It's Not A CANDIDATE Quality Problem

 The GOP's relatively poor showing in the midterm elections has been blamed on "candidate quality" which is meant to refer to the latter day freak shows of Mehmet Oz, Herschel Walker and Blake Masters. (Apparently it doesn't refer to George Santos, because no one paid attention to what a colossal freak he is.)

It is therefore considered a worrying sign for Democrats in 2024, when the Senate map is terrible and presumably the GOP won't make the mistake of nominating people like Kari Lake or Walker.

There's a reason why I'm skeptical of this.

The GOP is not a party with a lunatic fringe. It's a party with a lunatic center. 

This article on Charlie Kirk is a great example. Kirk is one of the young idiots like Ben Shapiro, Lara Loomer and James O'Keefe who have become stars within the Right Wing firmament for reasons that no one outside of that closed information system can explain. Kirk is famous and influential, because he is famous and influential. While there are certainly figure like that on the left, they have marginal influence on actual policy and politics in the Democratic Party. Instead, the center of gravity in Rightist politics is represented by these pod-people who exist entirely within a universe of Fox News' making.

It is worth noting that we are continually being reminded that the people at Fox themselves don't believe this bullshit. While Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have enough life experience to know that Roger Stone is a liar and con artist, but then turn around and use those lies and cons to entertain and enrage their audience, idiots like Kirk or Lake really don't seem to get that it's all lies. Apparently, Kari Lake really believes that the 2020 election was stolen. Because she's an idiot, and being an idiot is a critical way to relate to the brain-worm infested GOP electorate. Ask Herschel Walker's voters.

So, even if there were a bunch of great GOP candidates waiting in the wings, the reality is that the GOP base will continue to cough up hairballs like Mehmet Oz and lose elections that they should win.