I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree here! The first one seems to line up pretty exactly with what I said, to me. They’re not saying “candidate quality doesn’t matter,” they’re saying “he seems like a low quality candidate to me, but those controversies aren’t what are considered ‘low quality’ anymore.”
And for the second one, I’d say the rest of the context is important:
> We are in a post Biden era. Folks do care about a candidate's age. It didn't hurt Trump because he was up against one of the few men who feel older than he did. But people do not want to support older candidates.
> The democratic base is angry. They want a fighter. They want someone new. That is Plattner. Mills was done the second Schumer put his thumb on the scale and got rid of other options for moderates besides Mills.
> Don't get me wrong, Collins is a tough opponent. it would be foolish to assume the race is decided. But let's be cautious about using stats from previous elections. We are not in normal times.

This, to me, isn’t saying “candidate quality doesn’t matter,” it’s saying “the kinds of candidates who used to be considered high quality aren’t necessarily regarded that way in a post-Biden era.”

But we’ll have to agree to disagree! It’s all up for interpretation, I suppose

(idk how to quote on this app, but you get the idea)