Biggest political surprise of 2010? It has to be how the tea party "clowns" who "live on another planet" influenced Nov. 2

Ryan Streeter

There are plenty of Year in Review pieces out there, as there are every year at this time. The Ten Best This, the Ten Best That.

Over at Politics Daily, Jill Lawrence does a rundown of the top 12 political surprises of the year, which is worth the read. Like most lists of this sort, it's a fun read for political junkies. Lawrence references the tea party's "tectonic plate shift" but doesn't include it's influence on Nov. 2 as a distinct surprise. 

Maybe it wasn't by the time Nov. 2 rolled around. But just one year ago, the movement was defined in the media mainly by focusing on the crazies and the mysterious big money behind them, and it wasn't completely clear what its political significance would be.

Here, for example, is an article in the Hill about the "national strike" the tea partiers organized in Jan. 2010. It's straightforward, rather neutral, noting at the end that it wasn't even clear how many tea party organizations would join the strike. As I read the comments, I thought about similar statements I had heard from people I know, such as:

• "How about finding out if 'Goofy' is co-chairman."
• "The American people voted for this so-called 'leftist agenda' and Obama won by a landslide. What planet are these people on?"
• "The imagined 'power' of these clowns is a sight to behold."

These are just 3 comments, but "clowns" living on "another planet" with no respectable leadership - that sums up a lot of the parlor talk I remember from just 12 months ago...and you probably do, too.

So I think the tea partiers' influence on Nov. 2 should top the list.