Shoulda been a witch

The New York Times has a story by Sabrina Tavernise about Christine O'Donnell's defeat:

Nothing could save the Tea Party candidate here, Christine O’Donnell. Not her folksy appeal, not her headline-grabbing gaffes, not even, it turns out, her witchcraft. In the end, it was not close. Ms. O’Donnell trailed her Democratic challenger for the Senate, Chris Coons, 40 percent to 56 percent. The math had always been against her: more than half of registered voters here are Democrats.
Ms. O’Donnell was an insurgent in the true sense, with her candidacy rejected by many in her own party, and her concession speech, delivered in a carpeted ballroom at Dover Downs, a racetrack and casino complex in central Delaware, reflected that.
“Be encouraged— we have won!” she shouted to supporters, who cheered her over plates of pasta and salad. “The Delaware political system will never be the same. The Republican Party will never be the same.” It was Ms. O’Donnell’s third attempt to win a Senate seat, and her third loss, in five years. But this year’s race coincided with a rising wave of discontent among Republican-leaning voters, some of whom have joined activist political groups under the umbrella of the Tea Party.
She seemed to acknowledge that in her speech. “This campaign was about putting the political process back into your hands,” she said. “Our voices were heard, and we’re not going to be quiet now.”
Supporters cheered, shouting, “Christine, Christine, Christine!”
It was that newfound activism that Ms. O’Donnell tapped here in Delaware. “That girl’s gone all around the United States and she’s changed it,” said Dominic DiMaio, 68, a retired car dealership manager, who worked the phones for Ms. O’Donnell. “I think the whole ball game is changed now. You can be absolutely from nowhere and rise up.”
Though this race was never predicted to be close, it gained prominence, in part because of Ms. O’Donnell’s surprise win against a long-time Republican lawmaker in the primary, Representative Michael N. Castle, but also because of her outspokenness on topics like masturbation and evolution. She drew more national headlines by expressing surprise about the content of the First Amendment.
But these aspects of her persona seemed only to endear her more to her supporters. “She’s not arrogant,” said Carmen Gray, 65. “She’s got more spunk and savvy than the guy going to Washington.”
She aroused that sympathy everywhere she went. Voter after voter lined up to take photographs of themselves with Ms. O’Donnell at a polling station in Lewes, about forty miles south of Dover, late on Tuesday afternoon. She offers herself as an ordinary person without pretenses, something that struck a chord with voters here.
“You giving out hugs?” asked an elderly man in a windbreaker, embracing Ms. O’Donnell. “I’m a hugger.”
Another voter, Chris Slye, 25, a manager at a Fossil store in Lewes, simply stuttered. “I’m like, shaking now,” he said, using a piece of her campaign literature to fan himself.
It was as though Ms. O’Donnell had tapped into a basic need to be listened to, one that Republican voters in this Democratic-leaning state did not feel had been satisfied. “Everywhere she goes, she sucks the oxygen out of a room,” said one campaign worker, standing next to a supporter with a beagle dressed a Christine O’Donnell tee-shirt. She added, in a grateful tone: “She always remembers my name.”