Yes, I have been thinking along what Iain pointed out. Indeed an alcohol wipe should be pretty effective in principle, because the alcohol would dissolve at least some of the lipids in the cell membrane, thereby potentially rupturing the cell. Soaps have a similar effect and are routinely used in cell lysing. Also, a 70% alcohol spray is used in biolabs to disinfect surfaces when a potential cellular contamination is suspected.
However, the above stuff is mostly true for active animal cells with soft walls, or for active bacteria. I am not a bacteriologist, but IIRC, bacteria can go into a quiescent state where they are much more resistant to outside "stimuli" than normally. Since generally a population of bacteria is not synchronized, there is always a subpopulation that is in a quiescent phase. So, it seems plausible that the actively dividing subpopulation will get wiped out while at least some of the quiescent would survive.
Another way to think about the alcohol wipe is that if indeed alcohol were a perfect and indiscriminate antiseptic, then hard-liquor alcoholics would have significantly less tooth decay than the average. AFAIK, that is not true. Perhaps part of the explanation is that a lot of the bacteria hide in small spaces between the teeth, and between gum and tooth. Those are difficult to reach, unless you keep the alcohol in your mouth for a long time, waiting for it to diffuse through saliva and plaque, and reach everywhere.