-41 percent margin just four years ago.

The Tea Party's extreme message makes for good headlines, but it doesn't change the political trend lines around these parts, which continue to drift slowly leftward. If you don't believe me, I'm going to queue the laugh track.