Dan Quayle takes to the editorial page of (surprise!) the Washington Post to tell Republicans to embrace Teabaggers. He has some important historical lessons for his fellow Republicans, about these grassroots movements.

Back in the 1990s, early Teabaggers rallied around a crazy old man with pie charts named Ross Perot. The results were disastrous.

Many remember the Reform Party of the 1990s, which formed around the candidacy of Ross Perot. I sure do, because it eliminated any chance that President George H.W. Bush and I would prevail over Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992. What started as a grass-roots phenomenon ended with 19 percent support at the ballot box — and a majority of those voters would probably have gone Republican in a two-party race. Speaking on behalf of the Bush-Quayle campaign, to this day we firmly believe that Perot cost the Republican Party the White House.

My god, he's right: the Reform Party movement cost us a second term of Bush/Quayle! We have to stop the Tea Partiers before they repeat the mistakes of the past and inadvertently usher in a decade of relative prosperity and competent governance.