A WAVE THAT WAS BUILT IN THE SPRING:

In March, as the Republican Party salivated over a favorable midterm map that showed control of the Senate was within their reach, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a warning to the Tea Party.

"I think we are going to crush them everywhere," he said. "I don't think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country."

McConnell's remark would prove prophetic. Despite furious threats to boot "turncoat" bums from office, the Tea Party failed to pick off any incumbent Senate Republicans in the primaries this year. Attempts to unseat sitting GOP senators in Texas, Mississippi, Wyoming, Kansas, South Carolina, and Kentucky all fizzled. Bids to nominate fringe candidates in states with Democratic incumbents went nowhere, too.

In that respect, the 2014 midterms stand in stark contrast to the two preceding elections, when the GOP's embrace of the Tea Party as a potent distillation of anti-Obama angst backfired.

Though the 2010 midterms were a "shellacking" for Democrats, with the party shedding 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate, the losses could have been far more catastrophic had the Tea Party not helped nominate Ken Buck in Colorado, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell in Delaware. More moderate candidates could have easily won all three races, which would have knotted the Senate.

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