She seems to have been given the same treatment that Akin did. She did well enough in the debates with Reid. Of course she has a chance of winning. She was breathing, wasn’t she? Which is more than I can say about. Reid. Face it: when the big shots say your are not good enough, they are not going to life more than a oinky to support you. After all, they might do something to embarrass them, The same reason why the Dallas Establishment was not enarmored of Cruz, even though he will be probably the most articulate politician in the Senate.
No, Robby, she was, as I’ve stated umpteen times, thoroughly and completely a non-viable candidate. Nobody had to do anything to harm her. She destroyed herself. She was living in a fantasy world from 2006 when she couldn’t GRASP that she’d lost a primary fair and square. She lashed out and blamed everyone but herself and made ludicrous charges and almost fatally crippled Dean Heller for the general election.
Robby, Angle is a nutjob, a prima donna and a sore loser that didn’t care whom she hurt in the process. That is not the behavior of a Tea Partier or a Conservative, period. If you think that is admirable behavior or qualities that should make up a leader for our cause, I’m sorry to say but you’re sadly mistaken.
That’s precisely why I was here warning folks about NOT voting for her in the 2010 primary precisely because she couldn’t win in the general, for the above reasons, and I was proven 100% correct.
It was EXACTLY the same thing with Katherine Harris in Florida in 2006. She had a cult of followers who deluded themselves into believing she could beat Bill Nelson in the Senate race, ignoring the fact that over HALF the party did not support her and that she was the most unpopular and polarizing political figure in Florida. It was no surprise when she was obliterated in a landslide.
Angle at no point was a threat to Reid, her unpopularity was sky-high and worse than Reid (whom himself is highly unpopular). No debates and no amount of spending on her behalf was going to change that. She was a bad candidate, period. You don’t win races against unpopular incumbents by managing to dig up a candidate even MORE unpopular.
I can give you countless examples of non-viable candidates like Sharron Angle. Ken Buck in CO turned out to be non viable when he blew a winnable Senate race. Establishment-chosen Pete Coors in CO in 2004 was also a non-viable candidate. Before anything else happens, a candidate must be established that they have a viable shot at winning. You can’t just run anyone. Even if their message is good, the messenger can be seriously flawed.
Akin and Mourdock were both leading in the polls until they opened their mouths on the issue of rape, and that was it. No amount of help, financial or otherwise, was going to rescue them. Both should’ve removed themselves from those races after their comments. I have no doubt that the blowback from what they both said was enough to alter the outcome in many close races, with some voters thinking the entire GOP ticket was indifferent or grossly insensitive to the issue of rape.
Why were they even TALKING about the issue ? We should’ve learned 22 years ago from the example of Clayton Williams in TX when he ran against Ann “Ma” Richards. All he did was crack a joke in comparing weather to rape. There should be a permanent standing rule that ANY GOP candidate that goes off on this subject should immediately end their candidacy. Absolutely not one iota of common sense from these guys, and it makes me ill, because I supported them both. That they didn’t know any better shows that they weren’t ready for prime time.
Conversely, we had an excellent and viable candidate in Ohio for Senator in Josh Mandel, whom had already won statewide. Still, even an excellent candidate AND excellent messenger couldn’t take down the ultraleft Sherrod Brown. Fortunately, he’s young and can run again in the future and has preserved his viability. That cannot be said for Sharron Angle, Katherine Harris, Ken Buck, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock.
Blame voter fraud and GOP establishment sandbagging WHEN it is warranted. But when you try to use that as an excuse for execrable candidates like Angle or Harris not winning, it rings patently false and smacks of failure to recognize reality and not taking responsibility for backing someone whom we knew ahead of time could not win. Conservatives take responsibility for their actions, liberals do not.