It’s academic to complain about it - but just look at Missouri and Indiana.
5 years ago, we could have easily picked up Missouri except for Todd Akin’s mouth becoming disengaged from his brain and Richard Mourdock could have held Indiana for the GOP and would have been a more reliable vote than Lugar was. Mourdock also stuck his foot in his mouth.
I still look back on those races and wince because we really could have used to those seats to solidify a conservative presence in the Senate.
Same thing in Delaware, probably the same cycle, when the Republicans nominated a woman who literally took out an ad to reassure the public that despite what they’d heard, she was not a witch - another seat that would have been pretty well assured the ‘pubs lost.....
It’s not so academic.
A lesson, hopefully, was learned that the state Party should try to give the people a candidate they want. Not just give them a choice between the most loyal Party “moderate” Establishment pick and “someone else”.