O’Donnell camp calls anonymous posting example of ‘sexism and slander’

Christine O’Donnell’s (R) Senate campaign slammed an anonymous posting on the website Gawker, charging the site with sexism and slander.

It is “just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with,” the campaign said in a statement late Thursday.

Gawker, a gossip website, posted the article without naming the author on Thursday afternoon. It circulated the blogosphere and trended on Twitter throughout the day.

The O’Donnell campaign pointed to the criticism the story received. It highlighted a statement from the National Organization for Woman, which repudiated Gawker’s decision to run the story and called it “public sexual harassment.”

The campaign also pointed to condemnation of the piece from Salon and a tweet from Politics Daily’s Jill Lawrence, who labeled the story “absolutely, totally, offensively out of line.”

The story contains details of a man’s alleged sexual encounter with O’Donnell three years ago, after she lost her first bid for a Senate seat in Delaware.

In the statement, O’Donnell communications director Doug Sachtleben condemned the story and then criticized O’Donnell’s Democratic opponent Chris Coons for not joining in the condemnation of its publishing.

“From Secretary Clinton, to Governor Palin, to soon-to-be Governor Haley, Christine’s political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks — all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race,” the statement read. “Even the National Organization for Women gets it, but Christine’s opponent disturbingly does not. As Chris Coons said on September 16th he would not condone personal attacks against Christine. Classless Coons goons have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency or common sense with their desperate attacks to get another rubber stamp for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda.”