What to make of the midterm elections? In the name of restraining government power, what we are instructed to call “the Tea Party movement” unseated the one member of the Senate who voted to restrain government power. Feingold has been compared to LaFollette, and one is indeed tempted to cite H. L. Mencken, who said it best in 1924: “LaFollette will be defeated tomorrow, as he deserves to be defeated in a land of goose-steppers and rubber stamps.” Feingold didn’t dismiss Tea Partiers as “goose-steppers and rubber stamps.” He acknowledged the legitimacy of their concerns and the possibility of common ground. I’ll say it again, anyway: “LaFollette will be defeated tomorrow, as he deserves to be defeated in a land of goose-steppers and rubber stamps.”