That would be such a huge gamble (and possibly mistake) in November though. I'd love to see if there was any grassroots and/or online effort to get Ds to turn out and vote for Brat in droves. I kinda doubt that because Ds have a hard enough time turning out Ds to vote for Ds...
But perhaps people really were that fed up with Cantor? I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know either... possibly far fetched, but at the same time, I think it's happened in the past where the opposing party has influenced the primary with hopes of winning the general.
I'm not sure the total numbers in the district and overall turnout either - to the point if it was a small enough campaign to do so, you could get enough people out. Primaries tend to be kind of weird, in general, though, and so dependent upon whether there are other primaries/races, too.
I'm not convinced this is what happened, but it's not impossible either. That link said Cantor's internal polling had him at a 34% lead among Rs, so who knows. Not sure how accurate his internal polling is.
Not long after the 2008 election, after his party had promoted him to minority whip, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor summoned a few colleagues to his condo. The topic: How Republicans could take back Congress, as soon as possible.
“We’re not here to cut deals and get crumbs and stay in the minority for another 40 years,” he told them, according to some later reporting by Time’s Michael Grunwald. “We’re going to fight these guys. We’re down, but things are going to change.” The party would deny President Obama any bipartisan cover on his policies, and then it would beat him.
Cantor’s plan worked better than anyone dared to predict it would. He whipped every single Republican against the Democrats’ stimulus bill; his staff celebrated by sending out a video of Aerosmith playing “Back in the Saddle.” In April 2009, when he mused publicly that Republicans “could take back the majority in 2010,” election handicapper Stu Rothenberg chortled that “the chance of Republicans winning control of either chamber in the 2010 midterm elections is zero.”
Tonight, Cantor surprised the handicappers again. Just days before his June 10 primary the leader’s campaign shared polling that had him up by 34 points on conservative challenger David Brat. The challenger was “expected to fall far short,” reported the Washington Post, and “the question in this race is how large Cantor’s margin of victory will be.”
Wrong again, and wrong for a whole new reason. In the short time between Cantor’s rise to the leadership and his humiliating defeat—the first primary thumping of a majority leader ever, since the position was created in 1899—the conservative movement’s rumbling populism got the better of its alleged maestro.
Republicans, none of whom are old enough to remember 1899 clearly, are lost for explanations. According to some, the leader was undone by bad staff work. He’d become too regal, too inaccessible in the district that kept re-electing him by rote. He was unresponsive to the Tea Party, when he used to be their guy in the leadership—their bulwark against the recidivist sellout John Boehner. At the start of this Congress, hadn’t right-wing Florida Rep. Ted Yoho signaled his independence from Boehner by voting for Cantor to replace him as speaker?
Yes, he had, with good reason. From the stimulus vote on through the 2011 debt limit fight, Cantor was the Tea Whisperer, the “wonk,” the “young gun” who wanted the party to run on ideas. He’d remind conservatives that he was elected in James Madison’s old House seat—you know, James Madison, author of the Constitution. “Madison argued that electoral accountability was one of the bulwarks against tyranny embedded in our constitutional structure,” he wrote in National Review in 2010. “The tea-party movement is appropriately vowing to hold elected representatives to account.”
Cantor failed to realize that the populists were still demanding total opposition, whether it worked or not.
In power, at least through 2011, Cantor scouted for openings that conservatives could jump through. He acceded to their demand that the first continuing resolution—the money to fund the government, in lieu of an actual appropriations bill—defunded the Affordable Care Act. (Senate Democrats reversed this.) It was Cantor, more than any other Republican with clout, who protected his conference from having to vote on a debt limit-raising deal that would have raised taxes.
But conservatives didn’t win those battles. They didn’t win in 2012—which was sort of the point of punting the hardest choices past 2011 and past the election. Some of the conservatives who lost in 2012 linked up with the conservative counter-establishment—Republicans like Allen West, who’d attacked Cantor for giving the House a light work schedule, and Joe Walsh, who’d voted against every eventual GOP-Obama compromise backed by Cantor. “Conservatives in the caucus have never trusted him and don’t like him,” Walsh told me.
In 2013, Cantor and the counter-establishment flew apart. Less than a month after Obama’s second inauguration, Cantor debuted a vision for a new GOP that would “make life work.” What if the GOP incentivized people to buy better health care and seek more useful college degrees? What if it went a little easier on immigrants? “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,” Cantor said at a February 2013 speech at the American Enterprise Institute. He pushed through school choice bills (The Student Success Act), and helped amend the farm bill to add more work requirements for food-stamp recipients.
None of this was “liberal,” per se. It just wasn’t what the conservative base had asked for, campaigned for, voted for. It was the agenda of the establishment, simpatico with the Chamber of Commerce. The business community had been there to elect Republicans in 2010 (and with less success in 2012), but in 2013 it was asking for Republicans to pass some sort of immigration reform and avoid a government shutdown. Cantor went with Democrats on a three-day tour to boost reform; he sought out a number of ways to avoid a shutdown, including a failed gambit to split the “defund Obamacare” vote from a separate appropriations vote.
