Cantor Can’t No More

Thank you! “@Buddy743: After watching your rally with Dave Brat at Randolph Macon we voted for Brat today! Fingers crossed!” –LI

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) June 10, 2014

Draft Boehner Statement: “I for one welcome our new talk radio overlords.”

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) June 11, 2014

 

So after all the obits for the Tea Party, we get the stunning news that Eric Cantor has been ousted from his Congressional seat by an anti-amnesty professor, touted by Laura Ingraham. This appears to have been a factor:

In an interview just last Friday, Cantor suggested he could work with President Obama to allow a path to citizenship for some children of illegal immigrants already in the country. In the campaign’s final days, Brat criticized Cantor for siding with Obama on the contentious issue.

His district had also been extended recently to include some more conservative areas around suburban Richmond. But this race – which Cantor once won by 79 percent in a primary – wasn’t even close. 56 – 44 is pretty much a landslide.

Here’s a glimpse of Dave Brat, introducing himself at a fundraiser last February. This was his intro:

This is his core pitch:

It doesn’t get more Tea Party than that: debt and amnesty, with a real populist, anti-big-business message. Notice also the anger at the big banks, the loathing of Wall Street, the populist equation of the Republicans and the Democrats, and the appeal to average and middle income “little guys.” Cantor was portrayed as an “insider-trader.” And yet this appealing message from an appealing and effective figure didn’t get much support from national Tea Party groups, as Laura Ingraham is now venting on Fox.

Does this completely end the chance of immigration reform in this Congress? Surely it has. In the next Congress? I’m beginning to suspect so. Does it cement the rightward-still passion of the GOP base? Yep. Does it give it an appealing, populist, insurgent message of change? You bet it does.