“The TEA Party steamed Bennet in Utah and got the great Mike Lee elected. Good for them!”
Yes, it was good and the reason that the Tea Party was successful in Utah was that Lee was an outstanding candidate and Utah is about as homogenous a state as there is. It other states, their poorly vetted candidates didn’t make it even though they had held public office because they were not “mainstream conservative” enough to appeal to an entire state. Akin was a congressman from a district that could go along with his decidedly non-mainstream “ideas.” But he didn’t play at all well even to conservatives in the rest of the state because of his “rather unorthodox” views of women.
Electing Senators is a whole lot bigger matter than individual congessmen as the Tea Party has found out, and we are suffering right now because of the lack of intelligent vetting.
The tea party does better at Senate races than the GOPe, who lost about 10 or 11 in 1012.