Something in the tea

Anyone tempted to use the expected success of Tea Party-backed Republican candidates in next week’s US elections to pronounce the beginning of the end of Barack Obama’s presidency should not raise their hopes too high. Success in mid-term elections is no guarantee of even a decent showing in the presidential elections two years later. Just ask Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives, whose ‘Contract with America’ helped the Republicans seize the House in 1994, for the first time in 40 years. Two years later Bill Clinton was re-elected by a landslide.

• From magazine issue: 30 October 2010