You make a valid point about it being more than Pudge Rove’s estrogen-triggered hissy-fit that did COD in. His hissy-fit cost her eight or nine points coming out of the primary when she should have had a substantial bump.
That momentum could have carried her to steadily building her base of support — excerpt for one major problem: not her, but her campaign staff. As many of us said when her inept communications advisers launched their first, totally off-message “gee-are-I-oh-so-cute” ad, COD needed to can the kids and bring in some adults.
She didn’t do it, and the inept staffers continued to burnish the exact opposite the exact opposite of the image she needed to portray: that of a mature, savvy, sophisticated woman ready to be a senator of whom the people of Delaward could be proud.
I believe that is the image COD herself presented in her appearances. But, she was unable to overcome her own staff’s pure idiocy.
She lost because of the RINOs. End of story.