MARK SHIELDS:

It's what you want to believe about the voters are reflective, introspective, and they didn't scratch their mosquito bites, which voters often do in primaries, send a message. It's a Western Union experience.

I think that David's point is very valid, that the Republican Party — Dick Lugar lost. Why did Dick Lugar lose in Indiana? Dick Lugar was clubbed over the head, that he had collaborated and worked with Barack Obama on nuclear nonproliferation.

Why did Bob Bennett lose in Utah, a certified card-carrying conservative? Because he had consorted with Ron Wyden to come up with a more modest health care bill. And across the board, that was the case.

So David is right. The establishment Republicans kind of preempted the insurgent move. That's a pattern in American politics, that the populist movement, the progressive movement was preempted by the Democrats. It's something. The Southern Dixiecrat movement was preempted by or co-opted by the Republican Party in this country.

And that's what they have done. They have moved to tamp down the differences between themselves and the Tea Party. I think the most important race in 2014, so far, was the congressional race in North Carolina, where Walter Jones, a 20-year incumbent, 100 percent conservative, 100 percent record with the NRA, National Rifle Association, National Right to Life Committee, voted against Obamacare, both the bailouts, everything else, was opposed.

Two groups went in, Joe Ricketts, billionaire, founder of Ameritrade, and his political action committee, and the Emergency Committee for Israel. They spent $1.2 million in a congressional district where that can buy you eight months of television. And outspent 5-1, Walter Jones won.

But I'm telling you, this is the future. Walter Jones, to his everlasting credit, voted for the war in Iraq, had a crisis of conscience, and has written a personal note of condolence to 14,000 people who have lost their loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he's become the most anti-war Republican in the House. That's what they clubbed him over the head on.

But that's the future. They will be put $10 million, $12 million, $15 million into congressional districts. And I'm not simply saying it's from the right. It will be the left or whatever. That's how important money has become in 2014.