It does look brilliant when you just look at the results, but all it really boils down to is big money. The GOP basically initiated a hostile takeover of the tea party movement by injecting millions and millions of dollars to fund groups that co-opted the tea party message and smoothed out some of the rough spots. Without big money from Karl Rove, Dick Armey, and The Koch Brothers, the tea party is still a bunch of Ron Paul goldbug types holding rallies and backing libertarian candidates who get 2% of the vote.

Now, were those big money boys "brilliant" in recognizing the fact that the tea party could be useful to them? I don't know. There are many obvious natural synergies between the tea party types and establishment GOP ideals, and most of the tea partiers are disaffected Republicans to begin with. So I'll give them credit for recognizing the state of play and making bold, decisive moves to bring those guys back into the GOP tent, but I think calling it brilliant might be giving them too much credit.