The Wall Street Journal has a favorable piece on the upcoming Virginia Tea Party Convention and how it could have a wide and deep influence on state politics. That’s probably true, but there are also a number of enormous challenges Virginia tea partiers face if they want their movement to remain something other than an appendage of the state’s Republican establishment.

Unlike in Alaska, Colorado, Delaware or Nevada, Virginia tea party candidates have found no success at the ballot box. In big congressional primaries in the 2^nd and 5^th districts, it was the establishment candidates who won – and have earned either the open or tacit backing of the local tea party groups. The GOP couldn’t be happier: