Eric Cantor defeated by... The Tea Party!

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**MeanGreenStompa**

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/national-politics/20140610-house-majority-leader-eric-cantor-loses-gop-primary-to-tea-party-challenger.ece

RICHMOND, Va. — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated Tuesday by a little-known economics professor in Virginia’s Republican primary, a stunning upset and major victory for the tea party.
Cantor is the second-most powerful member of the U.S. House and was seen by some as a possible successor to the House speaker.
His loss to Dave Brat, a political novice with little money marks a huge victory for the tea party movement, which supported Cantor just a few years ago.
Brat had been a thorn in Cantor’s side on the campaign, casting the congressman as a Washington insider who isn’t conservative enough. Last month, a feisty crowd of Brat supporters booed Cantor in front of his family at a local party convention.
His message apparently scored well with voters in the 7th District.
“There needs to be a change,” said Joe Mullins, who voted in Chesterfield County Tuesday. The engineering company employee said he has friends who tried to arrange town hall meetings with Cantor, who declined their invitations.
Tiffs between the GOP’s establishment and tea party factions have flared in Virginia since tea party favorite Ken Cuccinelli lost last year’s gubernatorial race. Cantor supporters have met with stiff resistance in trying to wrest control of the state party away from tea party enthusiasts, including in the Cantor’s home district.
Brat teaches at Randolph-Macon College, a small liberal arts school north of Richmond. He raised just more than $200,000 for his campaign, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
Beltway-based groups also spent heavily in the race. The American Chemistry Council, whose members include many blue chip companies, spent more than $300,000 on TV ads promoting Cantor. It’s the group’s only independent expenditure so far this election year. Political arms of the American College of Radiology, the National Rifle Association and the National Association of Realtors also spent money on ads to promote Cantor.
Brat offset the cash disadvantage with endorsements from conservative activists like radio host Laura Ingraham, and with help from local tea party activists angry at Cantor.
Much of the campaign centered on immigration, where critics on both sides have recently taken aim at Cantor.
Brat has accused the House majority leader of being a top cheerleader for “amnesty” for immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Cantor has responded forcefully by boasting in mailers of blocking Senate plans “to give illegal aliens amnesty.”
It was a change in tone for Cantor, who has repeatedly voiced support for giving citizenship to certain immigrants brought illegally to the country as children. Cantor and House GOP leaders have advocated a step-by-step approach rather than the comprehensive bill backed by the Senate. They’ve made no move to bring legislation to a vote and appear increasingly unlikely to act this year.
Cantor, a former state legislator, was elected to Congress in 2000. He became majority leader in 2011.

**d-usa**

Don't tell me the conservatives are going to hand another election to the democrats?

**djones520**

d-usa wrote:
Don't tell me the conservatives are going to hand another election to the democrats?

It's a House election. If a Tea Party candidate beat Cantor, then there is zero chance a Dem is going to take that District.

**Bullockist**

hate to co-opt the thread but I am curious, is there still a fear among conservatives in the US that the republican/tea party will completely break apart. Has the break already happened?

**djones520**

Bullockist wrote:
hate to co-opt the thread but I am curious, is there still a fear among conservatives in the US that the republican/tea party will completely break apart. Has the break already happened?

There is no "tea party" so to speak. It's simply a segment of conservatives, who are generally more right wing then the mainstream.

**Ahtman**

djones520 wrote:
Bullockist wrote:
hate to co-opt the thread but I am curious, is there still a fear among conservatives in the US that the republican/tea party will completely break apart. Has the break already happened?

There is no "tea party" so to speak.

Of course not. It is true in the sense that they are a sub-group, but also not true in the sense that they actually do exist.

djones520 wrote:
It's simply a segment of conservatives, who are generally more right wing then the mainstream.

In the same way the UKIP is slightly more right wing than the mainstream.

On topic though, wasn't this against the general trend of Tea Party candidates losing to established Reps in the primaries recently?

**d-usa**

The Tea Party is a weird mix that wants all the benefits of being a real political party without doing any of the work.

**sebster**

djones520 wrote:
It's a House election. If a Tea Party candidate beat Cantor, then there is zero chance a Dem is going to take that District.

The impact isn't only on that district. While the most noted impact of the Tea Party in 2010 and 2012 was to put up losing candidates in what should have been easy Republican races, the other impact was to impact the Republican brand as a whole. Can't deny the drag on the overall impact on the party and the brand when candidates start spouting some stuff as crazy as what some of the Tea Party candidates did.

