Posted on 06/15/2014 2:13:26 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
That's how many people it took to bring down House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, doom immigration reform and leave all but the most tea-sodden Republicans quaking.
No, it wasn't the Democrats who did it. Various complicated analyses of voting patterns confirm what anyone who has ever tried to convince even their own mother to vote "strategically" knows: Voters don't work that way. They may cast their vote to send a message — that happens all the time — but not to execute a strategy that depends on their voting for someone they don't like at all so that someone else they don't like at all won't win.
And it wasn't "low" turnout that did Cantor in, at least compared to normal turnout. No, more people voted in the Republican primary in 2014 than in 2012 — almost 20,000 more. So in 2014, you had just over 65,000 people who voted — and 7,212 more of them voted for a little-known professor over a well-known politician. If half of those people plus one had gone the other way — 3,607 in all — Cantor would have gotten a scare. Another thousand, and no one would be paying attention.
And then there's this: More than 86 percent of the people who were eligible to vote in the primary didn't.
So what you have are a few thousand folks who were clearly angry with their longtime congressman. They obviously weren't thinking about the fact that you're a lot better off, practically speaking, being represented by one of the most powerful people in the House than by a freshman. Nor were they crediting Cantor for all the times he has carried the tea party's water, as it were, playing chicken with the national economy and threatening to take the country over the fiscal cliff.
They didn't give him credit for personally blocking a vote to allow those who serve this country in the military to be eligible for papers.
Have I mentioned that Cantor is not a moderate?
This is what has Washington insiders quaking. If this could happen to Cantor, will anyone dare stand up to the tea party?
In fact, this is the first big tea party win of the season. Up until now, the Romney/Bush-backed candidates had been doing just fine, and the establishment was almost beginning to breathe a sigh of relief. But Cantor is (was) a big deal, and that's why the chances of the current House ever voting on any version of immigration reform just collapsed.
Explain that to one of those kids who was brought to this country as a child, grew up here and didn't even know they were "different" from their sisters or brothers who were born here until it came time to apply to college.
How dare Cantor even suggest — because that's all he really did — that we should be able to come up with some way to offer these young people a path to citizenship?
But I don't blame the tea party for killing immigration reform. They voted — all 36,110 of them — which gave David Brat his 7,212-vote edge. But if 7,213 more people had voted... Or if more than 3,606 of those who did had changed their minds...
It's trite to say one vote makes a difference or every vote counts, because this election wasn't even close. But it was tiny, because most of the people who could have voted and might have changed its outcome didn't bother. You can't blame the people who play politics for winning. But in general elections, the numbers tend to play differently, and as the number of Hispanic voters keeps growing, it's likely that the views of a few thousand voters in Virginia could cost Republicans many, many times that number of votes nationally.
But it was tiny, because most of the people who could have voted and might have changed its outcome didn’t bother. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now that is spin , big time.
The fact is that America is bent on rejecting Obama’s liberal fascism rule by executive order. There are now very few moderate voters in the electorate, who traditionally may not show up. It is these former moderates who ARE voting, and they are voting for conservative policy.
And BRAT had negligiable tea party support. He actually did it on his own.He just happens to be conservative.
Hispanic voters aren’t mind-numbed robots and they do no vote as a single block.
People whose family has been here for decades are no more pleased by the huge influx of foreigners from south of the border that other citizens. Particularly as many of the newcomers have a “viva yo” attitude, or “long live me” to translate, which implies to Hell with everyone else.
I am not opposed to immigration nor to immigrants. What I am opposed to is allowing millions of immigrants from one particular place without a reason other than they want to come here.
We do occasionally allow that when a group is being purposefully targeted for extermination, such as in Somalia. But it hasn’t been done for whites in South Africa who are being murdered at a large rate and I sense a definite racist attitude on the part of this administration.
The number of people allowed to annually immigrate should be 200,000, period. The only exceptions should be for a population targeted for genocide.
Wonder what the reaction will be when 3,606 Americans take up arms and start shooting the traitors.
This is a typical line: “Why should so few people have such an effect on so many people?”
A few responses:
1) Who knows if more people turning out would have helped Cantor? I suspect not...and we will never know.
2) INTENSITY on an issue is just as important as POSITION on an issue. Any Republican that has tried to side with Democrats on Gun Control learned that fact long ago. Intensity brings out voters, intensity also flips voters. What the Republicans in Washington learned last week is that Amnesty is not the same as bringing home a “water project”, and going against the base on Amnesty, especially now, is at least as risky as going against them on gun control. So all of their gay pollsters (and they’re always gay) can tell them Amnesty won’t hurt them, but they just saw a giant get felled.
3) Finally, the Republicans Reps need to understand that their job is to represent THEIR VOTERS on issues, like Amnesty. There are plenty of Democrats willing to sell out the country on the issue - there is no need to join them.
I like all kinds of hand wringing, and this column is no exception.
“Have I mentioned that Cantor is not a moderate?”
And, to Susan Estrich, I’m sure that is true; given her hard left stand on most things. She characterizes anything to the right of her as ‘not moderate’.
Just sayin’... Consider the source. And, I still can’t stand to listen to her voice.
Without evidence, this author is taking a leap making that assumption. I'm inclined to believe that more people voting would have still resulted in the same outcome.
Brat had a winning message and he delivered it tirelessly to whomever would listen. He couldn't even get the national Tea Party to return his phone calls.
Cantor lost because he is an arrogant prick that has the mindset that he was entitled to that job. He quickly forgot that he was voted to represent the people of a state.
He’s not a moderate. Frankly, if he had been some freshman house member, he would not have been targeted. His problem wasn’t his overall record, it was his being in a powerful position and constantly doing and saying things that scared conservatives.
From my reading of the vote, the goal here isn’t about whether you can get a better conservative voting record for the 7th district. Frankly, Brat looks great, but he’s never voted before, so nobody really knows what will happen when he actually sits in that office and gets lobbied by the entrenched interests.
The goal here is to put a more proven conservative mover into the majority speaker role. And to send the message not to mess with immigration.
I think it is reasonable to suggest that if you managed to drag another 20,000 voters out who cared so little that they didn’t vote, they probably would have voted for Cantor, because you tend to vote for a name you recognize, and for the person who already knows how to do the job.
The point of making voting at least slightly difficult is to ensure that we get votes out of people who actually CARE about things enough to think twice. That is why I am very opposed to making voting easier.
“They obviously weren’t thinking about the fact that you’re a lot better off, practically speaking, being represented by one of the most powerful people in the House than by a freshman.”
That is what we call a completely bogus assertion. Would you say that if Nancy Pelosi were your Congresscritter in the previous Congress? Just to pick an extreme case.
Hello??
It’s I M M I G R A T I O N.
Dumbass.
You miss an important point. To a leftist like Estrich, “moderate” means “a leftist who is trying to pass, and to convince the American public that he isn’t one of us.” In those terms, she’s probably right. By any objective standard, Cantor is “moderate,” in that he doesn’t appear to stand for any principles at all other than the accrual of personal power.
"People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people."
( V for Vendetta )
The sad fact is, America can’t really do any thing about executive orders other than try to get immediate injunction.
The tyrant, the treacherous tyrant, rules!
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