McCarthy was incharge of a small, but loud minority within the republician party who's vote was becoming more and more crutial as apparent in the failing in the 1954 mid-term elections as it played on the anti-communist route.
Had McCarthy not gotten drunk at that bar on the night of 1954 because of a balot incount of which it appeared a close ally of his lost his seat and then phoned the head of the Democratic Party's answering manchine to yell, "you'll never get rid of him you {deleted}, I'm a spy and my friends in the big..., red... castle... will make sure he's back there before tomorrow."
Had McCarthy's friend actually lost his seat he would have been ignored and it would have just have been reguarded as another drunked misery, however, when he got back his seat, things went out of control.
Had he not gotten drunk that night or had the ballot papers been counted correctly, he probably would of remained a loud minority in the party. However, one can only speculate what would have happened afterwards.
Although I wonder what would have happened if McCarthy did the same thing if he was president a few years later.