Putting those aside, the first four states are Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. If Bachmann gets a split on those four, she heads into Super Tuesday positioned to win a bunch of smaller states. Romney would probably take big states like New York and California. That will help him on the delegate count, but the Bachmann team will undoubtedly argue that those are Obama states anyway—and that the GOP needs a person who’s a vote-getter in red states. And it will be an argument that will make people stop and think.

Which leads us to the section question, which involves considerations of the historical tide. What will be happening in Washington next spring as Republican voters select their nominee? Is there any reason to think the GOP base will be any less enraged about the fact that Barack Obama is the president? Is there any reason to think that a conservative movement that is at this hour unloading more bile on Mitch McConnell than even on Obama will become more pragmatic when deliberating on its presidential nominee? Maybe. But when movements capture parties, strange things happen. The antiwar faction captured the Democratic Party in 1972, giving us the candidacy of George McGovern, and the tea party movement has captured the GOP now.