[duawLauff]

Tea Partiers aside, it is my impression, even after reading that essay, that voters tuning out Democrats does not therefore translate into their embracing Republicans. It's more like the reason many of these same voters voted for Obama in '08: He wasn't the other guy. I think there is something of a plague-on-both-their-houses attitude abroad in the land, especially after they have lived through six years of the small-government, fiscal-responsibility party expanding government and blowing the surplus left it by the previous president, followed by two years of the champion-of-the-little-guy party dancing to Wall Street's tune and not winding down the war it inherited from the previous president.