DANIEL HENNINGER: The 1099 Democrats: The Democrats decoupled from business—and lost the election.

Calvin Coolidge once said, “The chief business of the American people is business.” The Democrats just lost America because they forgot that.

On second thought, you can’t forget what you never knew. The Democrats running things the past two years proved they have no clue about the business of business. In their world, the real world of the private economy is an abstraction, a political figment.

Funny, after I taped my PJTV interview yesterday with David Kirkham — whose Utah Tea Party toppled Bob Bennett and brought a new Speaker into the Utah State House to boot — and Mike Wilson, whose Cincinnati Tea Party helped paint Ohio red last week, they stayed on the hookup and were talking about how the biggest surprise to both of them, each a political neophyte, was how comparatively easy politics was compared to running a business.