It's an interesting study of media coverage.
Back in May, the media line was that the Tea Party was down and out. Tits up and dead as a doornail. Why? No real reason, we won some, lost some others, and none of it was big or trend-setting or anything. They just wanted to write that story, so they did.
Today the media line is that the Tea Party is an evil and terrifying force, able to take down the the biggest incumbents at any time. Why? No good reason for that, either. Cantor is a big scalp, but not a particularly challenging candidate. He was a terrible campaigner and politician back home and nobody liked him. All he had was money, and money doesn't win elections, candidates do. But the media wanted to write the Big-Bad-Tea-Part story, so they did.
It's all just grist for the mill. If the Tea Party was down and out, we wouldn't have won anything in May or June, but we did. If we were invincible, we'd have been able to beat Lindsey Graham (a real challenge - he's a much better politician and campaigner than Cantor). The truth is somewhere in between the extremes, but who wants to write about that?
Anyway, the moral of the story is to ignore all media crap about the Tea Party.
