Well, it may seem counterintuitive that Democrats are cheering the victory of Tea Party-backed candidate Christine O'Donnell as the GOP candidate as US Senator for Delaware, but that's what they are doing.  

Christine O'Donnell, a perennial candidate running on a platform of fiscal conservatism (despite having had tons of personal financing problems) defeated incumbent GOP senator Mike Castle, in a victory which stunned politicians and pundits alike.  Tea Partiers rejoiced.  But not as much as Democrats rejoiced.

The problem is that O'Donnell is so fringe that she's not likely to get the vote of independents in the general election.  In fact, she's not likely to get a lot of Republican votes.  Which means that Democratic candidate might be able to take the Senate seat away from the Republicans, something you won't find happening much in this upcoming election.

How fringe is O'Donnell?  Here she is on MTV in the 1990's, doing what she does:

I really like that last line of hers. This is why she doesn't like masturbation:

If he already knows what pleases him and can please himself, then why am I in the picture?

Because, apparently, her only purpose in the relationship is to provide a little friction, and the only way she can improve on her man's experience is by keeping him ignorant. So yes, why is she in the picture?

The following year, while representing SALT on C-SPAN, O'Donnell argued that people with AIDS didn't deserve to be called "victims." A guy called in to say that he had a hard time feeling sorry for people with AIDS because their disease was their own fault. In his opinion, feeling sorry people with AIDS was like feeling sorry for "bank robbers who get shot in the head" while they're robbing banks. "He makes an excellent point," O'Donnell replied.

She's also argued against coed college dorms, insisting that they could lead to "orgy rooms" and "menage a trois rooms."

But that's the tip of the iceberg.  In 1998, while O’Donnell was a guest on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, she espoused the virtues of telling the truth.  Very commendable, until comedian Eddie Izzard pressed her on just how far she would take her anti-lying beliefs. Izzard asked O’Donnell whether or not she would lie to Nazis who showed up at her door during WWII and demanded to know if she were hiding any Jewish people in her house. O’Donnell refused to even entertain the notion of concealing the truth from Nazis in that scenario because “you never have to practice deception”:

O’DONNELL: A lie, whether it be a lie or an exaggeration, is disrespect to whoever you’re exaggerating or lying to, because it’s not respecting reality.

MAHER: Quite the opposite, it can be respect.

IZZARD: What if someone comes to you in the middle of the Second World War and says, ‘do you have any Jewish people in your house?’ and you do have them. That would be a lie. That would be disrespectful to Hitler.

O’DONNELL: I believe if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing righteously. I believe that!

MAHER: God is not there. Hitler’s there and you’re there.

O’DONNELL: You never have to practice deception. God always provides a way out.

Nice.  At the end of the show, O’Donnell also proclaimed that “we took the Bible and prayer out of public schools, now we’re having weekly shootings practically."  Right.  That's why.

She's not a big fan of evolution either:

CHRISTINE O'DONNELL: Well, creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the Earth in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that [than evolution].

Oooookay.

Fun quotes about HBO series while on Hardball on June 20, 2003:

"[T]he thing that attracts people to The Sopranos is the family element. It shows that America still has a longing for that traditional upbringing."

She added, regarding Sex and the City, "It's not taking into the account the physical destruction of going from one man to the other, spreading disease, spreading AIDS. It doesn't take into account your emotions."

And it doesn't look like the GOP is going to unify behind the Tea Party.  Loser Mike Castle has said he won't endorse O'Connell.  Heck, even Karl Rove can't support her.

The O'Donnell win is being called a GOP nightmare.

Benen's take on the Frankenstein's monster created by the GOP:

These voters have been told by their party not to compromise or settle for partial victories. There's just too much at stake, they're told. Evil forces are trying to take your country away.

Easily misled and manipulated people bought into this rhetoric. They've come to believe it's their responsibility to elect radical ideologues who'll save us from impending doom. Sensible people with last names like Castle, Crist, Specter, Bennett, Murkowski, and Inglis were insufficiently right-wing, so they were cast aside.

These activists have been fed red meat that's been tainted without their knowledge — and now those who did the tainting are frustrated when the activists end up sick.

There's a limit to this, of course. Republicans are still poised to have an exceptionally good election cycle, and many of the lunatic candidates who've won primaries without the party's backing are very likely to win anyway.

But stepping back, even with the GOP's expected gains in mind, Republicans' carefully-executed strategy will leave them with (a) fewer wins than they would have had; (b) a smaller, more extreme party; (c) a base that's been taught to reject any and all compromises; and (d) a party incapable of governing effectively.

RELATED: It's not just Delaware.  Last night, New York’s Republicans picked Carl Paladino to run for governor against Andrew Cuomo.  Carl’s the guy who sent around hardcore pornographic and racist emails on a teabagger mailing list.