The 2012 House and Senate races were to a significant degree about the GOP’s shift to the far right of the American historical norm — assaults on the fundamentals of the social safety net unseen since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, unprecedented attempts to restrict women’s reproductive freedom, and near-theological devotion to lowering tax rates for top earners beyond their already-historic lows. But a major trend in Tuesday’s elections was a rejection of many of the Congressional aspirants who most famously embodied these ideas. Here’s six of the candidates closely aligned with the extreme elements in the Republican Party who went down to defeat:

HOUSE: Joe Walsh, Illinois

Rep. Walsh is perhaps the most famous of the Republican class of 2010 — one observer labelled him “the biggest media hound in the freshman class.” Walsh’s means of getting attention was principally his hardest of right policy positions and a series of outlandish, offensive statements. Walsh was one of the leading opponents of raising the debt ceiling despite the catastrophic consequences of not doing so, an issue that will be coming up again in the near future. He also claimed President Obama was only elected because “he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that” and argued that welfare was “destructive” for the poor people it helps. Walsh was defeated by Iraq war veteran and amputee Tammy Duckworth, whom he had insinuated wasn’t a “true hero” and described her record as “Female, wounded veteran … ehhh.”

SENATE: Richard Mourdock, Indiana

State Treasurer Mourdock epitomizes the process by which the Tea Party has come to control the GOP Congressional caucus, taking out incumbent moderate Sen. Richard Lugar in a bitterly contested primary. Unlike his predecessor, who was famous for working with then-Senator Obama on foreign policy issues, Mourdock appears not to believe in real bipartisanship – he thinks “bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.” It seems unlikely, however, that Democrats will want to come around to Mourdock’s positions — he is now infamous for claiming that a rape pregnancy “a gift from God…something God intended to happen” to justify his maximalist anti-choice position and refusing to apologize for the remarks.

HOUSE: Allen West, Florida

Rep. West may have even Walsh beat for most inflammatory member of the House. He has called for the censorship of American newspapers, said feminism and liberal women were “neutering” America’s men, claimed the FBI was committing “cultural suicide” by removing Islamophobic material from its training courses, and has compared progressives to both Nazis and Stalinists. And that’s just scratching the surface of West bombast, a pattern so outlandish that he became a media fixture despite an almost non-existent record of passing legislation.

SENATE: Todd Akin, Missouri

“If it’s a legitimate rape,” Rep. Akin infamously intoned in August, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Akin’s remarks kicked off 2012′s string of offensive comments about rape by GOP candidates, partly as a consequence of the fact that Akin had worked with Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan to make it such that Medicaid would only cover “forcible rape.” Akin also has been linked to a “Christian supremacist” preacher with disturbing views on rape and abortion and believes Medicare is unconstitutional. Though Akin was widely believed to be a heavy favorite before the “legitimate rape” comments, he was beaten handily by incumbent Senator Clare McCaskill (D).

SENATE: George Allen, Virginia

Former Senator Allen first lost his job in 2006, when he referred to an Indian-American campaign staffer as “macaca.” Though Allen tried to play down that incident, he has a long history of racial trouble — declaring Confederate history month as VA governor without mentioning slavery, stereotyping reporters, and reportedly demonstrating flatly racist attitudes during his football playing days. Allen also has a viciously anti-gay record: among other things, he has called for criminalizing gay sex. Finally, according to the League of Conservation Voters, Allen has “one of the worst environmental records ever,” something probably not unrelated to the fact that he’s in bed with the country’s worst corporations on the environment.

SENATE: Denny Rehberg, Montana

Less famous than the other names on this list, Rep. Rehberg is nonetheless quite representative of standard views in the GOP Congressional delegation. Rehberg believes taking health care away from the poor is the “most common sense path” to reducing the deficit, introduced legislation to ban the United Nations from stealing American guns, and sponsored a bill that blocked access to birth control and defunded Planned Parenthood. Rehberg also has a long and unbroken history of anti-gay activism.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), one of the most controversial Tea Party freshmen in Congress, lost his bid for re-election Tuesday night.

Despite moving to a new, more-Republican district (Florida’s 18th congressional district), West was edged by challenger Patrick Murphy (D) by 2,500 votes.

During his two-year tenure in Congress, West earned a reputation as not only one of the House’s most brash members, but also its top Islamophobe.