Bullockist wrote:
hate to co-opt the thread but I am curious, is there still a fear among conservatives in the US that the republican/tea party will completely break apart. Has the break already happened?

Actually the impact of the Tea Party in this election has been pretty minimal. This defeat of Cantor is the one big scalp for the Tea Party in this set of primaries.

The movement appears to be running out of steam, as the panic over Obama turned out to be silly, and the impact of the GFC is slowly settling down.

I wonder if we could timeline these things to the price of gold. First you get the financial system shock, gold spikes and the political crazies come out of the woodwork. Then the gold price plummets when people realise the world isn't actually collapsing, and maybe a year or two after that the wheels fall off the new breed of political crazies.

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Ahtman wrote:
On topic though, wasn't this against the general trend of Tea Party candidates losing to established Reps in the primaries recently?

Yeah, this seems to be running against the overall trend.

**Bullockist**

sebster wrote:

I wonder if we could timeline these things to the price of gold. First you get the financial system shock, gold spikes and the political crazies come out of the woodwork. Then the gold price plummets when people realise the world isn't actually collapsing, and maybe a year or two after that the wheels fall off the new breed of political crazies.

What you say is completely unfounded , I will not even point out One Nation or PUP as evidence

. It's good to know that the crazies eventually go away. I think however that the state of Queensland should be prevented from voting.

**DarthDiggler**

This primary was an open election. Democrats could have voted in it to cause mischief. Not sure how many did.

I have always wondered why the Feds don't give the Tea Party districts exactly what they are asking for. Identify the Tea Party districts and eliminate all their taxes they have to pay. Then eliminate all the Federal regulations that might affect them like the Clean Water Act. Then eliminate all Federal subsidies for education to that district including any federal backed college loans to students who live in that district. Of course you also eliminate all Social Security payments to people in that district and cut any federal highway funds for them and Medicaid and Medicare.

Eliminate all federal taxes for them and cut every penny that might make its way into that district or to the people of that district. Of course make sure no foreign country invades them, but home grown crime they've got to take care of themselves.

Just give them what they want and stay out of their lives. That's what they are asking for right.

**sebster**

d-usa wrote:
The Tea Party is a weird mix that wants all the benefits of being a real political party without doing any of the work.

And there's also plenty of scammers. There's a few Tea Party fundraisers that brought in a lot more money than they ever gave out to candidate or spent on ads.

There's a reason the IRS started looking...

**TheSilo**

djones520 wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Don't tell me the conservatives are going to hand another election to the democrats?

It's a House election. If a Tea Party candidate beat Cantor, then there is zero chance a Dem is going to take that District.

This was only a primary, and we've seen multiple cases before where a hardline party member will win a primary, oust an incumbent, but lose the general election. It's how the Democrats held the senate in 2010.

Cantor won 59% of the vote in 2012, so it's a fairly solid Republican district. But that's not so Republican that you can chalk up this election yet. This might be a situation where the campaign actually matters.

**Manchu**

This is a disaster for the GOP nationally and especially here in Henrico. This is the closest we've been to having a Democrat elected representative for many years -- and truth be told, I don't even know who the candidate will be!

**Jihadin**

REPLACE THEM ALL!!!

**d-usa**

TheSilo wrote:
djones520 wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Don't tell me the conservatives are going to hand another election to the democrats?

It's a House election. If a Tea Party candidate beat Cantor, then there is zero chance a Dem is going to take that District.

This was only a primary, and we've seen multiple cases before where a hardline party member will win a primary, oust an incumbent, but lose the general election. It's how the Democrats held the senate in 2010.

The senate held because incumbents are statistically more likely to hold on to their seats. It's also quite a bit harder to gerrymander half a state.

But house seats? Super easy to gerrymander and manipulate into being guaranteed a lock for either party.

There is a reason we have a higher reelection rate than the Soviet Union had!

**Manchu**

Meet Jack Trammell

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/meet-jack-trammell-the-democrat-who-will-face-david-brat-the-man-who-beat-eric-cantor/2014/06/10/df00f972-f10a-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html

**d-usa**

Wasn't there primary this year where a long serving republican came out gay and was then defeated by a write-in candidate only to win as a write-in candidate on the democratic ticket , which didn't have any democrats running?

**Jihadin**

In Cali?

**motyak**

d-usa wrote:
Wasn't there primary this year where a long serving republican came out gay and was then defeated by a write-in candidate only to win as a write-in candidate on the democratic ticket , which didn't have any democrats running?

That sounds...amazing

**whembly**

Oh wow...

The GOP's establishment is panicking.

fething awesome and that their tears are tasty and life sustaining.

