The Tea Party Backlash

On the whole, tea party insurgents lost big in Tuesday's midterm elections. And that's good news for Republicans.

On the whole, tea party insurgents lost big in Tuesday's midterm elections. As my latest column for The Week argues, that's good news for Republicans.

The Republican leaders won twice last night. They won a majority in the House of Representatives and a big gain in the Senate.

Those leaders also won an important psychological contest inside the Republican party: Three ridiculously winnable Senate seats have been thrown away by incompetent Tea Party radicals: Delaware, Nevada, and possibly Colorado.

Meanwhile two tough seats have been won by level-headed Republican moderates: Illinois and Ohio.

The ultra-radical Rand Paul won his race in Kentucky and will be coming to Washington to make trouble for his arch-enemy. That's not President Obama, but Republican Majority Leader and fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell.

But if Rand Paul arrives unreinforced by other Tea Party radicals, it's not only Paul who will be contained.

The Tea Party radicals were supported by all the weight and noise of talk radio and Fox News. They were supported by an alternative power structure within the GOP: The fundraising power of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund. Their defeat raises important questions about the whole Tea Party project. It also weakens the alternative power structure in the GOP and strengthens the power of the party's formal leaders against its informal ones. That's all good news.

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