Christine O'Donnell and Alvin Greene

[rbt48]

Have fun with this one.  I purposely left "other" off as a choice.  You'll have to write in your own creation.  Be sure to print - no cursive allowed - and spell correctly.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

O'Donnell cost the GOP a Senate seat, Greene was running in a seat the Democrats never had any chance in.

[DrScholl]

It was the situations. Alvin's primary win made no difference for his party in the long run, Christine's win on the other hand did.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

They're pretty much complete opposites. Greene's win was through no action of his own, it was just a complete fluke. O'Donnell whipped up a right-wing frenzy over Castle's moderate hero image and rode it to a primary victory. Greene didn't raise any money off of easily-duped left-wingers the way O'Donnell did with the tea party types. O'Donnell had a long history of making crazy statements in the media, Greene was just some crazy/mentally deficient guy who came out of nowhere.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

They're pretty much complete opposites. Greene's win was through no action of his own, it was just a complete fluke. O'Donnell whipped up a right-wing frenzy over Castle's moderate hero image and rode it to a primary victory. Greene didn't raise any money off of easily-duped left-wingers the way O'Donnell did with the tea party types. O'Donnell had a long history of making crazy statements in the media, Greene was just some crazy/mentally deficient guy who came out of nowhere.

There was still "DeMint started the recession." I want to make a bumper sticker of that...

[Smash255]

Pretty much the reasons stated above. 

South Carolina was never up for grabs, Delaware on the other hand was, and O"Donnell knocking off Castle completely changed the dimension of that race.  That was not an issue in S.C.  Even if Rawls won the Primary, the dimension of the race (that being Demint having it locked down) wouldn't have changed. 

Also the influence of the tea party and Palin were big stories this year.  The tea party and Palin had nothing to do with Greene getting the nomination in South Carolina.  They had everything to do with O'Donnell knocking off Castle in Delaware, resulting in the GOP getting stomped in the state.

You also have the fact that in addition to Palin, prominent Republicans were supporting O'Donnell, you didn't have that in S.C with Greene.  Also of course the millions upon millions of $$$ compared to basically nothing.

[Capitan Zapp Brannigan]

The Bill Maher stuff.

[memphis]

The was a very big omgz teh Female tea party narrative this cycle, but yeah the bigger reason is the dynamic of the race. Greene got more attention than most losers in uncompetitive races did. Greene got 27% of the vote. How much did you hear about the comperable losers in OK or KS?

[dmmidmi]

Maybe it's because you don't see an actual witch running in a high-profile race very often?

[justfollowingtheelections]

No offense, but this question is stupid and the fact that so many republicans are asking it, makes me think they have approximately the same iq as Alvin.  Fox News would have loved to use Alvin to make fun of Democrats (and they tried to do that at the beginning), but since the SC Democratic acted as if the guy didn't exist, there was really nothing to make fun of anymore.

[rbt48]

No offense, but this question is stupid and the fact that so many republicans are asking it, makes me think they have approximately the same iq as Alvin.  Fox News would have loved to use Alvin to make fun of Democrats (and they tried to do that at the beginning), but since the SC Democratic acted as if the guy didn't exist, there was really nothing to make fun of anymore.

Thanks for the flattering characterization of my question--no offense taken!  But, that does make my day complete, and it is not even lunchtime yet.  

However, I really missed the boat by not including "you don't see an actual witch running in a high-profile race very often" as an option.  That is an absolute gem!

[homelycooking]

Maybe it's because you don't see an actual witch running in a high-profile race very often?

Please. She's an ex-witch.

[fezzyfestoon]

1. The Democrats were never going to win in South Carolina, while in Delaware they had a very viable Republican candidate
2. Witches are more interesting than convicts
3. She was Sarah Palin's pet project and the TEA Party model candidate
4. Her views are frighteningly popular (outside Delaware)
5. She was delusional about her own chances to win
6. The bizarre contrast between her looks and her insanity was intriguing

[Antonio the Sixth]

"liberal media"

...

LOL

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The witch thing was actually pretty stupid and probably not a huge factor. Someone dabbling in neo-paganism in their youth isn't really that unusual or a particularly interesting story and it wouldn't go anywhere without her already getting so much attention. Actually the real reason for all the attention was the masturbation stuff.

[ottermax]

Christine O'Donnell was one of the most interesting characters I have ever seen in politics this year. She managed to defeat a rather popular representative, while Alvin Greene beat out a lesser known candidate who never stood a chance anyways. We still don't really know exactly how Greene won, but we do know that O'Donnell did indeed win her primary and it wasn't a fluke.

Seriously, when is the last time we had a woman who "dabbled in witchcraft," is against masturbation, and supports chastity run for the US senate with the possibility of actually winning?

[memphis]

Christine O'Donnell was one of the most interesting characters I have ever seen in politics this year. She managed to defeat a rather popular representative, while Alvin Greene beat out a lesser known candidate who never stood a chance anyways. We still don't really know exactly how Greene won, but we do know that O'Donnell did indeed win her primary and it wasn't a fluke.

Seriously, when is the last time we had a woman who "dabbled in witchcraft," is against masturbation, and supports chastity run for the US senate with the possibility of actually winning?

O'Donnell never had a chance of winning.  She received a much higher perentage of the vote than Greene, granted, but they were both novelty candidates.

[J. J.]

I voted "It's the liberal media's tendency to pick on eccentrics on the right and ignore those on the left of the political spectrum," but the Palin/Tea Party angle is a close second.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Christine O'Donnell was one of the most interesting characters I have ever seen in politics this year. She managed to defeat a rather popular representative, while Alvin Greene beat out a lesser known candidate who never stood a chance anyways. We still don't really know exactly how Greene won, but we do know that O'Donnell did indeed win her primary and it wasn't a fluke.

Seriously, when is the last time we had a woman who "dabbled in witchcraft," is against masturbation, and supports chastity run for the US senate with the possibility of actually winning?

O'Donnell never had a chance of winning.  She received a much higher perentage of the vote than Greene, granted, but they were both novelty candidates.

The media created the perception that she had a much higher chance of winning than she actually did. She was on the cover of Time and Newsweek the week before the election, for god's sake!

[Nichlemn]

O'Donnell was the Republican nominee in 2008. All her baggage still existed then, but no-one bothered to make anything of it because Biden was safe. It took the competition of the Republican primary to force those issues into consideration, and after they were unleashed they kept on going. I don't think the costing of a Senate seat mattered too much for media coverage, since it's not something that casual politics followers care too much about.

[nclib]

I voted Option 5, and will add that O'Donnell could have gotten elected in most GOP states. Greene probably couldn't get elected statewide anywhere (a liberal 3rd party would win VT and MA), perhaps only ultra-Democratic House districts, and even then only if the other candidate(s) had low name recognition.