I'm getting really annoyed by the doom-and-gloomers. The TEA party had an amazing amount of success in 2010, but let's focus on the handful of races that went poorly instead, shall we? Because, anything less than 100% victory means the whole movement is flawed, right?
From what I recall of the Missouri primary, there were three good conservatives running, and any of them would have been acceptable to the base. Akin won, but after he stepped in in, and then doubled down, he would have been wise to have withdrawn in favor of one of the others. He didn't and the result is history. No telling if either of the others would have won, of course.
But the original selection process went fine. Politicians are people too (all evidence to the contrary). They make mistakes. But an individual politician's foul-up isn't a reason to invalidate the philosophy that got them nominated or elected.
With Angle in 2010 and Akin in 2012 "the original selection process" -- the Republican Primary, was compromised when the Democrats spent large sums of money on advertising to win the nomination for Angle and Akin, because they knew Angle and Akin were idiots, who would give Reid and McCaskill their best shot at winning.
Republicans need to stop defending Angle and Akin, and admit that we were punked. If we keep allowing the Democrats to select our nominees by running ads during the Republican Primaries, we are going to keep losing seats that are ours for the taking.