However, a fair number of tea party members in congress were actively promoting defaulting on the debt. That's different than some random guy with a page on the internet. That's a lawmaker with a vote who can affect the outcome. So their political career would be hurt. The election wasn't the next day, it would have taken a long time to replace those yahoos and the damage would have been done. Examples:

Ted Yoho, rep for Florida, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-tea-partys-gov...

Trump (who isn't in congress, but had a shot at being president: http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/05/08/media-slam-trump...)

yes, it is nuts, but people who vote in congress supported it, and the pres. candidate of one of our two parties also said that.