GOP was sure of the inevitable Romney victory

[Devils30]

Amazing, it's like the idiots that stay on the beach as a Category 4 hurricane approaches. The fact they were blindsided by this is pretty sad, plenty of evidence suggested this possibility.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83672.html?hp=t1

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

We've had like five of these articles; I think we get the idea.

[anvi]

Well, people who want to win badly, and believe that they should win, also tend to believe that they will.  Many of my Dem friends in 2004 come to mind as fitting this description too.  In politics especially, it's fairly difficult to separate analysis from rooting.

[Speed of Sound]

We've had like five of these articles; I think we get the idea.

Yeah, there definitely isn't much to say on this anymore; let's move her along here.

[Badger]

We've had like five of these articles; I think we get the idea.

Yeah, there definitely isn't much to say on this anymore; let's move her along here.

This is only the second one I've read, FWIW. And the veracity of the first one was questioned by multiple people.

[Speed of Sound]

We've had like five of these articles; I think we get the idea.

Yeah, there definitely isn't much to say on this anymore; let's move her along here.

This is only the second one I've read, FWIW. And the veracity of the first one was questioned by multiple people.

Yeah I guess the other thread just hung around for a while and I'm feeling liberal guilt.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So,

All the time we were arguing that Obama was being underestimated in LV screens, that you underestimate the Obama ground-game at your peril ... Yeah, we didn't understand at all what was going on, lol

The other thing I note is that they're blaming Romney for the Senate losses... yeah, let's look at IN, MO, ND, MT and AZ where Romney outperformed the Senate candidates... Or, could it be that the base now resides in this bizarre nether-world who don't consider picking bat-s*** candidates, especially in IN and MO could have negative consequences?

[minionofmidas]

What I'd really like to get to the bottom of is why voters respond so much more strongly to Senate candidate crazyness than House. I mean, the district Todd Akin safely held for a decade is not more Republican than the state overall.
If that weren't the case the Senate's insane malapportionment would mean R Hold Majority Forever in the current alignment.

[Adam Griffin]

What I'd really like to get to the bottom of is why voters respond so much more strongly to Senate candidate crazyness than House. I mean, the district Todd Akin safely held for a decade is not more Republican than the state overall.
If that weren't the case the Senate's insane malapportionment would mean R Hold Majority Forever in the current alignment.

There's a much greater likelihood that you will encounter a large enough sect of crazies in a population of 700,000 - rather than in a population of 7,000,000 - that will carry a fellow crazy across the finish line. I'd also be willing to wager that in many instances, the same batches of crazies that vote for crazy House candidates vote for crazy Senate candidates.

The only difference is that in most of those scenarios, there's enough non-crazy congressional districts + the non-crazies in crazy congressional districts to thwart the crazy congressional districts from implementing their crazy agenda.

[Eraserhead]

What I'd really like to get to the bottom of is why voters respond so much more strongly to Senate candidate crazyness than House. I mean, the district Todd Akin safely held for a decade is not more Republican than the state overall.
If that weren't the case the Senate's insane malapportionment would mean R Hold Majority Forever in the current alignment.

There's a lot more coverage when Senate candidates implode in public as opposed to House candidates.

[minionofmidas]

What I'd really like to get to the bottom of is why voters respond so much more strongly to Senate candidate crazyness than House. I mean, the district Todd Akin safely held for a decade is not more Republican than the state overall.
If that weren't the case the Senate's insane malapportionment would mean R Hold Majority Forever in the current alignment.

There's a lot more coverage when Senate candidates implode in public as opposed to House candidates.

There is indeed, but I'm not sure it suffices as an explanation. There's a bit of a chicken-egg effect here.

[All Along The Watchtower]

What I'd really like to get to the bottom of is why voters respond so much more strongly to Senate candidate crazyness than House. I mean, the district Todd Akin safely held for a decade is not more Republican than the state overall.
If that weren't the case the Senate's insane malapportionment would mean R Hold Majority Forever in the current alignment.

Maybe it's because an individual Senator has, generally speaking, more clout and influence than an individual Representative?

re: Akin...I'm not sure why this is the case, though this Wikipedia bit is intriguing:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Akin#U.S._House_of_Representatives

Seems like he just barely won a crowded primary in his first house race *56 votes). That, and the GOP lean of the district basically ensured that he would win general elections comfortably in the cycles to follow.