Mr Tea

The last time Republicans retook control of Congress, in 1994, the face of the revolution belonged to the party’s leader in the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. This year the standard-bearer is a less obvious figure: Rand Paul, the newly elected junior senator from Kentucky. Not only is Rand not part of the leadership, he is the son of Ron Paul, a maverick former presidential candidate who is considered a pariah within his own party. But this is an outsider’s hour in American politics, and the younger Paul is everywhere hailed as the paragon of the Tea Party revolt.

That revolt has been directed as much against the Republican establishment as against Barack Obama and the Democrats. Grassroots conservatives first drew blood from the Republican centre and left, defeating many of the leadership’s candidates. That was the case in Kentucky, where the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell (who is also the state’s senior senator), backed a moderate, Trey Grayson, against Paul in the party’s primary.