Here are 16 of the most contentious moments of his congressional career:

1. Progressives are “communists”: At a town hall meeting in April, West said that 80 House Democrats were “members of the Communist Party.” He later clarified that the 80 Democrats he was speaking about were those in the Progressive Caucus.

2. Opposed early voting as an “entitlement”: In an interview with ThinkProgress, West objected to early voting in Florida because “people see it as an entitlement.” He ultimately lost his seat, in part, because of high Democratic early voting turnout.

3. Said Obama’s campaign slogan had a “Marxist-Socialist” meaning: West found hidden meaning in Obama’s “Forward” slogan. “They want to bring out an old Soviet Union, Marxist-Socialist theme for their campaign called “Forward”.”

4. Obama’s DREAM initiative was a voter fraud conspiracy: Appearing on Fox News, West saw a more nefarious effort beneath Obama’s deferred action immigration policy. “Is this one of those backdoor opportunities to allow people in the next five months to get the opportunity to vote?” he asked.

5. Food stamps “enslave the American people”: West lamented the rise in available food stamps for Americans. “That’s not how you empower the American people,” West said. “That’s how you enslave the American people.”

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“Forward” may be an innocuous slogan to most Americans, subtly contrasting the Democrats’ progressive policies to the Republicans’ desire to reverse most Obama-era laws. Rep. Allen West (R-FL), though, has found a deeper meaning.

In a speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition on Sunday, West argued that Obama’s motto was actually a far more nefarious idea. “They want to bring out an old Soviet Union, Marxist-Socialist theme for their campaign called ‘Forward’,” West told the crowd, to audible gasps.

WEST: We are now $16 trillion in debt. We have 47 million Americans on food stamps. We have close to 9.5 million more Americans in three-and-a-half years on the poverty rolls. That’s not turning the corner. But yet, they want to bring out an old Soviet Union, Marxist-Socialist theme for their campaign called “Forward”. I have to ask you one simple question. Where is the Soviet Union today?

Watch it (beginning at 0:40):

West likely adopted this fantastical idea from right-wing media outlets like Breitbart.com, which called the slogan “communist” and blogger Jim Hoft who compared it to the “marching song of the Hitler youth.”

According to The Shark Tank, a conservative Florida-based political blog, the matter was “West just being West.”

The Romney campaign announced Wednesday that Rep. Allen West (R-FL), the Tea Party darling from Florida, will be one of three chairs on the Romney For President Black Leadership Council.

West will serve alongside Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll to “help facilitate dialogue between Mitt Romney and respected leaders who provide unique expertise, experience and knowledge on a range of issues impacting black American communities,” according to a Romney press release.

Here are some of the extremist race- or ethnicity-based viewpoints that West will bring to the table in his official relationship with the Romney campaign:

West says the federal government is ’21st century slavery.’ West once argued that “we are creating the sense of economic dependence, which to me is a form of modern, 21st century slavery,” specifically referencing Social Security Disability. He also said of all social programs “redistributionary handouts is in fact the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today.” Another time, West told residents of his home district that President Obama has not interest in helping Americans: “He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning and having that title of American,” West said. “He’d rather you be his slave.” On a similar note, West once called fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Maxine Waters (R-CA) a “plantation overseer.”

West believes ‘we are at war with the Islamic culture.’ West is a believer in “creeping sharia,” the idea that Muslims are trying to instate strict Islamic law in the United States. The Congressman has been host to radical anti-Islam activists, for which he recieved harsh criticism from religious groups, but did not apologize. West also claimed that a Muslim member of Congress “represent[ed] the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established” and was a “wolf in the hen house.” (He even screened a Muslim-bashing film in honor of September 11th.)

West doesn’t like the idea of a ‘multi-cultural America.’ West fears “political correctness or the desire to be a multi-cultural America.” He once argued, “you have to repel invasions” when talking about undocumented immigrants. Illegal immigration, he said, “can be considered what the founding fathers wrote as an invasion into your country.” When President Obama issued his directive to relieve young, undocumented students with no criminal record, West called the move “one of those backdoor opportunities to allow people in the next five months to get the opportunity to vote.”

West has a litany of other lines invoking sexism, quoting Nazis, and calling for censorship of the U.S. media. Plus, the woman West first named as his Chief of Staff has her own set of horrendously offensive remarks, and turned down the role because she said she felt she was part of an “electronic lynching by proxy.”