[beezdotcom]

If there was going to be a serious attempt to challenge Mike Castle in the primary, shouldn't they have done so by putting up a person who had a shot in hell of winning the general election?

I think short-sightedness is the reason why they didn't. Conventional wisdom said "a true conservative can't win"...so the only "true conservative" that was "stupid enough" to run was a seriously flawed candidate...and they STILL won the primary.

This should be a lesson to everyone that says "well, we can't expect a conservative in some of these states". If you use that logic to talk yourself out of even trying, then you are "too clever by half".

[r9etb]

I think short-sightedness is the reason why they didn't. Conventional wisdom said "a true conservative can't win"...so the only "true conservative" that was "stupid enough" to run was a seriously flawed candidate...and they STILL won the primary.

Well.... yeah. But I think the conventional wisdom is correct, and the real reason O'Donnell won the primary is that the Tea Party folks were a lot more motivated to show up for the primary, to "vote out the RINO," without much regard to other

It points out a fundamental problem with the Tea Party movement, which I see as being motivated mostly by dissatisfaction and outright anger at the status quo, That's fine, so far as it goes, but it's generally not balanced by organization and intentional action. So you see all that energy settling on whatever candidate happens to catch their fancy in the race ... O'Donnell, say, or the truly awful Dan Maes in the CO governor's race.