**Vaktathi**

d-usa wrote:
Wasn't there primary this year where a long serving republican came out gay and was then defeated by a write-in candidate only to win as a write-in candidate on the democratic ticket , which didn't have any democrats running?

Congressman Mike Fleck, Pennsylvania.

The Republicans do seem to be eating each other in some instances.

**whembly**

d-usa wrote:
Don't tell me the conservatives are going to hand another election to the democrats?

Not happening in VA... no viable Democrat candidate.

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djones520 wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Don't tell me the conservatives are going to hand another election to the democrats?

It's a House election. If a Tea Party candidate beat Cantor, then there is zero chance a Dem is going to take that District.

Yup... and Brat's biggest margins were Hanover and New Dent. (Republican Strongholds).

Can we also stop this "Teaparty is dead" meme?

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DarthDiggler wrote:
This primary was an open election. Democrats could have voted in it to cause mischief. Not sure how many did.

That's what I thought...

However, in looking at this, I don't think that this was an "Operation Chaos" scenario. If the Dems were organized enough to Operation Chaos Cantor, they'd be organized enough to run an actual candidate. Knowwhatimean?

I have always wondered why the Feds don't give the Tea Party districts exactly what they are asking for. Identify the Tea Party districts and eliminate all their taxes they have to pay. Then eliminate all the Federal regulations that might affect them like the Clean Water Act. Then eliminate all Federal subsidies for education to that district including any federal backed college loans to students who live in that district. Of course you also eliminate all Social Security payments to people in that district and cut any federal highway funds for them and Medicaid and Medicare.

Eliminate all federal taxes for them and cut every penny that might make its way into that district or to the people of that district. Of course make sure no foreign country invades them, but home grown crime they've got to take care of themselves.

Just give them what they want and stay out of their lives. That's what they are asking for right.

Uh... got some mis-understanding go'ing on there brah.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also... the Amnesty Dream Act is dead on arrival now.

Whoa...

**Piston Honda**

This is going to be hilarious.

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
Can we also stop this "Teaparty is dead" meme?

But that's so much easier to say than 'the Tea Party is showing much reduced ability to oust Republican incumbents, while still remaining entirely irrelevant to the legislative process and governance of the country"

**Ensis Ferrae**

Jihadin wrote:
REPLACE THEM ALL!!!

To this end, I did see a rather humorous bumper sticker a week or so ago... It said basically "Politicians should be allowed 2 terms: 1 in office, 1 in jail"

**MWHistorian**

The Tea Party exists because many conservatives feel that the Republican Party is corrupt and has lost its vision and soul. (which it has) Whether the Tea Party is right or wrong is a different matter. But it is a reaction to what they view of a party that no longer represents their ideas.
(Don't think for a second the Democrats are any better.They aint.)
The Tea Party movement has died down. And no, it wasn't a response to Obama. It started off as a protest against higher taxes. Then it became a protest against socialism in general and now...I'm not sure what it is. The Christian Coalition got in there and co-opted much of it and we got CC candidates in the last elections trying to redefine rape and other nonesense. The public saw the crazy fundamental religious aspect of the party and turned away from them. (rightly so. I'm pretty religious but I have no desire to live in a theocracy.)
This defeat over Cantor could be their swan song or the sign that they haven't gone away yet.
I don't have any answers.

**Ahtman**

MWHistorian wrote:
It started off as a protest against higher taxes.

Which is odd considering taxes are at their lowest they have been in decades.

**Jihadin**

The one "tax" that SCOTUS threw back that caused an uproar

**sebster**

Bullockist wrote:
What you say is completely unfounded , I will not even point out One Nation or PUP as evidence . It's good to know that the crazies eventually go away. I think however that the state of Queensland should be prevented from voting.

It says something about Queensland that they've managed to produce crazy political parties without even needing a recession

Although I should say too much, considering the vote that PUP got in the WA senate do-over...

**Vaktathi**

MWHistorian wrote:

The Tea Party movement has died down. And no, it wasn't a response to Obama. It started off as a protest against higher taxes.

Hrm, they seemed to all spring out of nowhere right after Obama took office in Jan 2009, before he'd done a single thing, I never saw any of those people outside just a couple months before. Having had to wade through many of their demonstrations in 2009 and 2010 at the Oregon state capital to get to class while attending grad school, there was a not-inconsequential amount of purely anti-Obama rhetoric, with a good deal of it the type of stuff people are later embarrassed to see themselves pictured with. Dismissing the notion that it wasn't a response to Obama and was just about taxes (despite being historically low) seems very naive to me.