Christine O'Donnell Plays Martyr Card at Values Voter Summit .

Unless they get a stellar get-out-the-vote operation of their own, Democrats may need to rethink their parody of Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O`Donnell and cleave to the issues. At the Values Voter Summit sponsored by the political arm of the Family Research Council, O`Donnell unveiled the scheme that will probably grow out every evangelical and Tea Party voter in the state come November.

It goes like this: When they nibble on me, they`re picking on you.

copyright 2010 C. Berlet for The Public Eye

Who`s the "they"? The "ruling elites." Who are the "ruling elites"? Everybody who is neither an evangelical Christian nor a Tea Party supporter.

In a speech laden with class resentment, O`Donnell told the adoring crowd of religious right activists, "Theconservative movement was told to roll up in a foetal position and juststay there for the following 8 years, thank you very much. Well, howthings have changed."

A Catholic herself, O`Donnell dog-whistled conservative members of her own religion by comparing herself and the Values Voters to a role in the Narnia series, the lion Aslan, who represents Jesus. Aslan was good, but he was did not act in safety, she said.

Last week Politico`s David Catanese ran an unflattering portrayal of O`Donnell offered by former staffers who say that she spent campaign money she didn`t have, and had delusions of grandeur - including a feeling that she could win the keynote spot at the 2008 Republican National Convention, despite her show as a failed candidate with out-of-mainstream views. Former campaign staffer Alan Moore said O`Donnell thought she could win the 2008 race against then-Sen. Joe Biden by going out free packets of sunscreen inscribed with a campaign slogan.

And, since her win of Tuesday`s primary, O`Donnell`s past utterances on masturbation, women in the military, creationism and human cloning (she once claimed that mice were being engineered to have human brains) have understandably become objects of derision.

But, within the world of angry Tea Partiers and aggrieved religious-right followers who believe they`ve been "pushed from the public square" as many speakers here said, any and all criticism of O`Donnell will be chalked up to partisan attacks by elitists who look down on O`Donnell`s supporters.

"Willthey attack us? Yes," O`Donnell said. "Will they smear our backgrounds and distort ourrecords? Undoubtedly. Will they lie around us, harass our families,name-call to try to intimidate us? They will. There`s nothing safe aboutit."

O`Donnell`s not a stellar speaker - she stumbled a bit here and there, once meaning to visit her supporters rowdy, and instead calling them "ratty" - but she does take a Palinesque appeal to those who find that the election of Barack Obama represents a theft of Us from its authentic culture, which they consider to be established by people like themselves.

When O`Donnell spoke to this crowd around the "despondence" she felt at the election of "our current leaders," the audience felt her pain.

And to them, she will probably remain a star unless some truly devastating revelation, something much worse than has already be exposed, is made.

O`Donnell set up her fight of one between "us" and "them". "And there are more of us than there are of them," she said. Do you see that, Them?

FRCAction hosted a $100-a-head reception for O`Donnell. (No media allowed. And therefore the Tea Party movement once again joins the religious right.

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington bureau chief.