Republicans have a dazzling opportunity in November to win back the Senate and House, not to mention dominance in state legislatures and governors’ mansions: Joe Biden is polling below Earth’s mantle, Democrats are gleefully collaborating to send billions of dollars to climate interest groups during a recession (or recession-adjacent economic situation of sudden indecipherability), and Anthony Fauci has re-emerged like an uninvited bespectacled groundhog to announce he’d like to see kids back in masks.

And yet, I cannot shake the feeling that Republicans are going to screw this up — perhaps it’s attributable to whiffs of Eau de KDW–brand curmudgeon-ism wafting from Texas to Wisconsin — but the more likely explanation for my anhedonia is the multitude of close races between solid conservatives and loons — loons who will lose general elections and, even if they should win the odd race, will be useless as legislators.

But I’m a young guy and should stick to what he knows. Being a good Wisconsin lad, I know cheese, so allow me to offer an object lesson, arising from a kitchen mishap I once experienced.

First, the mishap. My lunch was to be a chopped salad with a light covering of chipotle dressing and mozzarella pearls plopped thither and yon for a delightful combination of aesthetic appeal and masticatory interaction. But lo! The new container of mozzarella pearls had affixed to the top a hideous apparatus, a plastic seal.

Why fear such a commonplace technology so helpful in keeping food fresh? Because there was duplicity afoot. No matter the angle one took, the physics calculated, and the blunt trauma applied, that container of mozzarella pearls would foil any attempt to uncask it. The tab, seemingly intended to provide leverage, tore off, impotently failing to unseat the seal.

Now in a rage, I paced back and forth, inspecting this 10 oz container for any sign of weakness. It sat there self-satisfied upon the countertop, mocking me as only a squat cylinder could.

So I ring up [redacted cheese company], smirking in the direction of the mozzarella like a teacher who rings up a particularly vile student’s parents to report upon his odiousness in class. The mozzarella returned my gaze stoically enough — as if thinking I must be bluffing.

The good woman picks up, and I pour out my troubles to her, leaving her in no doubt of both my affection for the mozzarella and my distaste for the means by which said cheese is secured. She then informs me that the tab I had presumed was for opening was not for such an obvious use but was only a by-product of the sealing process and that the best way to open the packaging was to stab it with scissors and cut out the plastic from the inside. I was flabbergasted and flimflammed — the mozzarella pearls are suspended in water filled to the brim. To stick a knife through the seal would displace the water all over your countertop and introduce an unclean utensil into the virgin cheese. A culinary war crime!

After informing her of this obvious deficiency, I was offered coupons as a buy-off, despicably patronizing. However, I took the coupons because I was raised around Dutchmen, and no coupon is a bad coupon.

Our call concluded, I returned with shoulders slumped to my still-sealed and chortling mozzarella and took scissors to it. After cleaning up the font of water that burst forth from it as if from a spiracle, I applied a helping to my now-aged salad — even then steeling myself for the dark days ahead as I resolved to ne’er again purchase the product until the packaging was improved. My one-man resistance to Big Cheese and its anti-consumer packaging had begun.

“So what?” some might ask. “Who cares about your nauseatingly loquacious cheese-ball concerns, stupid Sheboygan man?”

First: Ouch. Rude.

Second: This aforementioned tale of woe is hardly unique to mozzarella production. There are many ways that organizations fail to understand consumers and the irritations that can accompany otherwise meritorious products.

So I rejoin, “Why botch the simple stuff?”

Botchery-avoidance is what I hope the Republican electorate employs come November. The mozzarella pearls are conservative policy goals, the infuriating prophylactic seal represents the screwballs. The GOP has a winning message on schools, doolally Dems to compare themselves with, and an association with economic success. But if the Right offers ‘stop-the steal’ nutters, don’t be surprised to be again begging Joe Manchin to save us from the Dems’ excesses.

If you’re going to vote, vote for the sure bet, the conservative who can win a general election. The political-science term for this is “tactical voting” — casting a ballot not for the strictest ideological adherence but electability.

In a time when it can feel as if we have little control, it is best to rack up wins on the simple things.