Well, ok.
Who was the establishment candidate in Delaware? O'Donnell had DeMint, Palin, Limbaugh, and some of the conservative activist groups on her side. Castle had the local Party org, Rove, Krauthammer, and assorted others. Both are basically professional Republicans, Castle spending his adult life as a governor and longtime congressman and O'Donnell spending hers as a "Washington insider" (lobbyist, political commentator, RNC employee) and 3 time contender for senate.
The Tea Party latched on to O'Donnell as the outsider running against the semi-incumbent "establishment" type, but in reality both were insiders with establishment backing of one form or another.
What I take issue with is the notion that this primary was outsiders against the mainstream Republicans, that the mainstream Repubs lost, and that they're now going to try to sabotage O'Donnell in some sort of Pyrrhic bid to hold on to their power.
Let's take these points one at a time. First, Castle was not mainstream Republican by any stretch. Second, the winning Limbaugh-et-al camp is far more established and mainstream than the losing Krauthammer-locals camp, so it isn't exactly a loss for "mainstream Republicans". And third, nobody is trying to sabotage O'Donnell now that she's won (wait a few weeks for emotions to cool and you'll see many of the Castle supporters line up behind O'Donnell, just like any other hotly contested primary).
And the NRSC thing was just plain stupid. Nobody should have seriously believed that the NRSC would withhold recognition from O'Donnell after she secured the nomination. The national Republican orgs might be stingy with additional funding beyond the basics, but that's nothing personal with O'Donnell. They tend to spend money and resources direct proportion to how much difference it can make. There might not be much that anyone can do for someone like O'Donnell in a place like Delaware, but we'll know more about that in a coupla weeks after things settle down.
