election season. let s introduce the candidates. joining us for this debate tonight. democratic chris coons. welcome. and republican christine o donnell, welcome. thank you. we also want to thank aarp delaware and the american cancer society cancer action network for their support making this
delayed backache, or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than 4 hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, stop taking cialis and call your doctor right away. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if cialis for daily use is right for you. for a 30-tablet free trial offer, go to cialis.com. at the bottom of the hour, cnn will bring you a live senate debate from the state of delaware. christine o donnell is the republican candidate. you ve probably seen her ad in which she starts by saying i am not a witch. the republican ad man who created that is fred davis. knowing she s an underdog what does christine o donnell need to do? i think she needs to show people she s intelligent and that she s one of us. and i think she ll do incredibly well. i think the bar is really low
live pictures there underground, a half mile deep. that is the mine, the san jose gold and copper mine, and it is a lot less crowded down there, which is a sign the miracle is unfolding above ground. at the moment, they re preparing to send the phoenix capsule back down for the 30th miner. raul bustos is 30 years old. the day of the collapse, he went inside to repair a truck. he will be the 30th miner brought to the surface. 33 miners in all and a handful of rescue workers who will come up as well. we re also just a few minutes away at the bottom of the hour. cnn will bring you a live debate from delaware. as we continue our conversation here. bit of an ad-lib. we were planning on covering a lot of senate races tonight. because of the breaking news in chile, we ll focus on the big debate coming up at the end of the hour. jessica yellin with us from vegas.
our senior congressional correspondent dana bash with us from new york. erick erickson with us. a bit of a crowd here to get through the final few minutes. we look at our poll tonight. likely voters, coons, 57%, o donnell, 38%. paul, you re a democrat. i want to talk to you as a strategist, someone preparing a candidate to go into a debate. o donnell knows she s down nearly 20 points. she s probably on the issues a bit to the right of her state. but she surprised us once. what does she need to do to surprise us twice? debates are all about expectations here. you ve got to give her that. she set the expectations bar extraordinarily low. i d say, relax, come out there, be pleasant, show them, as she said in her ad, you re not a witch. she ll have to show some mastery on a couple of issues but she knows enough to say i m not for taxes. i think she ll be just fine think it s chris coons who has the harder job. very much like the palin/biden vice presidential debate.
side. and that s where leadership doesn t count in whether or not you fall, it counts in whether or not you ve gotten up and that s what i ve done. let s just remember we re in the discussion portion so if you have anything you want to address on things that have been said on this topic thus far, go need to focus in the debate and in the campaign, not on personal financial difficulties or background earns but on the issues in front of us, the things that delawareans are concerned. how do we get delaware back to work? lots of discussion in the national media about things my opponent has said or done that i frankly think are a distraction from the core things that delawareans ask about. you re jealous you weren t on saturday night live. i m dying to see who s going to play me, christine. lets, on a serious note, get through accusations that she made and give you a chance to respond. please. on the idea ta i was the one responsible for being sued for