Conservatives came to view Cantor as at best unreliable, at worst an outright enemy. Brat entered the race against him in January 2014, with no obvious support beyond what he could get from talk-radio personalities. Ann Coulter endorsed him, as did Mark Levin (author of a book that argues for a new constitutional convention to enforce conservatism), as did Laura Ingraham.
Cantor had no idea how to fight back. The national press (led by the Washington Post’s Robert Costa) finally cottoned on to his problems in May, after local activists in Cantor’s district beat his choice for a party leadership role. The video of that meeting, shared widely on conservative sites, revealed a party leader struggling to understand what his constituents wanted from him.
“It is easy to sit in the rarefied environs of academia, in the ivory towers of a college campus, with no accountability and no consequence,” said Cantor, sniping at Brat.
The crowd erupted with jeers.
“You throw stones at those of us who are working every day to make a difference,” said Cantor. “It’s easy to say you are going to stand up to Obama and the left-wing attack machine. But it is an entirely different thing to actually do it, to stand up and be counted.”
That got some cheers, but a voice rang out louder than all that: A man yelling, “Then let’s see you do it!”
Cantor, helplessly, tried to tell the truth. “After Obama was elected, I stood up and I led the fight in opposition to Obamacare,” he said. “I personally went to the White House. I confronted Obama in person and held up a printed copy of the 2,000 pages of Obamacare and asked him to defend it. And he couldn’t.”
It sounded fine, until Cantor turned to his attack line: “My opponent was MIA, missing in action on Obamacare.” The crowd booed loudly, and booed some more when Cantor attacked Brat for taking a job on an advisory board created by Virginia’s Democratic governor.
“Wait a minute!” said Cantor, desperately. “Here’s the point. The point is, another individual in his position chose to remove himself from the board when a governor sought to increase taxes.”
This was incoherent. Was the lesson that conservatives should quit to make a statement or that they should stick around and fight? What did any of this have to do with the agenda Cantor was pursuing in Congress? The meaning of “fighting back” had changed, and Cantor couldn’t change with it. He’d helped the party claw back power with a strategy of total opposition. The populists and the business groups went along with that. When they split, Cantor failed to realize that the populists were still demanding total opposition, whether it worked or not, however it polled.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jun 11, 2014 11:32:59 GMT -5
Before we go further, I would just like to say thank you to Eric Cantor for giving us solid political news to discuss again! This board has been pretty slow with the topical stuff lately. Keep it coming, Washington.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jun 11, 2014 11:34:06 GMT -5
It is amazing to me what the poll numbers were saying just days before the primary. Must be voter fraud! J/k, but it does make me wonder if something is amiss. *dons tinfoil hat*
Before we go further, I would just like to say thank you to Eric Cantor for giving us solid political news to discuss again! This board has been pretty slow with the topical stuff lately. Keep it coming, Washington.
I posted in a political thread! You're welcome, Obama!
It is amazing to me what the poll numbers were saying just days before the primary. Must be voter fraud! J/k, but it does make me wonder if something is a amiss. *dons tinfoil hat*
Eh, you never know how good of a poll it was. Maybe they didn't account of likely voters? Who knows.
It is amazing to me what the poll numbers were saying just days before the primary. Must be voter fraud! J/k, but it does make me wonder if something is a amiss. *dons tinfoil hat*
That would be such a huge gamble (and possibly mistake) in November though. I'd love to see if there was any grassroots and/or online effort to get Ds to turn out and vote for Brat in droves. I kinda doubt that because Ds have a hard enough time turning out Ds to vote for Ds...
But perhaps people really were that fed up with Cantor? I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know either... possibly far fetched, but at the same time, I think it's happened in the past where the opposing party has influenced the primary with hopes of winning the general.
I'm not sure the total numbers in the district and overall turnout either - to the point if it was a small enough campaign to do so, you could get enough people out. Primaries tend to be kind of weird, in general, though, and so dependent upon whether there are other primaries/races, too.
I'm not convinced this is what happened, but it's not impossible either. That link said Cantor's internal polling had him at a 34% lead among Rs, so who knows. Not sure how accurate his internal polling is.
I know the total numbers in the district! The district is 2:1, GOP to Dem. I really don't think the dems were pushing dems out to vote. Largely becuase I am sure I would have heard about it lol.
I said it above, but I don't think his polling was likely accurate. There is a lot of bad polling out there. I also think he probably ran a crap campaign because he assumed he was safe.
ETA: VA doesn't have party registration, so it will be hard to know how the turnout brokedown immediatelly. I can check numbers soon for likely dems/repubs though if anyone is curious.
