WHICH IS ALSO WHY THE GOVERNORS ARE GENERALLY SANE:

The two leaders' contradictory approaches to managing a volatile caucus stem from another election when the party was forced to deal with a grassroots rebellion in an opposing president's first two years in office--the 2010 midterms. At the time, Republicans were benefiting from the energy of the tea-party movement, which helped them win 63 House seats and control of the chamber. McCarthy, then on the fast track within leadership, branded himself (along with Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan) as part of a new generation of conservative leadership, the "Young Guns."

The wave election brought a bunch of right-wing, antiestablishment figures into the party. That freshman class included: Allen West, now a Texas GOP chairman supporting his state's secession from the country; Paul Gosar, one of the most right-wing members of Congress, who reportedly helped plan the Jan. 6 rally; Michael Grimm, who threatened to "break in half" a reporter for asking a question; and Blake Farenthold, a radio DJ who later used public funds to settle a sexual-harassment lawsuit. At the same time, the freshman class also included a future secretary of State (Mike Pompeo), future senators (Cory Gardner, Tim Scott, Todd Young, James Lankford) and rising mainstream leaders within the caucus (Adam Kinzinger, Steve Stivers, Jaime Herrera Beutler). Despite those divisions, Republicans held their House majority for the next eight years.

For McConnell, the 2010 results were bittersweet. His party gained back six Senate seats--an impressive total--but fell short in several winnable races in which exotic GOP candidates were nominated. A candidate who once dabbled in witchcraft defeated a respected longtime GOP congressman in Biden's home state of Delaware. A radical state lawmaker in Nevada, who in her campaign warned about the threat of Sharia law, ended up being the party's embarrassing standard bearer in Nevada. Now-Rep. Ken Buck, the tea-party-aligned candidate in Colorado, upset the establishment favorite before losing to Democratic Sen Michael Bennet. It took McConnell four more years, after he finally decided to aggressively oppose unelectable candidates in primaries, to become majority leader.

In Senate races, the quality of candidates matters a lot more than in House races, where voters tend to cast predictable party-line votes.

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