Tea party rage: nothing fails like excess

Back in their day, the tea party folks were riding high, fueling indignation over alleged government-run death panels, a treasonous Federal Reserve and the like. They commandeered sparsely attended Republican primaries, managing to nominate for Senate seats a dabbler in witchcraft in Delaware, holders of strange views on rape in Missouri and Indiana, and in Nevada, a candidate suggesting armed insurrection if her people didn’t win elections.

All lost — some in races an old-fashioned Republican would have won. In the interest of party self-preservation, Republican leaders sidelined the more ext...