Yeah, I don't know either... possibly far fetched, but at the same time, I think it's happened in the past where the opposing party has influenced the primary with hopes of winning the general.
I'm not sure the total numbers in the district and overall turnout either - to the point if it was a small enough campaign to do so, you could get enough people out. Primaries tend to be kind of weird, in general, though, and so dependent upon whether there are other primaries/races, too.
I'm not convinced this is what happened, but it's not impossible either. That link said Cantor's internal polling had him at a 34% lead among Rs, so who knows. Not sure how accurate his internal polling is.
I know the total numbers in the district! The district is 2:1, GOP to Dem. I really don't think the dems were pushing dems out to vote. Largely becuase I am sure I would have heard about it lol.
I said it above, but I don't think his polling was likely accurate. There is a lot of bad polling out there. I also think he probably ran a crap campaign because he assumed he was safe.
ETA: VA doesn't have party registration, so it will be hard to know how the turnout brokedown immediatelly. I can check numbers soon for likely dems/repubs though if anyone is curious.
Well the article TTT posted certainly made it sound like his campaign was kind of a mess or at least his message was all over the place.
I don't know; I'm torn on this whole anti compromise thing the more I think about it. It seems like there was more sentiment for compromise post-shutdown and it just seems odd that that would be a reason someone won or to vote for someone after the past year. But I think primaries tend to draw out people who are really angry/passionate for whatever reason, and turnout is usually pretty low, right?
I know the total numbers in the district! The district is 2:1, GOP to Dem. I really don't think the dems were pushing dems out to vote. Largely becuase I am sure I would have heard about it lol.
I said it above, but I don't think his polling was likely accurate. There is a lot of bad polling out there. I also think he probably ran a crap campaign because he assumed he was safe.
ETA: VA doesn't have party registration, so it will be hard to know how the turnout brokedown immediatelly. I can check numbers soon for likely dems/repubs though if anyone is curious.
Well the article TTT posted certainly made it sound like his campaign was kind of a mess or at least his message was all over the place.
I don't know; I'm torn on this whole anti compromise thing the more I think about it. It seems like there was more sentiment for compromise post-shutdown and it just seems odd that that would be a reason someone won or to vote for someone after the past year. But I think primaries tend to draw out people who are really angry/passionate for whatever reason, and turnout is usually pretty low, right?
I don't know how it was in VA, but here in AR there was a very vocal (seemingly majority) of Rs that were all "shut it down! Don't compromise anything!" They cheered the shutdown and still view it as a success. (I don't understand that logic at all.) I personally know Rs who thought it was ridiculous, but they aren't the ones making noise here. The Tea Party is running the show.
Well the article TTT posted certainly made it sound like his campaign was kind of a mess or at least his message was all over the place.
I don't know; I'm torn on this whole anti compromise thing the more I think about it. It seems like there was more sentiment for compromise post-shutdown and it just seems odd that that would be a reason someone won or to vote for someone after the past year. But I think primaries tend to draw out people who are really angry/passionate for whatever reason, and turnout is usually pretty low, right?
I don't know how it was in VA, but here in AR there was a very vocal (seemingly majority) of Rs that were all "shut it down! Don't compromise anything!" They cheered the shutdown and still view it as a success. (I don't understand that logic at all.) I personally know Rs who thought it was ridiculous, but they aren't the ones making noise here. The Tea Party is running the show.
Yeah, we have a lot of conservative folks here - Rs basically run the show. There seemed to be a lot of negativity about the shutdown though because it directly affected a lot of people in our area (Smoky Mountains closed during the high season, meaning lost revenue to local businesses plus the national lab employs a lot of people and they were under threat of shutdown/furlough).
The guy running in our primary against the R candidate does not seem to be Tea Party affiliated and I haven't seen anti-compromise stuff out of him, but he's pretty conservative. He came out strongly against the shutdown and said it showed a disconnect between citizens and the elected officials, but he also is touting this win by Brat since he was outspent 40-1 and seems anti-incumbent.
I know the total numbers in the district! The district is 2:1, GOP to Dem. I really don't think the dems were pushing dems out to vote. Largely becuase I am sure I would have heard about it lol.
I said it above, but I don't think his polling was likely accurate. There is a lot of bad polling out there. I also think he probably ran a crap campaign because he assumed he was safe.
ETA: VA doesn't have party registration, so it will be hard to know how the turnout brokedown immediatelly. I can check numbers soon for likely dems/repubs though if anyone is curious.
Well the article TTT posted certainly made it sound like his campaign was kind of a mess or at least his message was all over the place.
I don't know; I'm torn on this whole anti compromise thing the more I think about it. It seems like there was more sentiment for compromise post-shutdown and it just seems odd that that would be a reason someone won or to vote for someone after the past year. But I think primaries tend to draw out people who are really angry/passionate for whatever reason, and turnout is usually pretty low, right?
