Eric Cantor’s Defeat Exposed a Beltway Journalism Blind Spot

The New York Times ^ | June 15, 2014 | David Carr

[2ndDivisionVet]

It’s now clear why the primary defeat of the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, came so completely out of the blue last week: Beltway blindness that put a focus on fund-raising, power-brokering and partisan back-and-forth created a reality distortion field that obscured the will of the people.

But that affliction was not Mr. Cantor’s alone; it is shared by the political press. Reporters and commentators might want to pause and wipe the egg off their faces before they go on camera to cluck-cluck about how Mr. Cantor, Republican of Virginia, missed signs of the insurgency that took him out. There was a lot of that going around, and the big miss by much of the political news media demonstrates that news organizations are no less a prisoner of Washington’s tunnel vision than the people who run for office.

All politics is local, which may explain why The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Chesterfield Observer both took David Brat’s Tea Party challenge to Mr. Cantor seriously, but few of the publications inside the District that follow the majority leader’s every wiggle and wobble sensed that he was leaving the home fires dangerously unattended.

There are a number of dynamics — political, cultural and economic — at work. Congressional races are a mess to cover because there are so many of them, and this year, the House of Representatives is not in play while the Senate most definitely is. The math of covering someone who may become one of only 100 senators is far easier....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Read the whole thing, it's delicious.

[skeeter]

All of this assumes, of course, that the NYT and rest of the media really care about reporting the truth.

Which they do not.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

The only "blind spot" in Washington is : WE THE PEOPLE"
When government folks consider only themselves and control of power and money
They forget that they are elected to represent us !
NOT THEMSELVES !
That was Cantor's error : He forgot to represent his constituency !!
and NOT the GOPe that he thought he was supposed to represent !
.. and we , the little people, who got him elected for 13 years, are PI$$ED !!

[Liz]

A REFRESHER COURSE IN LOSING Cantor in 2013: "One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home."

B/c no one believed that Constitutional fable, Cantor doubled down---he later offered a new explanation for why he supports granting amnesty to individuals brought into the country illegally as minors. It's “Biblical,” he said in a local radio interview.

That "revelation" offed the sucker but good. So much for Cantor's gulling the voters---endorsing a measure intended to dismantle US ntl security.

=================================================

Cantor stupidly believed the rest of us just fell of turnip truck---that we know nothing about the Dream Act except what he makes up.

THE FACTS ARE THESE---The Senate amnesty bill is dangerously flawed, and its glaring omissions WRT protecting US ntl security, cannot ever serve as the basis for useful legislation.

By legalizing illegal aliens w/out shoring up law enforcement, we hand an engraved invitation to global Third Worlders----all of 'em salivating to ride the US gravy train.....each separatist group conniving to achieve its hidden agenda.

Amnesty recklessly opens the door wide for illiterate, low-skilled aliens, born and bred in savage cultures, here to suck up US benefits and take jobs away from Americans.

Third Worlders may, in fact, contribute their labor to the US, but their loyalties are elsewhere----they have no intention of becoming Americanized....of participating as equals in American culture, revering our vast history, or preserving American values.

The Senate amnesty bill is a blueprint----it amply demonstrates that illegal separatist populations intend to usurp the US political system to advance their own hidden agenda.

================================================

The Senate "Amnesty" bill includes two “slush funds” amounting to $150 MILLION annually, replenish-able with eternal tax dollars for years to come....... earmarked for groups like the blood-thirsty La Raza.

One of the Congressman voting for this outrage should be charged w/ conflict of interest: Cong Julian Castro's mother is a La Raza stalwart.

LA RAZA TEACHING HATE-AMERICA WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS La Raza Studies do not even try to sugar-coat its anti-America agenda and its bloodthirsty plans to kill off Americans: Raza Studies textbook “Occupied America,” by Rodolfo Acuña, includes a violent and blood-curdling speech given by university professor Jose Angel Gutierrez: “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is, if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him,” (pg. 323).

The following is taken directly from La Raza's Occupied America (pg. 167): “.......execute all white males over age 16,” (AKA the Plan of San Diego).

America-hating Raza Studies teach (1) violence, (2) undermining US ntl security, and, (3) the need for Mexico to "re-take seven states in the Southwest...in order to make the SW a Chicano nation. "

SCHOOL BOARD NUT CASES Adelita Grijalva is the woman on the Arizona school board pimping La Raza indoctrination programs in Tuscon schools. Adelita is all up in arms about Raza Studies getting tossed via the AZ state legislature's action...she is the daughter of Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-7).

Cong Raul Grijalva is one of Mexico’s most productive and loyal Fifth Column in the US Congress....aiding and abetting the latino criminal underworld, colluding to take back the SW, and loot and pillage the US treasury.

Raul and friend.

Cantor and friend.

[Liz]

EXCERPT: BUSINESS WEEK Bloomberg News / By Lisa Lerer and Kathleen Hunter / June 12, 2014

Cantor Loss Hurts 2016 Republicans Seeking Hispanic Votes

The defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, amid charges he supports amnesty for undocumented workers, will stall immigration legislation this year and send Republicans into the 2016 presidential season at odds with one of the nation’s fastest-growing political constituencies.

Torn between a party base opposed to easing citizenship for illegal immigrants and their broader electoral imperative to win Hispanic voters, prospective presidential candidates yesterday were forced to choose their words carefully. <> “We’ve been somewhat trapped by rhetoric and words, and amnesty is a word that’s trapped us,” said Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on a conference call organized by Partnership for a New American Economy, a group supporting immigration legislation. “We’re trapped in this rhetoric and we have to get beyond that,” said Paul.

=========================================== Blog: With Eric Cantor's Loss, the Republican Civil War Is About to Explode

=======================================

National Republican Party officials have concluded that passing legislation to change the immigration system is vital to improving their standing with Latino voters. President Barack Obama in 2012 beat Republican nominee Mitt Romney by 44 points among Latino voters, the widest gap in a decade.

Almost 28.2 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote in the 2016 presidential race, an increase of about 17 percent, according to an analysis of census data by the Center for American Progress, a research group. Hispanic influence may be even greater in battleground states, such as Florida, where more will enter the voting pool than white voters. --SNIP--

REST HERE: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-12/cantor-loss-hurts-2016-republicans-seeking-hispanic-votes

NOTE: Virginia latinos harangued Cantor into his libertal amnesty position......stupid Cantor sucked-up figuring the latino vote would catapault him to victory. The fact is the latino vote nationwide is a nothing 10% and will be miniscule for the forseeable future....despite Obama's bigtime sucking up to latinos.

IT AIN'T HAPPENIN' AMIGOS.

[BobL]

This is linked to the story, from April. It is GREAT to read in hindsight:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/eric-cantor-virginia-republicans-106075.html

[Carry_Okie]

Eric Cantor’s Defeat Exposed a Beltway Journalism Blind Spot Snow Job

There, fixed it.

[wewereright]

The Richmond Times Dispatch did not take the race seriously. They actually endorsed Eric Cantor.

[subterfuge]

Exactly. Today, big media aims to DRIVE results, not report them. Same withe political polls.