What Cantor's Defeat Means (vanity)

First - You have to fight your battles one at a time. We needed to STOP the Republicans on their Amnesty roll this session of Congress (first). We likely did that by defeating Cantor. Think about it - the Republican leadership taps a low level House Republican from Manville Arkansas (for example) who's been on the fence about Amnesty. They say to him: "We REALLY need your vote here to pass Amnesty and we know you're considering it. Well, House elections are every two years, so it won't be long before his next Primary. He knows that a vote for Amnesty will now ASSURE him a Tea Party challenge in 2 years, and he likely (certainly) doesn't have nearly the advantage that Cantor had - be it money, power, name recognition, or even a weak opponent (i.e., the Tea Party will now provide even stronger opponents). So, where does he stand NOW on Amnesty? I strongly think that he will tell the leadership to get lost...and that applies right through the Lame Duck Session. So while the Establishment may still want Amnesty, they will have a much tougher time rounding up the 17 Republican votes they need to pass it, assuming every Democrat is for Amnesty (not necessarily a given).

Second: What if Cantor wins as a write-in. First, Cantor has not talked that...he just may not bother with it. And if he does - big deal - he still lost his Primary, so the same thing above applies. The other Republicans in the House, again, would much prefer to not be defeated in their next Primary - they will understand that, in many (if not most or nearly all) cases, if they try to do a write-in after losing their primary, the Democrat will (or the Republican they lost to) will win. Amnesty will not be something worth betting your entire career in the House on.

Third: What if Brat doesn't win in November? Who cares...while holding that seat would be good, the key is that we just sent an incredibly powerful message to the Open Borders bunch. Their day is over. If a Democrat wins the seat, any Democrat, we still come out way ahead, as we will not be fighting our own party through the rest of the year. One seat in the House is not a huge deal...especially when we're looking to increase our majority anyway - there are 435 seats there. Having Cantor in a position to ram Amnesty down our throats was much more dangerous to the future of this country than one flipped seat.

Fourth: No matter what happens now, we can fight the upcoming battles, and maybe even start winning some more big ones.

Bottom Line: NOTHING TO FEAR. It is the Rove and The Establishment that are now quaking in their boots - they have to figure out, very quickly, how they are going to take control back from the Tea Party, because right now, they the Tea Party is owning the Republican Party.

“We need to remember that we’re really fighting for principle, not just over who occupies a seat.”

That was kind of my point about Cantor losing - while I do think that Brat is strong candidate and is up to it - that didn’t matter to me. Cantor was about to take our party and our country over a cliff and I would have been happy with another Shelia Jackson Lee replacing him...just to get him out.

But Brat will do just fine - he’s done his homework (too bad our conservative Republican candidates don’t do theirs).

If you saw Brat on Hannity, or you can catch it later, he has a very good chance of winning.

He addresses issues head on. At the end of the campaign, he fired up on amnesty. He is not a one issue candidate, though.

His concern is with the economy. Immigration, he explained is a part of that. He said, how can we afford to take more people in without having our own house in order.

I'm going to post the link to his page below.

“The least profitable way of running a Congressional office is to listen to your constituents. Far better and far more likely to lead to electoral success is to bring money home a la McConnell. Or Lindsay.”

Thanks, but I’ll just respond to one point: While these other clowns won - the ENTIRE MYTH that big-money assures incumbents win was just blown off the planet tonight. That is a BIG DEAL, for no Republican can ever again assume that he’s totally safe in selling out to Rove and his type. Don’t underestimate that effect, for a minute.

...and look at it from the other side - if Brat had lost. No honest person can say a Cantor win was good for conservatives...we wouldn’t have been watching, perhaps our last chance to keep this country from becoming Third World, slip right through our fingers.

Yes, lots more battles, but also a LOT MORE Republican incumbents now asking their staff how the phone calls are running...rather than just asking about fundraising.

