Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Nevada, claims at least two communities in the United States are at risk of falling under "Muslim law."

Christine O'Donnell, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Delaware, has dabbled in witchcraft

Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for governor of New York, portrays himself as a family-values candidate despite having fathered children with both his wife and his mistress.

And Rich Iott, Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio, dresses up in Nazi garb for World War II re-enactments, refuses to say the Nazis under Hitler were "not valiant men" and belongs to a history group on whose website the World War II section makes no reference to the Holocaust.

This was supposed a pendulum-swinging year in which Republicans, largely out of power in this country since January 2007, came storming back to win a majority of the seats in Congress and and retake control of dozens of statehouses.

But with people like Angle, O'Donnell, Paladino and Iott on the ballots, the GOP might just find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.