Using that same logic, the republicans would never have nominated Goldwater in ‘64 nor Reagan in ‘80. The republicans certainly did not win in ‘64 but the enthusiasm engendered moved the nation forward to the Reagan victory in ‘80. And I might add the overwhelming majority of pundits declared Reagan an extremist that could not possibly win. Hello!!
That is actually a good argument. However, now your getting into a debate over who can win and what is it to be "electable". I was very young, but I can not remember thinking (or anyone in my family) that Reagan was unelectable. He was probably as conservative as we could get while STILL being electable. So he was a good choice and we are all the better for it. Goldwater may just have been the best we could do at the time. I wasn't born yet.
Lets say it was discovered during the 80' primaries that Reagan had a closet full of skeletons that would have later made him very unappealing in the general - then I would have said we shouldn't nominate him. No such skeletons existed though. He was a great example of nominating the most conservative candidate who could get elected.
Had O'Donnell had her same views, AND a good financial record, no sex discrimination suits against conservative organizations, etc, etc, I would have said she was a good choice over Castle. My problem is, she has so many skeletons that she is probably NOT electable in Delaware. In a year where that seat may give us control of the body, I would have preferred we nominate an (R) who can win.
Some people here, like yourself, have made some good points. I can definitely understand there are times to throw caution to the win and nominate only on principle - even if it means losing a few cycles. If we are building a movement, sometimes that will be necessary. All in all though, I think the Tea Party efforts would have been better spent helping someone like Angle (who is also not exactly a stellar candidate) instead of fighting on another front that we could have afforded to ignore this time around since at least we'd have gotten a Senator who would vote for a Republican for majority leader.