How did Samara Barend fit the DKos Dozen Profile?

I just read today (granted, it was the first time I've had a chance to sit down and read extensively in over a year,) what the criteria were for The DKos Dozen. How did Sam Barend make it on there? Am I mistaken, did she not appear on the list? Let's look at this:

Sam is a very nice and exceptionally smart person; I like her alot, but:

• She was running in an open seat

• Her opponent could not raise money anywhere outside of his race

• She had only a very slim chance to win from the beginning

• She was running in (solid blue) New York State

Aside from being picked by Howard Dean for political payback, what was her appeal, given your criteria? She utterly failed to court Labor support - she was the only Dem I can think of who was opposed by The local AFL-CIO.

She could have won, given a smarter campaign - hell, if she had people outside of KSG experience running her campaign, but lost against a guy who was a drunk driver and held his ex-wife at gun point. Camelot High never impressed me very much - least of all in running campaigns.

Sam was also not especially progressive, either. I am taken off guard, now that I know what your criteria actually were. [editor's note, by NS] Sam ran the way she felt she /had/ to in order to win. When I refer to her as not being progressive - I mean her platform.