This political season's early feature film, "The Revenge of the Tea Party," seems to be playing well in states where establishment figures are being rejected. But if so, why are some Democratic incumbents taking heart?

The reason is that so far the wrath of the angry right seems to be taking its heaviest toll on Republican officeholders who in tea party eyes are not quite conservative enough, or angry enough, to suit the outraged faithful.

Perhaps the best example in this week's primary elections was in Colorado, where the GOP establishment choice, former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, lost to tea party-backed county prosecutor Ken Buck, whose intellectual pitch to voters included a reminder that he did not wear "high heels."

His victory was fashioned to a degree by the intensity of tea party voters in a primary election, which historically attracts the more animated of the citizenry now personified in that anti-incumbent movement. But with polls indicating less fervor for the tea party in the general public, Colorado Democrats are looking at Buck's nomination optimistically as a prospective gift to them.

For example, Buck's strong advocacy of prosecuting illegal immigrants, a tea party staple, could hurt him in the general campaign in a state that according to the last census had an Hispanic population of more than 20 percent.

He will face incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet, the former Denver superintendent of schools appointed to the seat upon the resignation of Sen. Ken Salazar to become secretary of the interior in the Obama cabinet. Bennet subsequently encountered criticism of his performance in his previous job and was considered vulnerable to the primary challenge of former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff until Obama came to the rescue.

The president went to the state for a major fund-raiser and campaigned personally for Bennet despite his own slipping approval there. Meanwhile the Democratic National Committee pumped money and manpower into Bennet's race under the direction of David Plouffe, Obama's 2008 campaign manager, who is now orchestrating the efforts of the grassroots and netroots veterans of that national campaign.

Romanoff ran with the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton, which added spice to the Democratic Senate primary, but failed to overcome the White House and DNC push to save Bennet's seat. The prospect of Bennet running against tea party favorite Buck has buoyed their hopes of keeping him in the Senate after the November election, and keeping Democratic control.

The Democrats are looking the same way at Tuesday's other main Senate victory in Connecticut, where tea party-backed Linda McMahon, a former head of World Wrestling Entertainment, in a self-financed campaign won the GOP nomination over establishment candidate former Rep. Rob Simmons and business executive Peter Schiff.

McMahon, who brushed off a fictionalized video aired by the Schiff campaign showing her kicking a man in the groin, will oppose Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, earlier considered a shoo-in to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd.

But when the New York Times surfaced false claims by Blumenthal that he had served in Vietnam during the late war, his campaign began to stall. He said he had misspoken about his Marine reserve service in this country at the time. But still he received the Democratic nomination unopposed. The Democratic hope here, too, is that tea party extremist views will turn off moderate Republicans and independents, to Blumenthal's benefit.

In some primaries elsewhere, tea party candidates did not fare all that well. Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, endorsed by Sarah Palin, the current darling of the movement, lost a runoff for her state's gubernatorial nomination to former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal.

Still, the question remains how endorsements Palin and the tea party will play in traditionally lower-turnout congressional and gubernatorial elections in a non-presidential-election year. Many establishment Republican leaders have conspicuously shied away from any strong embrace of a bloc of conservative voters whose anger toward Washington and Obama they share, but whose often-extremist views they consider too much for their own comfort, and too toxic to average voters in the fall.

Available at Amazon.com:

The Feminine Mystique

The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy

The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics

Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks

The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

Read the latest political news.