I feel for the guy. I could never be married to a woman who didn’t share my most strongly held values. No amount of sex or money or sweet nothings could replace that and then come home to children raised also to be liberal. I think he’s a good man at heart that grew up wanting to do the right thing and probably always pleased his parents. Hopefully he is gracious and comes back from this. Good men sometimes get off track. It takes an even better one to find the track again. How Eric responds will determine if he is redeemable. If I were him I’d go off and cash in. He doesn’t need the job in DC and after 7 terms he’s been there too long anyway.

“Wasn’t Graham the co-author on the amnesty bill? What did he run on? Four more years of the Batman McCain and Lady Robin Lindsay show?”

It SICKENS me that we cannot find people to defeat Gram and McCain...but with Brat winning, perhaps now we can. Too bad it’s another 6 years of Gram though.

There is NOTHING BAD about tonight...NO ONE AT ALL thought that Brat had a chance. The reporters probably needed to go to his website just to find out where his campaign office is. Brat couldn’t even get most high-profile conservatives to support him - including Rush and Hannity (I think) or Palin, or Cruz. EVERYONE had written him off because he was taking on the House Majority Leader and he was way underfunded.

Yes, the other clowns won...but I suspect in two years, people like them will (finally) find strong Primary opponents, and will have to stay on their toes (i.e., listen to their voters) if they want to stay in office, for money alone will not be enough anymore.

“It is the Rove and The Establishment that are now quaking in their boots -”

I’m thinking the Roman Senate had the right idea of how to retire political hacks past their due date.

The Tea Party as Brutus and Cassius. Rove and the GOPe as Julius Caesar. One can wish...

I think Cantor will have to watch his back from the angry demonstration from the La Raza group that were still making demands of him.

And cashing in is disgraceful: if he made that money on the backs of his constituents who he disregarded for non-citizens and payouts but the establishment RINOs, those future earnings are tainted.

My husband who turned a LINO (liberal in name only), that is me, came into the kitchen where I was cooking and happily proclaimed he has gotten the best news in a long time:that Cantor was defeated.

On of the reasons, he hates Cantor is because Cantor is Jewish. My husband is a Jewish conservative and is so angry at what left leaning Jews have done to our country. It’s a personal thing... And now he can relax and watch the basketball game that was DVRed.

Thank-you for trying to let me see Cantor’s human side and the complexities of life and love and how we are flawed creatures. We can hope that our political leaders are leaders and take the high road. That is something to pray on.

I think Brat had a winning strategy:

He praised God for the miracle of his win.
He used free market principles to discuss first principles.
He referred to the framers and founders as men of philosophy and that policy was informed by that, and not politics.
He dismissed the slogans of the republicans in Washington, who promised a “better life,” because he does not want DC to be in charge of any aspect of one’s life.
He appealed to Mark Levin. And I am always 100% with Levin and his constitutional purity.

Amen.

I am sorry as an Arizonan we brought back McCain. I really am ashamed. Our junior senator is no prize either. A fake conservative when he ran, a stinking coward now.

If I didn’t feel I know Cantor somewhat and didn’t know that he genuinely fought for conservative causes in the past I wouldn’t feel a bit bittersweet about his loss. I don’t think he is a liberal at heart but I believe he has consciously decided to surrender as I believe many in the GOP leadership. Boehner was also a fighter in his day but sadly power once obtained almost always becomes about protecting its advantage rather than doing what achieved the advantage in the first place. It doesn’t matter if it is politics or business or some lame chat room.

Our founders tried to give us a system built to counter human nature and the desire to accumulate and amass power but our system is dependent on the citizen holding their elected leaders accountable not idolizing them or placing loyalty to party over all else.

I agree. I’d like to see more of a high road in the sense of not clinging to power and we should pray for all our leaders and for each other.

All politicians should remember that they are not higher than the sacred document of our constitution. That is why swear to uphold it. This is not a matter of personalities or personal trajectories. This is for the well-being, nay, the survival of our beloved country. I supported McCain in his presidential run. So I know how you feel about this being bittersweet. I wish someone could just escort MCCain off the national stage, thank him for his service, and then do meet and greets for old time sakes, and join Johnny Boehner on the bar stool, where now nothing will take time from his drinking.

