You mean like what happened after the RINO McCain lost his White House bid? The Tea Party took over, and did great in 2010. Then, in the 2012 primary we nominated a conserv... Wait, never mind.
The Tea Party as a grass roots movement with a network of loose affiliations is doing great at the local and state levels such as getting rid of Hatch, Lugar and a number of others in the primary process.
Nationally the Tea Party needs to control the GOP establishment in DC in order to elevate conservative candidates. To gain control the TP needs to flush out the liberals that infest the GOP establishment.
Liberals such as Romney had the money to win nationally in the GOP presidential primary but they won’t win against the democrats in the election because Romney is not popular and he is distrusted. He will be lucky to get 40% of the national vote. His negative ads against Obama will not work because basically the democrats don’t care what he says. He has enough negatives from the point of view of independents and conservatives that he will go down in the Fall.
And for Romney to lose is just fine with the GOP establishment because this entire battle has not been about GOP vs. democrat. This has been about GOP-E and TP. The GOP-E wants to preserve their position in the ruling class versus the country class. They can’t keep their position if a real TP conservative is nominated nationally. Hence, Romney is their guy.
Bachmann is disappointing. She sold out. Fine, there are others. She will come around when she sees the TP winning nationally in 2016 but by that time it will be too late for her. She has maxed out her credibility card.