Eric Cantor loses primary

[seayakin]

Cantor didn't lose because he wasn't anti-tax or anti-government enough. He lost, besides the local poor campaign stuff, for being willing to work with Dems on any issue. The big one was immigration reform. Being willing to do the work of government and compromise is against the Tea Party ideals, whose stated goals have never been as important as the things they claim to deny.

Do you think he could have won if he had campaigned better in some way and still have even made these small compromise?

Uncompromising positions certainly is a defining attribute of the Tea Party.

 

[Unabogie]

I agree with you about gerrymandering. However, I am inclined to beleive Cantor could have one if in the last two years he spent more time in his district shaking hands and kissing babies doing the usual thing politicians do in their local district. I think of Lindsey Graham who successfully defended his seat is a better campaigner. I also really wonder still how much Laura Ingram and other talk show hosts who campaigned for Brat influenced the outcome.

And just to avoid any confusion and for the record, I strongly disagree with the Tea Party and conservative republicans but it does make for interesting analysis.

Big difference here: Graham is running a state-wide campaign. Cantor was defending a single district. Conservatives in the rich enclaves are not the same crazies as the Duck Dynasty wannabes. That's why Senators can fare better than congressmen.

 

[seayakin]

Big difference here: Graham is running a state-wide campaign. Cantor was defending a single district. Conservatives in the rich enclaves are not the same crazies as the Duck Dynasty wannabes. That's why Senators can fare better than congressmen.

Good point, for some reason it escaped me Graham was running a statewide campaign. The constituency is far different and much more diverse.

 

[Ziggurat]

Cantor didn't lose because he wasn't anti-tax or anti-government enough. He lost, besides the local poor campaign stuff, for being willing to work with Dems on any issue. The big one was immigration reform. Being willing to do the work of government and compromise is against the Tea Party ideals, whose stated goals have never been as important as the things they claim to deny.

That's a rather simplistic version of events. Cantor didn't just work with Democrats. He then proceeded to try to lie to his constituents about doing so. He staged a fake event where he got Gutierrez to claim that Cantor was standing in the way of immigration reform. Brat was able to deftly exploit the event (by showing up to it early) to not only point out that Cantor was cooperating with Democrats on immigration reform, he was trying to deceive is constituents about his true agenda. And as they say, the coverup is worse than the crime.

BTW, this upset is also an excellent demonstration that money is less important than commonly believed. Cantor outspent Brat by something like 40 to 1, plus he had the advantage of incumbency, and he still lost. You can't actually buy elections with advertising, no matter how much you spend.

 

[Ziggurat]

Big difference here: Graham is running a state-wide campaign. Cantor was defending a single district. Conservatives in the rich enclaves are not the same crazies as the Duck Dynasty wannabes. That's why Senators can fare better than congressmen.

Graham also ran a much better campaign than Cantor did. Cantor screwed up, big time. Don't discount the difference this can make.

 

[tyr_13]

Do you think he could have won if he had campaigned better in some way and still have even made these small compromise?

Uncompromising positions certainly is a defining attribute of the Tea Party.

I don't know. It would have been worth a shot.

That's a rather simplistic version of events. Cantor didn't just work with Democrats. He then proceeded to try to lie to his constituents about doing so. He staged a fake event where he got Gutierrez to claim that Cantor was standing in the way of immigration reform. Brat was able to deftly exploit the event (by showing up to it early) to not only point out that Cantor was cooperating with Democrats on immigration reform, he was trying to deceive is constituents about his true agenda. And as they say, the coverup is worse than the crime.

BTW, this upset is also an excellent demonstration that money is less important than commonly believed. Cantor outspent Brat by something like 40 to 1, plus he had the advantage of incumbency, and he still lost. You can't actually buy elections with advertising, no matter how much you spend.

I don't think the coverup was worse than the crime in this case, although it obviously didn't help and does speak to the hubris Cantor had regarding his constituents. Cantor was already taking a beating just from rumors he wanted to work on reform and he took more and more of a beating as it progressed. It doesn't surprise me that he tried to downplay his willingness to get anything done on that, but obviously the cover up was also stupid and hurt him in addition.

Brat didn't just run on Cantor covering up things, but that what was covered up was very, very bad. That willingness to work with Dems on any issue was a major blow to Cantor shouldn't be in question. How much is debatable of course.

 

[Polaris]

I'm with you on everything except this, unless you're going to hang your hat on the "some" qualifier. TPers generally want smaller government AND lower taxes. That's not austerity. In some sense, TEA stands for "Taxed Enough Already." The liberal posters here think that the Tea Party is some sort of racist, fascist movement, but I think of it as more libertarian. The anti-immigration stuff is not particularly libertarian, but put in context with a growing welfare state, I think the usual libertarian principle (e.g. open borders) here is impractical.

This statement would hold more water if they hadn't been going on about guns, abortion and God, etc., for the last few years.

Obama is imo a marxist.

A Corvette is imo a tractor-trailer.

 

[Peephole]

Glad to see him lose, but I guess he'll just get replaced by someone crazier, right?

 

[dudalb]

The GOPs whole line this election "Don't worry, folks,we have the crazies in the party under control" just went up the creek over the last week.
And that Brat won primarily on the Immigratation issue will scare off any action on immigrataion reform, which will alienate the Hispanic voters even more from the GOP.
GOP might well have some temporary sucess, but they have real,deep,problems and seem unable to fix them. And in the long run all the gerry mandering in the world will not help them.

