Yesterday's elections showed that there is only one real dirty word this campaign cycle: liberal -- not incumbent. The focus on incumbents is just a liberal media dodge to ignore the fact that it is their ideology is being repudiated. For the next five months you'll hear the leftist media and Democrats try to deflect the wins of conservatives and Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul as merely a vote against Washington. While that's partly true, it's the big Washington abuse of power -- the core of liberalism -- that's the problem, not just the fact that these candidates happen to be in office and reside in the Beltway.
Those in Washington who were fiscally reckless and supported the stimulus, TARP and the creation of a costly new entitlement with the healthcare bill are casualties of the wave. From Specter to Bob Bennett (the Republican who lost two weeks ago thanks to his support for TARP) we saw last night what we saw in the fall in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia. If you've embraced a liberal agenda of big government and huge spending -- you'll find yourself in trouble.
That is why the Tea Party movement is successful and much more than the initial charges that it was merely "manufactured outrage." They could not flourish if it wasn't for the lurch to the left by Democrats, and to some degree George Bush and some Republicans. That's why President Obama was not and is not going to be helpful to candidates in his party going forward - because the backlash is against him.
Andrea Tantaros is a conservative commentator and FoxNews.com contributor. Follow her on Twitter @fxnopinion.
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