I don't personally know her, so I can't comment. That both the MSM and GOPe tried to present her as 'flaky' doesn't mean she was, as both have united to present someone who threatened the status quo power structure before. Neither wants TEA party candidates to win.
If you are a conservative, the GOP is not your friend.
I don’t think you have to know a politician personally to have a pretty good sense of who they are. I thought she was flaky from the first time I heard her, which was when Mark Levin had her on his show around the time she declared her candidacy. I knew something about her wasn’t quite right almost immediately, and nothing afterwards changed my mind about her. The GOP is a mixed bag like everything else.