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.

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is spending tens of millions of dollars on Republicans this election cycle — and now he’s adding Senate candidate George Allen (R-VA) to his list of beneficiaries. The casino mogul has donated $1.5 million to pro-Allen PAC Independence Virginia, becoming its biggest donor by half a million dollars.

Allen’s PAC has spent about $2.3 million in an effort to defeat former governor Tim Kaine (D-VA), whose supporters have far less outside cash on hand. Adelson tops the list of campaign donors this election season, having pledged $100 million to Republicans.

If elected to the senate, Allen is likely to support Mitt Romney’s tax plan, which the Center for American Progress Action Fund estimated would save Adelson more than $2 billion in taxes. Allen has also advocated for a 20 percent corporate tax rate — even lower than Romney’s proposed 25 percent. During Allen’s last stint in the Senate, he proved to be very friendly to wealthy business owners and special interests, voting for the Bush tax cuts as well as tax cuts for oil and coal companies.

In 2006, Allen lost his Senate seat after he was caught on camera referring to an Indian American Democratic staffer by the racial slur “macaca.”

Crossroads GPS Attack Ad (Virginia)

Crossroads GPS, which almost exclusively backs Republicans, claims, “these spots [are] intend to alert citizens to the anti-job policies in Washington and push for real economic solutions to create jobs,” but the spots are little more than dishonest attacks against Democratic candidates and President Obama.

The ads attempt to cast the Democratic candidates as stand-ins for Obama, but because Heitkamp and Kaine have never served in Congress, the attacks on these two are particularly disingenuous.

In North Dakota, Crossroads GPS uses the same clip of Heitkamp as the National Republican Senatorial Campaign (NRSC) posted on YouTube last week. Like the NRSC, Crossroads takes out of context an innocent comment by Heitkamp that she expected then-candidate Obama’s 2008 convention speech to be “amazing,” and it attempts to use that as a way of blaming Heitkamp for everything the group dislikes about Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

The clip comes from a 2008 video made by North Dakota attorney and Democratic National Committeeman Chad Nodland. Nodland successful got YouTube to remove the NRSC’s posting of the video, citing his copyright of the footage. In an email, he confirmed to ThinkProgress that he is already preparing a cease-and-desist letter to Crossroads GPS and will alert YouTube and North Dakota television stations to the copyright violation. (Out of respect for Mr. Nodland’s legal right to the video, ThinkProgress will not link to the Crossroads GPS spot).

Read more

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) will endorse and campaign with former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) today, as Allen seeks to regain the Senate seat he lost in 2006 after his infamous bullying of an Indian-American campaign tracker whom he called “macaca.” In an email obtained by Roll Call, Johnson — who oversees Senate Republican message and agenda coordination — explains that he supports Allen because, “We must change the spending and debt culture in Washington.”

In his lone Senate term, Allen voted for about $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending appropriations, 52,000 earmarks, and four debt limit increases. He also backed George W. Bush’s massive tax cuts for the rich, which exploded the deficit.

In all, the public debt increased by about three trillion dollars — more than 51 percent — during Allen’s tenure, making him the last person Johnson should trust to change the spending and debt culture.