Yeah, primary turnout is low in general, but this primary had higher turnout. I assume people were angry over immigration.
Is there a way to figure out which candidates are endorsed by the Tea Party? Just curious, now that I've gone down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out if whether our R primary challenger is Tea Party affiliated. Do they state they are a Tea Party member?
I found this site, but have no idea about it's validity.
Interesting re: immigration - I have seen virtually nothing about that from any of our candidates. Our primary is in about 2 months so maybe we will, but I don't think any of our representatives have shown any support for Obama/immigration reform so maybe that's why.
Also, the challenger here seems to be harping a lot on the fact that the seat in our district has been held by a specific family for 50 years.
Finally, this area's history with regards to political allegiance is fascinating. It was a stronghold for the Union during the Civil War (against slavery for a few reasons) and remained Republican from Reconstruction to the 1950s even when the rest of the state was Democrat. Apparently the only Republicans from TN elected during that time were in this area. Huh.
Anecdote, but most tea partiers I know were THRILLED about the government shutdown. My mom's neighbor thought it was AWESOME, even though my mom is a federal employee who was not at work. There were huge signs over the Eastern Shore about how great it was, how great Ted Cruz was, and so on. And that's in freaking Maryland.
So yeah, I definitely think the shutdown hurt the Rs who tried to end it, at least from a tea party stance.
It looks like Brat won in the areas closer to Richmond? And Cantor won in the more rural areas? Am I looking at the maps right? The areas Cantor did better in appear to be closer to DC but it doesn't look like there is much there...or are they more NoVAish?
My understanding is that the polling that showed Cantor 34 points up was an internal poll commissioned by Cantor, not some independent poll.
There was an interesting series of articles in Slate called Victory Lab in 2012 that talked about how much further advanced left-leaning organizations are when it comes to polling and targeted voter outreach due to some efforts made after Kerry's loss in 2004. Those articles were particularly interesting when contrasted with what actually played in in the 2012 election where Mitt Romney's polling and some right-leaning polling groups (Unskewed Polls anyone?) showed Romney ahead. There was a smear campaign on the right mounted against Nate Silver and the so-called "liberal" polls he was relying heavily on. It was all the rage in certain circles. The National Review must have had several posts a day on its blog just taking shits all over what they saw to be biased, left wing polls.
The end result vindicating left-leaning polling (and Silver) showed just how far some people on the right's heads were up their own asses. The Cantor result tells me that at least among the establishment, their heads are still firmly lodged up there.
I suspect that Brat's victory had very little to do with ideas and compromise and Washington, and everything to do with the fact that Cantor depressed his own turnout by using shit polls, and Brat in turn got a boost from the anti-establishment crowd who were distrusted Cantor's polls as much as they distrusted Cantor himself.
Post by secretlyevil on Jun 11, 2014 13:01:15 GMT -5
I kind of find it odd a district in VA would care so much about illegal immigration. It just doesn't seem like it would be the issue that would make or break a candidate in that area. Now FL, or one of the border states, yes.
I kind of find it odd a district in VA would care so much about illegal immigration. It just doesn't seem like it would be the issue that would make or break a candidate in that area. Now FL, or one of the border states, yes.
This is also something I don't understand. It would be like my district choosing to oust a rep over coal. That's why I don't know if this is really about immigration.
I kind of find it odd a district in VA would care so much about illegal immigration. It just doesn't seem like it would be the issue that would make or break a candidate in that area. Now FL, or one of the border states, yes.
This is also something I don't understand. It would be like my district choosing to oust a rep over coal. That's why I don't know if this is really about immigration.
I buy into origami's post about it being more about Cantor neglecting his district in pursuit of the speakership.
BUT I still don't think that's a good excuse for nominating a xenophobe who thinks Cantor was weak on the debt ceiling deal. If you actually want to get things done in Congress, then find a state rep or hell, a member of the zoning commission, who had a track record of working with those with opposing views.
I kind of find it odd a district in VA would care so much about illegal immigration. It just doesn't seem like it would be the issue that would make or break a candidate in that area. Now FL, or one of the border states, yes.
Virginia has ever-increasing immigrant populations. No idea about VA-7 itself, but the state of VA itself? Immigration could absolutely be a hot-button issue for many people there.
Post by secretlyevil on Jun 11, 2014 13:13:41 GMT -5
I like the Dem conspiracy theory but...it seems a bit off, however, if the map is correct, the more urban areas were for Brat. There could be some truth to that. Rs just voting for the new guy simple because they saw Cantor as "weak" for {gasp} compromising seems to be the most plausible scenario.
Now, the Dems need to not screw it up and get the base, the moderate Rs and independents motivated to vote against this guy. If I were the strategist I would schedule several debates and then be stomping all over the district. IF money is the issue...go old school grass roots.