Douthat on the Tea Party Impact

The G.O.P. leadership is still going to be constrained (hopefully in positive, deficit-reducing ways, rather than negative, let’s-shut-down-the-government ways) by the activists who helped put them in power, and there will probably be an even stronger crop of Tea Party insurgents running against incumbent Republicans in the 2012 Senate and House primaries. But I do think that the fate of Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, and the likely fates of Ken Buck and Joe Miller, sharply reduce the chances of a purely Tea Party-affiliated candidate — a Sarah Palin, a Jim DeMint, or someone else entirely — winning the G.O.P. nomination for president.