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With each passing day, it seems less and less likely that Mitch McConnell will return to power as the Senate’s majority leader. That’s a real shame. The fun part is listening to Mitch spread the blame.

At a meeting the other day he said: “There’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips (to the Republicans) than the Senate…Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” Translated into everyday English, here’s what he really said: We’re gonna blow our chance of retaking the Senate because we’re stuck with extremist incoherent nutcase candidates.

And just to make matters worse, the guy who oversees the GOP’s Senate campaign war chest – Rick Scott of Florida – has burned through most of the money in the till. That shouldn’t surprise us, because this is the same Rick Scott who, in a previous incarnation as a health care CEO, exhibited his financial acumen by overseeing massive Medicare fraud (billing the government for non-existent or unnecessary services). He was forced to resign and his company paid a $1.7 billion fine.

One furious national Republican strategist tells the press that Scott should also quit his current gig: “If they (the Senate campaign committee) were a corporation, the CEO would be fined and investigated. The way this money has been burned, there needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered. It’s a rip off.”

We’re not gonna take the Senate now...It’s rare (and refreshing) for these people to commit candor. But it’s hard to fake the fact that things are going badly, and that their assorted loons, phonies, and fascists arguably can’t win their statewide races even if they were drowning in money. The root problem – which goes way beyond Rick Scott – is that Duh Base, during Senate primary season, keeps nominating horrible candidates. Donald Trump’s meddlesome endorsements are partly to blame, of course, but the problem long predates him. GOP primary voters did the same thing a decade ago.

In 2012, for instance, they blew their chance to pick up an Indiana Senate seat because they gave the nod to a guy named Richard Mourdock, who alienated swing voters by declaring that if a woman becomes pregnant during a rape, “that’s something God intended…it is something that God intended to happen.” Also that year, Republicans blew their chance to pick up a Missouri seat because they nominated a guy named Todd Akin, who alienated swing voters by declaring that women’s bodies have ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of what he called “legitimate rape.”

Meanwhile, in 2010, Nevada Republicans, convinced that Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid was vulnerable, screwed themselves by nominating a woman named Sharron Angle – who, among her many verbal gems, also sad that it’s OK if a rape victim is impregnated, because “God has a plan.” (What is it with Republicans and rape?) And remember what happened in Delaware that year, when it looked like the GOP had a chance to flip a Delaware seat? The primary voters gave the win to Christine O’Donnell, who declared that condoms were “anti-human,” and whose most famous utterance was “I’m not a witch” – despite having previously said, “I dabbled into witchcraft – I never joined a coven.  But I did, I did. I dabbled into witchcraft.”

All those losing candidate are spiritual forbears of the current nutcase crop that features incoherent Georgia jock Herschel Walker. (His latest, on climate change spending: “A lot of money, it’s going to trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?”) There’s also Mehmet Oz, Trump’s favorite carpetbagging quack doc, who’s stinking up the Pennsylvania race; and J. D. Vance, another Trump fave, who’s trailing in red-trending Ohio (he calls Trump “the best president” of his lifetime, and says that Joe Biden is intentionally flooding the heartland with opioids to “punish people who didn’t vote for him”); and Blake Masters, the Arizona nominee who says that America was wrong to enter World War II and that gun violence should be blamed on “black people, frankly.”

Even some of the Republican incumbents are in trouble – most notably the dim bulb in Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, who has shared with us his wisdom that “standard gargle mouthwash has been proven to kill the coronavirus,” and who opined earlier this month that Social Security and Medicare benefits should no longer be guaranteed. In the latest statewide poll, Johnson is rated favorably by only 21 percent of Wisconsin’s moderates – which may explain why Johnson, after 12 years in the Senate, is reportedly interested in “rebranding.”

It also appears that the national mood has shifted somewhat in the Democrats’ favor. In a new poll sponsored by NBC News, co-conducted by a Democratic pollster working with a Republican counterpart, inflation is no longer ranked as voters’ top concern – perhaps because gas prices have plunged over the summer. Care to guess what issue is number one? “Threats to democracy.” Indeed, by 57-40 percent, they believe that investigations of Trump should continue. (The Jan. 6 hearings return in September.) Meanwhile, abortion as a priority issue was far down the list, but its potential as a Democratic turnout generator is hard to ignore; according to the poll, 58 percent oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with only 38 percent saying thumbs up.

No wonder McConnell is spooked; amidst the shifting issue dynamics, he knows he’s saddled with too many kooks. The core problem – as we saw back in 2010 and 2012, long before Trump – is that grassroots Republicans persist in picking candidates who sate Duh Base’s craving for red meat while alienating most everyone outside the bubble.

With the future of democracy on the line, may that pattern please continue.