Witchcraft, masturbation and creationism shake up US polls

NEWARK, Delaware — Little shocks Americans raised in the colorful world of US politics, but when an upstart conservative candidate launched her Senate campaign declaring "I'm not a witch," eyebrows were raised.The fresh-faced Christine O'Donnell, who is 41 but looks a decade younger, has leaped into the national spotlight since she scored an upset victory over the official Republican candidate to win the Delaware nomination for Senate.She is running against Democratic Party candidate Chris Coons aiming to win the seat once held by Vice President Joe Biden in the November 2 elections.Last month's surprise primary win by the Tea Party-backed O'Donnell over the establishment Republican candidate thrust her into the media glare.And political pundits were soon feasting on a host of videos dragged up from the archives dating back to the 1990s and filmed during the years of O'Donnell's conservative, Christian-based political activism.In one video, O'Donnell advises young people against masturbation as part of a crusade by a group called Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT) against pornography and abortion."The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can't masturbate without lust!" she says in the MTV documentary from 1996 advocating sexual abstinence.In another interview she admits to having tried witchcraft when she was young. "I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven," she says.Then came allegations that she had misrepresented her academic credentials, claiming she had studied at Oxford University, England, when in fact she had joined a course whose organizers rented rooms at the prestigious college.There were other eye-browing raising images such as when O'Donnell explained the "myth" of the theory of evolution, or claimed that "American scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."O'Donnell, who survived charges of past financial improprieties, has a history of rightwing activism and is well-kn

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