The Conversation  Excitement and exhaustion  In response to This
is Exciting:  I share your feeling about the energy surrounding
Rand Paul's filibuster, Ace.  Not to be a wet blanket, but I
also remember how that Tea Party energy faded by 2012.  It's not
gone completely and never has been, but it's hard not to notice
the very sharp contrast between the 2010 and 2012 electorates.
 Depending on how much weight you want to assign to various
exit-poll results, you had a combination of the Tea Party fire
guttering low, and the zombie hordes of Obama supporters
marching listlessly to vote in droves for a candidate who didn't
really excite them.  It didn't matter that a lot of them were
yawning when they pulled the lever for Obama.  "Meh" votes count
the same as "oh, yeah!" votes.  And so, on Election Night, we
watched blue mushroom clouds erupt from big-city machines and
rise into the stratosphere over a sea of red counties.  The Tea
Party energy that moved Heaven and Earth to launch a revolution
against Obama's ov