A restoring force brought some equilibrium back to the body politic in Maine and across the nation on Nov. 8.

In a physics context, a restoring force accelerates a swinging pendulum back toward the equilibrium position after it’s been forcibly displaced from that position. It’s an immutable law of physics.

Like a pendulum, the kind of democracy practiced in the United States also seeks equilibrium. When the body politic is forced out of balance by being pushed too far to the left, or too far to the right, it attempts to right itself. It’s a seemingly absolute law of politics.

Dramatic swings in public policy are usually unsustainable. An imbalance is intuited by the electorate. The same intuition that seems to lead voters to build imbalance into Legislatures and Congress by splitting majority positions between political parties also seems to lead the electorate to force a moderated view after a dramatic change in the direction of public affairs toward the extreme conservative or liberal view.

The Republicans swept to victory in state Capitols across the country (including Maine) and in Congress a year ago, credited to the energy and resolve of the tea party, a loose but determined coalition of conservatives and libertarians. The tea party rallies around principles many of us have some sympathy for: controlled government spending, opposition to taxation, and reduction in the national debt that our children will inherit.

The inflexibility of the tea party to any hint of compromise forced the political pendulum dramatically to the right side of the spectrum.

Our country was on the brink of insolvency because the new Republicans in Congress refused to authorize an increase in the national debt without arbitrary conditions for reductions in government spending that were to go unidentified. It didn’t matter that their intransigence was going to increase government debt spending — even a little compromise was a slippery slope back toward balance.

Buoyed by the headiness of their victory last fall, tea party-backed Republicans overreached.

In Maine, the Legislature overturned a 38-year-old tradition of same-day voter registration, but it was put back in place by a people’s veto earlier this month.

In Mississippi, efforts by conservatives to declare that life began at the moment of fertilization for the purposes of defining “personhood” was rejected by a state not usually associated with progressive causes.

In Ohio, voters decisively rejected another effort by conservatives to curb collective bargaining rights for public employees.

In Wisconsin, a recall petition is being circulated to recall the governor who got plenty of national attention for his state during his successful attempt to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees. Several legislators who voted for the bill and supported the governor already have been recalled and voted out of office, although some legislators did survive the recall attempt.

In Arizona, the chief legislative architect of the tough immigration law that put that state at the forefront of the national debate was defeated after a recall attempt led by a fellow Republican.

The pendulum was clumsily forced too far to the right. Newly minted Republicans, backed by the emotional intensity of the tea party, overreached.

The media are making much of this restoring force, predicting that it is a signal that the electorate is weary of all things Republican and reading the tea leaves in favor of the president’s re-election next year. Reports have been made that Democrats, their spirits lifted by the restoring force, have attempted to align their party with the Occupy Wall Street movement so that they also can capture some of the intensity often associated with extremism.

Both, in my view, are mistaken reactions to the restoring force. The body politic is seeking balance, not more extremism. The body politic did reject, when it had the opportunity, the most extreme agendas put forward by tea party-backed Republicans but not necessarily its goals to curb government spending and get a handle on the national debt.

Abraham Lincoln once said that “nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

The character of the tea party has been tested and found failing. The character of those who prevailed in the outcomes of Nov. 8 also will be tested by their reactions.

Kay Rand is former chief of staff for Maine independent Gov. Angus King.