Quality Matters

It looks like Mitch McConnell has been having heartburn.

You'd have heartburn too, if you saw the latest news and poll numbers involving Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate in the 2022 midterms, who McConnell has to count on to win back a Republican majority.

In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman is ahead of noted New Jersey resident Dr. Mehmet Oz by ten to fifteen points, and Oz undistinguished himself by complaining about the rising prices of exotic vegetables in a supermarket whose name he couldn't get right.  Mandela Barnes - whose biggest asset is that he is not Russ Feingold - is ahead of incumbent Republican Senator and crackpot conspiracy theorist Ron Johnson in Wisconsin by eight points, while incumbent Democratic senator Mark Kelly holds a similar lead over Republican challenger and 2020 election denier Blake Masters in Arizona.  In Georgia, incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is ahead by four points over Republican challenger Herschel Walker, the noted spousal abuser and climate-change non-expert who says China can get rid of its bad air by letting the winds blow our good air over the ocean to them.  Uh, you think someone should tell him that the jet stream flows from west to east and not the other way around? 

McConnell has conceded that the GOP's lack of "quality candidates" is helping Democrats in the polls, and many of them are likely headed to defeat.  But the Republicans could make up for losses in Pennsylvania or Georgia elsewhere.  In Washington State, Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley is giving incumbent Democratic senator Patty Murray - first elected to the Senate when the biggest threat from China was Olympic diver Fu Mingxia - a run for her money, and incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet is facing a tough challenge from Republican challenger Joe O'Dea, who actually says that Trump lost the 2020 election.  A Republican that faces reality head-on - wow, what a concept!

I don't even want to consider the J.D. Vance - Tim Ryan Senate race in Ohio.

And remember, the weaker candidates currently behind - even Herschel Walker - could pull out a victory in November.  If that sounds unthinkable, remember that the insufferable Iowa GOP senator Joni Ernst won re-election to the Senate over a Democratic opponent who knew corn and soybean prices better than she did. Remember also that many a Republican wave has swept some serious chuckleheads into the Senate - remember Dan Quayle? Right now, the Democrats may be gaining some momentum thanks to having passed popular legislation in the past few weeks, but with inflation and public health issues still a problem, the Democrats could end up answering an old riddle on Election Day . . . the riddle of what happens when a force in motion meets an immovable object.  

But quality still matters.