That's funny, because I don't remember a "Tea Party" line on the ballots in 2010.

I do get what you're saying, but the genius of the Tea Party is that they *didn't* waste time with a third party, they simply applied pressure to Republican primary races and got (for the most part) garden variety Republicans elected by repackaging them as anti-establishment insurgents.

Given the homogeneity of the Republican party, that was pretty easy to do. Suddenly, not only were candidates talking about lowering taxes and complaining about spending, they were threatening to tear the whole place down once they got elected unless spending was cut and taxes were lowered. It was just a populist reframing of Republican dogma, with slightly less Jesus and a lot more Reagan (recast as Jesus.) Absolutely brilliant to win elections, but now they're running into problems with some of the young Turks who want to show their constituents they didn't buy a bill of goods. We'll see how that pans out long-term.

The problems with doing that from the left against Democrats are numerous. The Democratic party is a much larger tent, with many more divergent and often conflicting priorities. Furthermore, starting with Clinton, the Democratic party has had its liberal populist leanings beaten out of it in an attempt to appeal to mainstream voters. Almost every primary challenge from the left in the last few elections has come from the online "netroots", and there have been very few successes because the Democratic establishment just wants to play nice and compromise, and doesn't want those noisy hippies coming in and trashing the place.

The Republicans, on the other hand, saw the rise of the Tea Party as something they could co-opt and use to their advantage. So, it was bankrolled by the usual power centers of the GOP funding hierarchy. I just don't see that happening on the left, or I should say, I didn't see it happening before the Wisconsin situation. Now that a dozen Scott Walkers are blooming in Michigan, Ohio, Florida, etc. there's a slim chance that Democrats might try to prop up the suddenly fired-up base with some establishment coin. But I wouldn't bet on it.