Los­ing with Chris­tine seems like a funny way of winning.

Last year, peo­ple all over the polit­i­cal uni­verse were call­ing Repub­li­cans crazy for reject­ing the more mod­er­ate Mike Cas­tle, Sue Low­den, and Jane Nor­ton for the more extreme Chris­tine O’Donnell, Shar­ron Angle, and Ken Buck. After all, those three Sen­ate seats would have been enough to shift the major­ity from the Democ­rats to the Republicans.

The response from many in the Tea Party wing of the Repub­li­can Party is that it’s bet­ter to lose with a “real” con­ser­v­a­tive than to win with a RINO. Is that posi­tion really all that crazy? It’s worth inves­ti­gat­ing, given that this year’s lead­ing Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, other than Mitt Rom­ney, have all been work­ing dili­gently to find just how far off the right end of the polit­i­cal spec­trum they can go. (more…)