The weakest Sen. Was Thad Cochran and they showed us just what they were willing to do...
Conservatives must close these primaries to keep out the Democrats. People should not be able to re register as a republican withing 60 days of a primary either.
I would also put in something that would make it tougher for so called libetarians to run like in VA. where McAllife won over Ken by inserting a stooge third party candidate without a background to match his party label.
This list could go on and on with Boss Hogg Barbour thinking up new ways to save senile Thad.
The biggest problem, I think, is the general inexperience of the TP candidates. Many want to go from never having held political office to being Senator, and while it can happen, it’s unusual and generally requires that they have achieved high visibility in something else first.
The other problem is the warring factions. Cochran was extremely weak and would have lost in the primary - if there had been only one TP candidate. But the whole reason for the run-off was that there were two or three TP candidates, and the vote was diluted. Then having the run-off gave Cochran and the incredibly corrupt Mississippi GOP the chance to come up with a strategy for crushing McDaniel.
Again, part of the reason there are so many candidates is inexperience, with candidates and their backers each insisting that their principles are more pure than the other and refusing to be realistic about their possibilities. And they’ve generally never had to try out those principles in a real situation of political responsibility.
Don’t forget that the “Tea Party” really doesn’t exist, and it’s just individual candidates who proclaim themselves as being conservative - but this does not provide the support or money of a party apparatus, which is what the regular GOP candidates have.