Ramesh Ponnuru raises a question that is being bandied about a lot today:
It is easy enough to attribute his defeat to the sentiment among conservatives that Cantor is not sufficiently hostile to an amnesty for illegal immigrants, and that the Republican establishment is too squishy: too willing to raise the debt ceiling, vote for bank bailouts, and so on.
But then why did Senator Lindsey Graham, who vocally championed the immigration bill while Cantor distanced himself from it, win walking away in conservative South Carolina? Why did Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is just as much an establishment figure as Cantor, and more favorable to the immigration bill, thump his primary opponent a few weeks ago?
The answer to this is simple. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham ran in statewide elections, not in heavily Republican districts within states. The ideology of Republicans in states like Virginia, South Carolina, and Kentucky varies a lot by region. The folks in Appalachian coal-mining territory are quite different from the folks living off government contracts in Alexandria or raising racehorses near Louisville. The retirees around Myrtle Beach are less socially conservative than the folks living in the rest of South Carolina. Eric Cantor lost because his Republican constituents are very conservative and because only the most pissed off people turned out to vote.
Trying to spin this as not about immigration might be in some people’s interests, but it isn’t true. The xenophobes were motivated and they turned out.
Does Ponnuru really not see the differences here between Cantor, McConnell and Graham’s electoral circumstances? I mean, I’m not exactly a rocket scientist, but even I am aware that there is almost no equivalency between them. All of his hypotheticals seem so off target. And then he wraps up with, “I don’t have a satisfactory answer yet, but I’m not going to trust anyone who makes a confident pronouncement about what this election means unless he saw this result coming.”.
WTF kind of dumb shit is that??? With that kind of benchmark, I guess he just plans on walking around forever wondering, “What the hell happened to Eric”? I can only surmise that he penned this before he was fully awake in the morning. Or he is just really, really dumb.
Ponnuru is just bright enough to get hired via the wingnut welfare route. That doesn’t mean he’s good at analyzing anything. Hell, he co-wrote a book with Cardinal Douthat.
Brown people taking their jobs+black guy taking their white house+elitist jew taking their district = perfect storm of angst.
But it’s not about race, because nothing in America is about race.
.
As a 7th District Democrat, I do think that most of the story on Cantor is covered in that last sentence of the post: the xenophobes showed up, and a lot of others didn’t. This was the only race on the ballot and historically Cantor’s seat has been so secure that it felt depressingly inevitable that he’d be there as long as he wanted, or at least until he’d checked the “Speaker” box on his to-do list and moved on to something bigger…
However, I’d point out two other dynamics that may have contributed at least a little. I know a number of more politically-aware Democrats who showed up to vote for Brat on the premise of “anybody but…” or in the meta-gaming hope that he would be more beatable than Cantor in November. We’re really really tired of having that schmuck “represent” us.
Cantor also ran a lot of literature painting Brat as a “liberal college professor,” associating him with Tim Kaine and with the President. For some folks on the left who may not have been paying attention (either to Brat’s actual views or to Cantor’s ever-careful respect for the truth), that contributed to a perception that Brat might actually be somewhere to the left of Cantor and therefore might actually be a more palatable choice, at least as a better vote-against option than Mickey Mouse.
If so, that’s really fascinating. Perhaps politicians have to be careful to not make their opponents look interesting, palatable or benign to their enemies. But I think Booman’s larger point remains correct; that Many Republicans in the House are going to take this as confirmation that they have no wiggle room on immigration reform and Republicans are, as a result, screwed at the presidential level.
Yep, this was about race. More about the fact that the GOP congress is now comprised of white christian men.
(note: following initially inspired by Loki or Coyote or the Merry Snarkster …probably. But, maybe…)
Oh Booman,
I fear you’ve got your Sheeple Goggles on.
Most certainly this is one of those False Flag thingies!
Of course Cantor’s “loss” is a Big, Shocking, Surprise.
Because Of Course he wasn’t going to lose – unless he wanted to.
All planned M’boy, all planned.
Cantor, et al. engineered everything.
Media storm ensues:
‘Oh the TP is back!!’
‘Oh My, now what is the GOP to do about (the House, the Senate, Hell, everything; from the school boards [and sewer depts – H/T W.S.Burroughs] to the presidency?!’
Media portrayal of Eric C.:
“And after all, he was such a nice boy (he used to cut… H/T F.Z.)”
Soon –
There is country-wide angst and worry about the resurgence of the TP grows.
