So, if I understand you correctly, a base is just some hybrid beast with a lot of energy and not much smarts?
If that’s the case — and I don’t necessarily agree — then there must be some other underlying thing that unites them. Maybe it’s not a complex concept — just similar situations in life, but something.
By using “not much” you paid the base a completely unmerited compliment. It is the mass effect: the IQ of a collectivity cannot be higher than that of the most smart person in it, and even then only on the condition and to the extent that the collectivity obeys such a person. Otherwise it is much lower, and precipitously drops with the size of the group.
The base is good only at foaming at the mouth and at scaring everyone else away, which is not associated with having ANY smarts. Thus a winning candidate rapidly subsumes one’s “base”, brings it to heel and keeps it in place - or dispenses with the base, like Joe Lieberman did.