The GOP has given a lot of comics a gift with Christine O’Donnell. In the span of a few days we have learned of her rather extreme stance on masturbation, her dabbling in the occult and other interesting tidbits. Today I was with a group of people and we laughed about it, watched a lot of her commentary on Politically Incorrect and C-SPAN then wondered how it was the electorate could have voted for this woman.

We realized something that could be considered disturbing or disciplined with the GOP. In this election season, with the tea party movement producing questionable candidates such as O’Donnell, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Marco Rubio and others, the Republican Party first seems indifferent to the nomination but eventually gets behind the candidate. Many remember the case of Scott Brown, while not officially with the Tea Party movement was given help by them and was considered a long shot by most political pundits because of the Massachusetts Kennedy machine. That sense of entitlement by the established Democrat cost her the election. Brown was considered something of a novelty with his pickup truck and the ‘embarrassment’ of a buff photo shoot in his youth.

In this recent election cycle you have had many of the Tea Party endorsed candidates say some unusual things to say the least, with positions which are far from the mainstream. O’Donnell continues this trend but if you look at the track record of the other candidates, they’re apparent missteps are helping rather than hurting them. In the case of Sharron Angle, she started off with the possibility of unseating the Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, and in any other election cycle her outrageous comments would have scuttled her campaign, yet she still has a good chance of winning the election. Rand Paul made some early missteps yet he is still a favorite to win. Mind you, these folks have made really bad comments and not just the one minute gotcha statement. They have a constant drip of controversial things coming out and yet they aren’t rejected in the polls.

Even when you don’t have a Tea Party endorsed candidate, the bottom line of getting a Republican elected trumps if the person is capable of handling the office. A recent example of this has been the Jan Brewer mess in Arizona. She paints Arizona as a Mexican crime zone, signs into law SB1070, talks of headless bodies littering the deserts when that isn’t the case, then she has her first debate for the governors run and she does so badly it becomes a viral YouTube parody. Some in the Republican party disavowed her, yet I suspect some phone calls were made because they either reversed themselves or have made no other comments on the issue and Brewer is still well ahead in the polls.

Contrast the Republican way of handling odd candidates with the Democratic way. I’m not even going to start with the obvious one but will head to Florida to talk about the Senate race there. Meeks is the Democratic winner for the seat and is going up against Tea Party Republican candidate Rubio and former Republican now independent Charlie Crist. The Republican primary was before the Democratic primary and when the pundits saw Rubio was going to cause Crist to become independent, many figured either of them would become Senator. Meeks came off as an also ran, and this just was with Republican pundits. Meeks was downgraded so badly there was a question as to if he would even get the Democratic nomination. Because so many Democratic pundits had essentially put their money on Crist, even with the win Meeks may have to struggle to get hardcore support. There may be the dance of Democratic power players to the area, the air of defeat has already been sown. Ironically, the Republican establishment was for Crist until polls showed Rubio gaining ground. While reluctant to back him at first, it soon became apparent he was going to win and support for Crist dried up.

Cut throat for sure but the way the numbers are looking Florida will get a Republican Senator.

Of course no talk of crazy politics wouldn’t be complete without a look at the South Carolina Senate race and Alvin Greene. O’Donnell had the help of Sarah Palin and others and was able to get 3500 votes over her opponent for the win. Alvin Green had no staff, no flyers, no website and was ignored by the establishment and won by 70000 votes over his opponent. Did the Democratic Party ignore him? Did they endorse him? No they couldn’t wait for the facts (sounds familiar) before they accused him of being a Republican plant, or that he somehow illegally got money to file for the campaign. When the state Democratic committee finished its investigation that proved Alvin Greene wasn’t a plant and indeed used his own money for the filing fee, no one from the Democratic committee came to his defense or even apologized. Angle, Rubio, Paul and O’Donnell can be laughingstocks yet they have party support and all have good chances of winning their seats. Greene, who had as slim of a chance as his Republican crazies, will lose because the Democratic Party lacks the discipline of the Republicans.

Sure, having someone unqualified for an office is bad, but the Republicans are proving time and again the American people don’t seem to care about that. They can have evidence of craziness in front of them and if the party says it’s OK many will blindly pull that R lever.