“We need them to leave...one way or the other. I prefer to have them self-deport by closing off the goodies. But the ones that still stick around - send out the buses.”

Having lived in southern California for a long time now I know and have known many illegals. I like some of them, but illegal immigration has been a disaster for California and will be a disaster for the entire United States if it is not reversed now. And that means deportation.

A lot of these people are here because they think we are not serious about foreign nationals moving here at will. They know ‘we’ are not serious because we elect fools like Dubya and Obama who subvert our laws and try to reward illegals for breaking them.

All it would take to reverse this process and get many, many illegals to return to their countries is just to start enforcing the law. People will see this and start returning on their own. Those who choose not to will get a bus ride.

The biggest obstacle to this is the army of sob sisters who feel sorry for the poor illegals but who have not the slightest concern for the destruction of our way of life for Americans who are swamped in this flood from the third world. Nothing could be a purer example of this than that fool Jeb Bush bleating that breaking into America illegally is ‘an act of love’. Makes you wonder if that ass knows the difference between an act of love and rape.

I’m with you. I’m sure there are plenty of good illegals...but if you don’t enforce laws, you don’t have a country.

Once (and if) we pull away the MAGNET that brings them here and keeps them here (i.e., American goodies)...they will be bored stiff and likely head home. If not, we can still give them a hand in getting back there.

Agreed: I’ve been saying since the botched implementation last year that Obamacare MUST be the issue Republicans run on. And that any movement forward on immigration reform would be a disaster.

However, I also know that there’s a good track record of Dems employing the “nutcase Tea Party extremist” labeling to win elections. Mourdock and Akin in IN and MO last cycle, O’Donnell and Angle in DE and NV before that. So the concern at least is legit.

“However, I also know that there’s a good track record of Dems employing the “nutcase Tea Party extremist” labeling to win elections. So the concern at least is legit.”

Yea, we had some real winners last time. This bunch seem better. Brat himself, who may be the face of the campaign, seems totally up to the task. Hopefully he just stays cool and doesn’t go off into lala land.

I hate to be a downer, but when the victory celebration is over and we are done exchanging high-fives, we might want to get right back to work doing whatever we can, wherever we can whenever we can.

I don’t care if each & every Tea-Party candidate won every contest across the nation, I think it would be a huge mistake to presume the GOPe is going to lay down and quit, or even cower, because of it. The establishment politi-sluts have no shame, integrity or morals when it comes to clinging to power. Look how much cash Cantor flushed down the drain trying to beat a (ahem) “nobody”?

It’s a great victory, no doubt! But, I’m thinking the GOPe may react like a cornered dangerous animal getting poked with a stick. They hire hoards of “consultants” to sit around all day thinking of clever crap to pull in both campaigns & legislation. Who knows what they can, or already have, come up with?

They’ve been stung pretty good by Cantor’s defeat, but they ain’t out of the fight. I hope and pray we can start stringing together more and more conservative wins and get some decent committee seats too. Don’t quit until there’s no other RINOs left to fight.

“They’ve been stung pretty good by Cantor’s defeat, but they ain’t out of the fight.”

Certainly concur...you’ll note that my only points were about Amnesty...and then only stopping it now. We HAD TO WIN that battle yesterday. Much more lies ahead - maybe they try again to push it, but there are some REALLY SCARED Republicans now that will think much harder.

But next year...this will be forgotten and The Establishment will again get to work. Hopefully we have more conservatives and, at least, can get some real enforcement started before talking about legalization. I expect that to be the case.

No reason to be in fear, but plenty of reason to be on-guard. Also no reason to underestimate the significance - the idea of millions of dollars and leadership protecting you is now THROWN OUT THE WINDOW, so even if others want to try this crap, they will have to think very hard - and they will.

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