THE tea-party onslaught, as it turns out, stopped at the Colorado River. To the north and west of it, in Nevada and above all in California, every single conventional wisdom, every "narrative", peddled by pundits this year proved irrelevant. Personalities decided races, and those were quirky indeed.

The quirkiest of all must be that of Jerry Brown, once among California's youngest governors, and now, at 72, its oldest. In Meg Whitman, Jerry Brown faced a billionaire, a woman, a Republican, and an "outsider"—all things that were allegedly in vogue this year.

Above all, he faced somebody with, in effect, unlimited money. Ms Whitman set a historical record for non-presidential elections by spending more than $160m (the final numbers are yet to be tallied) on her campaign, most of it her own wealth. By contrast, Mr Brown largely sat back all spring and summer, not even noticeably campaigning, in order to conserve his scarce resources. Advisers and boffins were horrified. He, however, seemed relaxed.

So relaxed, indeed, that he sometimes seemed to make up his pitch as he went along. In his scruffy voice, with his intellectual bent (he was comparing Ms Whitman to the ancient Athenian statesman Aristides on election day), he came across as unscripted and spontaneous. By contrast, Ms Whitman began seeming like a rote and robotic Powerpoint presentation. Her money, and especially her never-ending and negative attack ads, made her look worse, not better. Mr Brown realised this, and shrewdly stood back to allow it to happen.

A similar dynamic was at work in California's senate race. Carly Fiorina was, like Ms Whitman, the woman, the Republican, the Silicon Valley businesswoman (HP, in her case), who was allegedly in vogue this year. She confronted Barbara Boxer, the quintessential liberal Beltway insider.

But Ms Fiorina, like Ms Whitman, had had to veer too far to the right during the primaries in a state that simply is not all that conservative in its main population centres along the coast. Ms Fiorina ended up in an awkward dance with the tea-party movement—allowing, for example, Sarah Palin to endorse her but failing to show up at a rally with her, lest that prove too off-putting to independent Californians.

In neighbouring Nevada, meanwhile, no national narrative about tea-party insurgencies could ever properly capture the complex personality of Harry Reid. Yes, he faced, in Sharron Angle, an archetype of tea-party values. Yes, he is hated by Nevadans for reasons they don't even understand.

But Mr Reid, once a boxer, is, underneath that bland and pale exterior, a political street fighter. He has a history of nail-bitingly close races and knows how to work the fundraising, voter-turnout and other channels of his small state (money, people and power are in effect concentrated in just two urban areas).

An intriguing twist, for those of us who are fathers, is that his very fighting skill and tenacity seem to have hurt his son, Rory, as much as they helped Harry. The younger Mr Reid was running for governor against Republican Brian Sandoval and lost. Two Reids, both pale and silver-haired, were too much for Nevadans to bear.

(Photo credit: AFP)