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On its front page on Monday, The New York Times offers a portrait of Tea Partiers ousted from Congress who've decided to toe a more moderate line in 2014 as they try to get their old seats back. We'd be wise to be skeptical that moderation is the new Tea Party playbook.

Bob Dold, one-time/one-term Tea Party congressman from Illinois, has learned his lesson, it seems. No longer is he issuing "incendiary remarks about President Obama and the national debt," according to the Times. Instead, he's looking at 2014 as a chance to explain to voters "why you want moderates like me," narrowly focusing on Obamacare as a problem to be fixed.

First-term members ousted in each election cycle

The odds are pretty good that Dold hasn't changed much. It's certainly the case that the dynamics around the president and Obamacare have changed since November of last year, necessitating a shift by the Republican opposition. But Dold's up-and-down political career and messaging is much more a function of when he ran and when he was ousted. The chart at right shows the number of first-term members of the House ousted during each election cycle. In 1994 and 2010 — off-year elections favorable to Republicans — the right saw a wave of new members sweep into office. Dold was part of that 2010 wave. In 1996 and 2012, the wave swept back, tossing a number of first-time Republicans.

Dold went out with the tide. The district he used to serve, Illinois' 10th, is marked as a "toss-up" by Cook Political Reports — suggesting that its demographic makeup (and other factors) put it into play for either party. In other words, it's a district that a hard-right Republican probably wouldn't have won in a non-wave election anyway. 2014 will be a better cycle for Republicans, but it almost certainly won't be a wave. So Dold's a moderate.