Irritation about HC grows: “Now we HAVE to vote for her! Ouch! I remember now, I Hate Her!”
AND Then –
– Eric & The Engineers pull the cord, and the sheet (ha) falls from the essentially un-vetted (because, why have bothered?) Congressman-elect Brat. Horrible, disgraceful poop, nay, SuperPoop is now on display – and sublime ratfuckery, (my guess is) like never before seen, runs wild!
I have no idea what Eric & The Engineers have on Mr. Brat but you can let your imagination go unbridled, galloping, and I’ll bet you will find you were too tame once E & the E tell the tale.
…and it will just be icing on that cake that the press will be unable to not hurry, gleefully, to meme: Brat and ‘wurst’ (ha ha) – and do this so very happily and committedly, that it is Hook, Line, and Sinker through the media maws, into their alimentaries.
AND Then – “Tea Party Dealt Fatal Blow!”
AND THEN! – “Hey, How About That Nice Boy Eric For President?!!!” “Wow, You Really Got Something There!”
…and then, my elderly kin in FL, NY, Los Angeles; “The First Jewish President!
(“and such a nice boy. The shiksas can wait a little. Sure, it’d be nice for a girl – a woman, I mean, but they could learn a little from us about waiting for things. Look at their calendar, then look at what is the year on our calendar…you know what I mean.”)
AND THEN…. ?!?!
Now you should easily be reading the writing on the wall there Booman.
Being aware of all Internet traditions, I close, (OBVIOUSLY) with;
You’re Welcome.
Ask the last majority leader to be defeated in a primary just how that comeback stuff works.
For the majority leader of the Republican House to lose his own primary is mind-boggling. While there may be several factors involved in his loss, or only one, I’m afraid the reaction by GOP congressmen nationally will be to amp up “the crazy” even more in an attempt to stave off an attack from the far right in their own district. If this takes them over a line and “independent” voters finally say “this is too much for me to accept” and start voting Democratic, then fine. However, if “Faux Noise” and the right wing spin machine convinces folks that we are witnessing a national shift even further to the right, then heaven help us all.
And then there’s this:
I don’t know about GOP politics these days, but in politics in the olden days pundits would have seen a defeat coming as a result of this budget cultism. The Governor of Louisiana got whupped by Bobby Jindal for less egregious behavior.
So Cantor got beaten because he wasn’t enough of a hypocrite in DC, eh?
As long as it’s not about sex, hypocrisy never hurt a GOP incumbent.
Just wondering aloud without an iota of data, but is there any way that Boehner had anything to do with this? I’m not a big fan of coincidences, and Cantor was clearly gunning for the orange man’s position, I just wonder if Boehner’s fingerprints will eventually turn up.
I doubt it. Brat is deeply connected to the Cato Institute. He also campaigned on the pledge to vote against raising the debt limit for the first 5 years he is in Congress.
Why would Boehner care about that? It’s far better to have a bigger ass in your caucus than somebody else’s ass in your chair.
Yes, it’s the Iron Law of Institutions.
In other words, this is as much due to VA-7’s gerrymandering (gerrymandrification?) blowing up in Cantor’s face as it is to xenophobia.
Cool.
Are the efforts to spin it “not about immigration” larger than the efforts to spin it “about immigration?”
Brat ran on 2014 boiler-plate Tea Party. No different from Matt Bevin in KY: specifically debt, spending, size of government, bailouts, and amnesty. And Bevin wasn’t silent on the immigration/amnesty issue. McConnell (no more likeable than Cantor) beat Bevin by 25 points. By counties , Biven won only one, Pendleton, 359 votes to 348.
If VA-O7 was all about immigration, it’s curious that it didn’t resonate more in KY.
Looking back to 2012, in the general election, Cantor ran one point better than Romney (ten points better than McCain in 2008). In the primary, 47,037 votes were cast: Cantor 37,369 to Bayne (Tea Party guy) 9,668. (No Democratic primary contest that year either.)
Participation was higher yesterday: 65,008. Cantor: 28,898 and Brat: 36,110. Looks as if it was a combination 1-2-3 punch. Higher Tea Party turn-out, Democratic crossovers for Brat, and collapse of Cantor’s historical support. Neither the anti-
Semitism nor anti-immigration explanation does any good for the GOP brand, but politically anti-immigration serves the current GOP members of Congress better.
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Cantor: Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Or at least a big fat, bloody lip. And Tea Party success beyond their expectations.
Doesn’t appear that immigration as a stand-alone issue is the explanation.