Sadly, you answered my question.
Sure, we’d be better off with Ken Buck II: Electric Boogaloo, where he blows another Senate race. Instead, a candidate who was just as conservative as Buck (but knew when to keep his mouth shut) ran and won, and Buck ran in a safe GOP House seat and won easily; let Buck hone his skills a bit before running him for the Senate again.
The problem isn’t, and never has been, conservative candidates running; the problem is that bad candidates tend to lose elections, even if they are conservative. Sometimes a seemingly polished candidate will screw up and blow a race for us (like Congressman Todd Akin in MO in 2012), but usually after a candidate has run several races he avoids big mistakes and has a better chance of winning. We were able to pick up 9 Senate seats this year because our candidates were both conservative *and* disciplined.