 

[seayakin]

The GOPs whole line this election "Don't worry, folks,we have the crazies in the party under control" just went up the creek over the last week.
And that Brat won primarily on the Immigratation issue will scare off any action on immigrataion reform, which will alienate the Hispanic voters even more from the GOP.
GOP might well have some temporary sucess, but they have real,deep,problems and seem unable to fix them. And in the long run all the gerry mandering in the world will not help them.

Agreed with one caveat. I think the Democrats are probably equally guilty of Gerrymandering its just that after recent censuses, the Republicans had greater control in drawing up districts.

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

Agreed with one caveat. I think the Democrats are probably equally guilty of Gerrymandering its just that after recent censuses, the Republicans had greater control in drawing up districts.

Both have loved doing it, but it's gotten worse because the computer models that draw up the districts have gotten more sophisticated.

 

[seayakin]

Both have loved doing it, but it's gotten worse because the computer models that draw up the districts have gotten more sophisticated.

Interesting, makes sense and I never considered that.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... The liberal posters here think that the Tea Party is some sort of racist, fascist movement, but I think of it as more libertarian. The anti-immigration stuff is not particularly libertarian, but put in context with a growing welfare state, I think the usual libertarian principle (e.g. open borders) here is impractical.

This statement would hold more water if they hadn't been going on about guns, abortion and God, etc., for the last few years.

That statement would hold more water if anti-Tea Partiers could establish a positive correlation between racism and fascism, on the one hand, and "guns, abortion and God" on the other. The relation works against the Polaris assertion.

Racism and Guns, Abortion, and God
Here's Chief Justice Taney (Dred Scot versus Sandford):...

More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, ...
...
... and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.

Advocates in Congress for the Fourteenth Amendment raised as an argument for the Fourteenth Amendment the denial by post-Civil War Southern States of freedmens' Second Amendment rights.

It was racists who would disarm blacks.

According to this, blacks and Hispanics are more likely to attend church than are non-Hispanic whites.

How abortion statistics by race relate to the Tea Party is probably in the eye of the beholder.

Fascism and Guns, Abortion, and God
Here:

Modern Italian gun control laws date from the Fascist period; the Public Safety Act was passed in 1931 as one of a series of measures designed to put an end to leftist violence. Addressing the Italian Senate Benito Mussolini explained: "The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. ... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results."

According to this: ...

Mussolini’s father was an atheist, freethinker and anti-Papal and his mother a devout Catholic. ...
...
Before becoming the leader of Italy, he was outwardly critical of Catholicism and a vocal atheist, challenging riveted crowds to prove him wrong by asking their God to strike him down and saying things like "the history of saints is mainly the history of insane people".

Mussolini increased the penaliy for abortion.

Score: 4:1:1

 

[SezMe]

You're using Dred Scott and Mussolini to analyze the Cantor loss? Fascinating.

 

[lomiller]

The "elephant in the room" with lower tax and spending is that while it may be net expansionary due to what you mention it is also typically income-regressive (relative to no change), which is an issue many care about, apparently more on the left than the right of centre.

For the US I’d suggest the real elephant in the room is that no one is actually willing to cut the things most (90% +) of the money is spent on. Even if you made deep deep cuts to things that are not out of bounds you can’t cut very much because that 10% that is actually “in play” are things like the Department of Education, Department of Transportation, Department of Justice, etc

Occasionally you see some Republican spending less on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid but they inevitably promise not to actually cut anything, they just say they will spend less without cuts.

In US politics “Tax less spend less” ALWAYS translates into lower taxes without making any meaningful spending cuts whatsoever.

 

[Magyar]

The roots of the Tea Party were founded by people demanding fiscal responsibility and tax reforms, but the movement was quickly co-opted by the crazy, racist, misogynist hardliners that the "left" complains about.

.

The tea party was started by the Koch brothers to advance their anti govt anti regulation libertardian fantasy. The only people they really have to recruit to this retarded fantasy are the loons. And the reality is that if you're stupid enough to buy into the libertarian - we're all better off without govt safeguards and interference and no taxes of any kind for the rich, then you're guaranteed to buy into some other bat crap craziness - whether that's good old fashion Xian nuttery, racism, truther, birther or all of the above.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You're using Dred Scott and Mussolini to analyze the Cantor loss? Fascinating.

Polaris related "racism and fascism" to "guns, abortion, and God". I dispute the connection.

Chief Justice Taney's opinion in the Dred Scott case relates to equal treatment before the law (i.e., to racism). Mussolini relates to "fascism" (duh!).

 

[AlBell]

A marxist?

How so? Samples please, not platitudes.

PPACA is prime example as is 'You didn't build that' (paraphrased)


ps. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...ess-this-fall/ doesn't open for me.

 

[ehcks]

PPACA is prime example as is 'You didn't build that' (paraphrased)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_health_care_reform_in_the_United_States#1970s

Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY) introduced a bill to extend Medicare to all—retaining existing Medicare cost sharing and coverage limits—developed after consultation with Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY) and former Johnson administration HEW Secretary Wilbur Cohen.

That was the republican plan for health care reform from the 70s.

The ACA is the republican plan for health care reform from 2006, just expanded from Massachusetts to the entire country.

 

[AlBell]

The tea party was started by the Koch brothers to advance their anti govt anti regulation libertardian fantasy.
...

Got a cite that actually proves that?

There is no national Tea Party, only grassroots local groups.