Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland must be sweating .50-cal. bullets.

His sidekick Lee Fisher is probably shopping for retirement property in Florida.

Rep. Steve Driehaus keeps looking over his shoulder to check the target on his back.

The Mass. uprising of 2010 is making politicians chase their tails and yip like dogs that feel an earthquake coming on.

The defeat of a hand-picked Democrat who was supposed to inherit the Teddy Kennedy crown and a seat in the Senate ranks among the more amazing political headlines I’ve seen in the past 20 years — and there have been a lot of those.

It’s not exactly another American revolution, but we can see it from here. And the aftershocks are already chasing Democrats into the streets.

Strickland was already looking weak against Republican John Kasich. Now he looks like Gov. Unemployment.

Fisher and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner can now play a brutal game of primary election thumb-wrestling to see who will lose bigger to Republican Rob Portman. Driehaus, according to recent reports, is so far behind former Congressman Steve Chabot he needs Mapquest to find second-place.

And now that we’ve seen the tidal surge in Boston Harbor, the surprisingly close contest for mayor of Cincinnati is not so surprising after all. What if Republican Brad Wenstrup had been treated like a real candidate by the local media?

OK, sure, yeah, yeah — a lot can change. It’s still only January, with 10 months until the elections. And Republicans have an uncanny aptitude for turning lemonade into bitter lemons.

But the election Tuesday was a Boston Tea Party on a national scale. It was a repudiation of President Obama, a rejection of Nancy Pelosi, a rebellion against Harry Reid and the Democrats who have worked tirelessly to confirm nearly every cartoon stereotype of clueless, government-knows-best liberals.

Weak on defense? Check. Give that terrorist an ACLU lawyer and read him his Miranda rights.

Big spenders?  Check. Obama has managed to spend more in one year than Bush could manage to spend in eight years — and Bush was no piker.

Love to raise taxes? Check. Today Obama threw Wall Street into another near-crash tailspin with reckless threats of big bank taxes.

Hypocrites? Check. After promising the most transparent presidency, Obama has been more secretive than Howard Hughes. Joe Biden even held a meeting on government transparency — behind closed doors.

Dishonest? Check. After promising the most honest Congress, Pelosi and Reid have operated on health care in the dark, passing around suitcases of taxpayer millions to bribe votes.

Radical? Check. Obama has surrounded himself with left-wingers, socialists and even a few outright communists who would feel right at home in the congregation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s cabinet almost has less experience in the real world than he does. Yet he has taken over GM and Chrysler; bowed to unions as if they are foreign dictators; and tried to nationalize health-care like Hugo Chavez seizing Venezuela’s country clubs.

Elitist snobs? Check. Obama and his supporters mocked Scott Brown’s pickup truck, as if owning a Chevy Silverado is another dangerous warning sign of potential right-wing domestic terrorists who cling to guns and religion.

So yes, Obama and Congress have done to the Democratic Party brand-name what  exploding Pintos once did to Ford. And voters have decided it’s time for a recall.

The reason Strickland is sweating, Fisher is fuming and Driehaus is dismayed is that Americans have smelled the truck-stop coffee and finally remembered what it is they don’t like about the Democratic Party:

Democrats.