Eric Cantor loses primary

[Haruo]

[Sandy]

Cantor is certainly a lying little weasel. But he was the Tea Party candidate. The other guy appears to be more of an independent, who really didn't have any campaign money from any source at all, while Cantor was loaded with Koch Brothers money. The news reports at this point indicate that the district, though gerrymandered to help Republicans, is close enough to give the advantage to the Democrat who is running.

[William Thornton]

Maybe his alleged skill in lying will help him land a job with the Dems most prominent and certified liar, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The winner is an Econ prof who is no doubt well equipped to counter any graphologists' nonsense leftist class warfare stats.

[ET]

I read a story last night of all the money Cantor had at his disposal and all the "corporate" and "special interest" backing he had. It would seem to support the old adage that "dollars don't vote, people do".

As for the implications of the outcome, I pretty much tune out the conversation whenever the talking heads go into "what does this mean" mode. To me it's just a politician who got kicked out by those that put him there. Personally, I'd love to have a high "churn rate" for politicians, but doing so with term limits is probably the only way to get it done. Got one race going on just across the state line with Thad Cochran of MS. Dude's been a part of the ruling class since 1972. I couldn't tell you what the differences are between him and the challenger, but I really wouldn't care. I'd just walk in and vote for the challenger if I could. Some 40+ years of living off the public dole is enough. The concept upon which this country was born was "self-rule", not establishing a "ruling class" such as we have now. Congress was a part-time, couple of weeks or months out of the year job. You go to Congress, take care of business in a few weeks, then go back to your job and live under the laws you set up for everybody else. Now it's become a career track and the ruling class gets it's own retirement system, it's own health care setup and a whole host of other goodies meant to keep them comfortably in office and living far above the living standards of their constituents.

[Tim Bonney]

The usual story has been that the Republican leadership is oposing Tea Party candidates because they think they are too extreme to get elected in the general election. This may be a good test for that theory.

Hauro, I always get annoyed when some friend assumes that you know nothing about something because of where you now live or what little they know about you. I had a guy, who doesn't really know me, in a discussion about denominationalism tell me that I couldn't know anything about Baptists because I'm a Methodist. So I then proceeded to tell him how long I had been a Baptist previously. He was a bit embarrassed because his assumption was based on facts he didn't have and didn't ask for.

[Sandy]

There's some indication that there was organizing on the part of Democrats to make a crossover effort to get rid of Cantor. I'll be looking for someone to dig into that, but apparently the celebration at Nancy Pelosi's house looked more like a planned celebration than a spontaneous reaction. The insider polls which had Cantor winning by as much as 68-28%, and the skewed vote totals in comparison to previous primaries in that district indicate that more than just a few Democrats were in the GOP line, and most likely not because they really want to see another nut case tea partier in Congress.

[Haruo]

This David Brat is an interesting case: a Catholic with a Princeton MDiv. I just created the fourth Wikipedia article on him. Interesting that Wikipedia didn't have an article on him until last night. Now it has one in English, one in French, one in German, and ...

[Sandy]

According to CBS, the turnout was less than 12% of the registered voters in the district. Cantor did't achieve his vote total of the last primary, when he won by over 70% of the vote, if he had, he would have won narrowly. Virginia does head to head primaries to avoid the effects of crossovers, but it seems they were more bent on getting rid of Cantor than the issues or identities of the other candidates in either party.

I'll be interested to see how the district, gerrymandered toward the GOP, but close overall, goes in November. I'd bet on the Democrat, especially the way other elections have gone in Virginia recently. The bottom line is that we are rid of one of the most obnoxious Republicans in the house, as described by members of his own party, "a lying little sneak."

[Cathy]

I was so surprised to hear about Cantor's loss. I've read some articles that suggest he was seen as having a smug, imperious attitude and not well liked personality in his district. His district is 79+% white and upscale so the citizen's can hardly feel terribly threatened by immigration. And immigration is the topic most pundits seem to be pointing to as what brought him down.

Brat rather tellingly responded to an interview question about his position on increasing the federal minimum wage with "I'm a free market guy." When he was then asked if that meant he opposed a minimum wage he responded, "Um, um, um, I don't have a well-crafted response on that one"

Media personalities like Laura Ingraham are not as likely to have as much affect in general election.

I'd say that the demographic of Cantor's district would suggest a Republican will win the general election but it remains to be seen whether Brat can mount a credible campaign that will attract moderate republicans to the polls to vote for him.

[Sandy]

This one is a bit tough to analyze. Cantor is one of the faces of the tea party, and his opponent didn't specifically identify that way. Cantor's campaign fund was stuffed with money raised from some of the most extremist right wing backers in the country. The GOP vote total in the primary was down considerably, predictable in a non-presidential election year, but with only 12% of the electorate casting ballots, that means that Brat's win came with a single digit percentage of voters. Cantor's obfuscations and double talk about immigration couldn't be perceived as a real threat to conservatives who want a lily white America back. Part of the problem is that he depended on the money, and the ad buys, while the other guy worked the sidewalks.

Brat''s position on a lot of things is vague and unknown. Is he the Sarah Palin/Rick Perry kind of candidate, billed as a newcomer political star, but doomed from the outset because at some point, people expect you to speak and every time you open your mouth, you lose support and votes? Can he convince establishment, moderate Republicans (most of whom want immigration reform in the party's platform) to turn out on election day, or even not to vote for the other party's candidate? Time will tell.

There are indications, in the vote analysis, that a lot of the votes cast in the GOP primary came from crossover Dems and independents. There are places in the country where the Democrats have openly campaigned by pushing the tea party loon, against an established Republican, to increase their chances of gaining a seat. Some Dems have even spent money to help choose their opponent. In such a low turnout election like this one, it doesn't take that many votes to create a result.

[Dave Roberts]

Cantor thought he could win with TV ads and drop-in airport appearances that got him on the evening news locally. He didn't bother to press the flesh or go to civic clubs and area events. He was so tied to staying in Washington that the local folks seem not to have felt that he was in touch with them. Virginia is an open primary state, and there is always some cross-over voting since party does not have to be declared at registration. Cantor, however, did not take his opponent seriously and was beaten at the local level. All politics is ultimately local, and the addition of Tea-Party friendly areas to his district where Cantor did not visit probably doomed his election the most.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

Yeah, I'm not getting the "tea party did this" claim here. The financial interests that back tea partiers supported Cantor with wads of cash. Palin and Rand Paul appeared in some of his campaign ads. Seems like part of the defeat is the result of inept campaigning. He didn't do enough grass roots type work, had the chance to get Palin and Paul in Virginia, and passed it up. Of course, he might have been attempting to ride the fence a bit, and having a couple of extremist nut cases on the campaign trail for you might cost you with thinking Republicans. Brat didn't call on, invoke, or otherwise indicate a tea party position, that I can tell. There wasn't a previously announced tea party effort on his behalf. I think he might actually be a genuine, non-party line candidate.

But Cantor is gone. No matter how that happened, I consider that celebration worthy.

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

I'm amused to see that Brat's website hasn't been updated that I can see since the primary. leads with a June 9 headline entitled "Will This Man Unseat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor?" Cathy, I think he may be more behind the times than even NPR!

And I think the banner photo from his "Reforming Washington" page actually shows Obama and Cantor, but just conceivably it's Obama and Brat. Either one is suspect.