Local Tea Party founder loses election

It took a couple weeks to count all the votes, but now it's final: In suburban Cincinnati, a Republican candidate for Ohio House who was the founder of the Cincinnati area Tea Party lost to a Democrat. (The GOP candidate is the same guy who falsely accused me of deleting his comments here.)

If the Tea Parties are that toxic in the Cincinnati suburbs, they couldn't have possibly helped Republicans elsewhere - despite what it seems. (Also, a heavily hyped Tea Party referendum lost handily in Campbell County.) Clearly, the Tea Party label hurt when voters actually identified a candidate as a teabagger.

Of course, during the vote count in that Ohio House election, the Republicans tried to throw out votes from the district's few predominantly African-American precincts.

Meanwhile, central cities defy the Republicans' Citizens United-fueled gains elsewhere. The cities are certainly more self-sufficient than the outer suburbs, for it's the suburbs where more folks feel like they need to be told how to vote by the Tea Parties, talk radio, and conservative websites like Facebook.

These days, America's pioneers are in the cities!