The ballots had barely been counted yesterday before the press was making sweeping predictions that the Tea Party candidates who won primaries would go down to defeat in general elections. You'd expect this sort of thing from the liberal outlets. Bloomberg News headlined its article, "Tea Party Success in Delaware Senate Race Increases Chance of Democrat Win." And the New York Times called Carl Paladino's victory in the gubernatorial primary in New York "a potentially destabilizing blow for New York Republicans" that "raises the possibility of a lopsided general election contest with Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, who has amassed a $24 million war chest and whose commanding lead in the polls has lent him an air of invincibility."
Even Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner, one of the sharpest reporters around and certainly no knee-jerk liberal, wrote off the chances of the Republicans in the Delaware Senate race after Tea Party challenger Christine O'Donnell defeated 71-year-old incumbent Mike Castle, who had voted for TARP and for cap-and-trade. In two tweets (here and here), Mr. Carney predicted that Democrat Chris Coons would end up winning the Delaware seat.
Newt Gingrich has a different take, via Twitter (here, here, and here): "Christine odonnell won in delaware. She got more votes in the primary. The elite media wants to declare her unelectable--nonsense-she won. There will be an all out effort to discredit christine odonnell in delaware just as there was to discredit sharon angle in nevada. Angle will beat harry reid and odonnel will win in delaware. 2010 is the year of the grassroots over the establishment."
Anyone tempted to write off Mr. Paladino or Ms. O'Donnell as unelectable on the basis of polls taken months before an election should remember the Massachusetts tantamounts.