After weeks of laughing that the TEA party was dead, suddenly one major loss is a ‘thunderbolt’ that has everyone quaking in their boots...
what a bunch of pussies
I'm not sure it was just the Cantor race. Even though the GOPe knew it was almost impossible to ditch incumbents, they loudly proclaimed victory in every race they managed to hold the seat. They knew then that the margins of victory were in the danger zone.
I personally think the Cantor phenomenon started with Cochran. If one of their entrenched incumbents could lose, any one of them, then they were in trouble.