It's true we would have probably been better off had those candidates not been nominated. However, there's a good case to made that we'd be better off if Connie Mack IV, Ted Stevens, John N. Kennedy, Liddy Dole, and Lincoln Chafee hadn't been nominated
Those were all winnable Senate seats for the GOP, and the moderate establishment candidate lost it. They didn't lose because they were moderate establishment candiates, they lost it because they had baggage and made stupid mistakes on the campaign trail that cost us, and often had the misfortune of running in bad election years for the GOP (in Stevens case, he was already an unlikeable old RINO, but a bogus and baseless indictment from a liberal judge finished him off).
Likewise, Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock didn't lose those races because they were tea party conservatives. They lost because they had baggage and made stupid mistakes on the campaign trail, and were often running in bad election years for the GOP.
Whenever some RINO loses, freepers will proclaim "if we ONLY woulda run a principled conservative for that seat, we woulda won!!!", whenever some stanch conservative loses, the GOP establishment claims they would have defeated the RAT if we would have run a squishy moderate. Neither scenario is correct. Anyone on the ideological spectrum can lose with the wrong type of candidate.
In many cases where the GOP establishment points to the "scary" conservative as the reason Republicans did so poorly in that state, their RINO establishment candidate did even worse when they ran him. Christine O’Donnell did poorly in her U.S. Senate race, but when the GOP establishment insisted on running RINO Jan Ting for the U.S. Senate as the only "viable" candidate in Delaware, he did worse than O'Donnell did and couldn't even get 30% of the vote. Ditto in Illinois -- the GOP establishment loves to blame Alan Keyes "scary" conservative views for causing him to lose to Obama in a landslide (and ignores the fact that he was also an 11th hour replacement candidate from out of state), but they ignore the fact that when they handpicked a "viable" establishment centrist as their candidate for the U.S. Senate (Steve Sauerberg) he was a complete joke and did even worse than Keyes -- winning only 3 of the state's 102 counties and getting under 30% of the vote against an unlikeable Democrat who compared U.S. troops to NAZIs. We need better Senate candidates, period.
The GOP losses of 2012 were also made much worse because a common misconception that 2012 was 2010 because they completely misread 2010 and thought it was a laster. Late 2010 early 2011 Rush told listeners that Obama didnt want to win re-election and might not run and I saw that repeated here.
So the GOP primary was a complete fantasy : a bunch of weak and flawed candidates told to make wishes about all the things they would do if they lived in completely different universe. "I would not even accept $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases"
So to win the primary like weak Mccain before him weak Romney repudiated his past ‘accomplishments’ and took positions he didnt believe in, a sure recipe for disaster for the general.
And the ‘conservative’ nutbag Senate elections blown have been covered here plenty already.
Romney wasn't much better than them with his 47% (am I the only one who sees the problem with him saying that?)
So GOP had an easy win. It was 2010 again. None of these F-ups mattered. Obama was toast. T-party+GOP would rule." I don't need to study for no stinkin test, I is too smart for zat"
BOOM!
THE GOP is F..ed up. One part wants to become Dems, the other part wants even bigger losses to Dems, 2012 wasnt enough for them. Lets all fight each other over it.