There was an interesting column by John Dean (yes, that John Dean of Watergate fame) following Rep. Eric Cantor’s surprise loss in the Virginia congressional primary (“Was It Really a Tea Party Election Upset of House GOP Leader Eric Cantor?“).
Dean rejects the “Cantor lost due to low voter turnout” argument. This is the idea that low turnout gave the conservative fringe a greater proportion of primary voters.
Dean’s answer: Yes, only 17% of eligible voters–65,008–cast ballots in the primary. But that was 17,971 more voters than showed up in 2012. From that perspective, it was a larger turnout.
Dean then says he was told sometime “last fall” that Virginia Democrats were going to take advantage of the state’s open primary system to cross over party lines and vote for Cantor’s opponent.
Based on his view that crossover Dems could have made the difference in Cantor’s defeat, Dean calls into question the interpretation that the election was a big victory for the Tea Party. He notes, for example, that national Tea Party organizations provided “zero support” for Cantor’s opponent.
Despite this, the perception remains that Cantor’s defeat is a “lesson” that the GOP has to “accommodate the Tea Party fringe,” in Dean’s words.
Here’s how Dean sees the future if the Tea Party gains more power. It’s not a pleasant vision for Republicans.
Viewing the defeat of Eric Cantor, a candidate with all the charisma of a wire brush who became conspicuously more interested in becoming Speaker of the House than tending to his otherwise safe congressional seat, as the victim of a right-wing coup has certainly reinvigorated the Tea Party activists. To get their way, rest assured they will soon be busy further fracturing the already battered Republican Party. They will first test their strength it the coming contest to replace Cantor within the House GOP leadership. Then they will call for closing down government, refusing to raise the debt limit, fighting to block a new and much needed immigration reform, and on and on—another fifty votes to repeal Obamacare.
Eventually what happened in California will happen nationally, but will take a long time. In California, where gerrymandering and other voting ploys gave the Tea Party-dominated Republicans power, they blocked Democrats from governing until voters had enough and removed the GOP from all statewide power.
In any case, Dean’s column is a good, instructive, short read.
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Whatever the role of the Dems in Cantor’s defeat, David Brat appears to be an anti-corporate libertarian who shares many of the major concerns of the general public, NOT the views of the “Tea Party” people in Congress. Of course his win is being hyped to claim that people want Congress to be even more conservative , but if he gets to Congress, he would apparently be opposed to much of what the tea party wants (but, of course, some of what we would want too!).
I see Cantors defeat as one less Zionist in Congress which is good for the country!
Patty – that sounds a tad racist to me… seriously. I know these comments are old, but it bothered me the day you posted it & it bothers me now, so yeah – I’m speaking up.
The “Us vs. Them” polarizations are troubling indeed whether it shows itself as D vs R or kamaaina vs haole, haves vs. have-nots, etc.
I’m glad you are speaking up, aikea808.
There are others out there who are doing the same among their own audiences.
See “resolution: find more dimensions” by Human Transit (http://www.humantransit.org/2014/01/resolution-find-more-dimensions.html).
“Polarization is both claustrophobic and deafening. …Critical thinking, the kind that makes us smarter, is multi-dimensional. It may try on a binarism, see how it works, even advocate it as practically useful for certain purposes. But it knows how to consider other binarisms, try them on, and it knows that they’re all approximations of what really matters.”
“…until voters had enough…” Until we voters have had it and vote the bums out of office… I just heard the same idea last night at the candidates forum put on last night by Neighborhood Board 35. A question to U.S. Rep. CD1 candidates: What will you do to get Congress working again? (something to that effect). While some talked about their skills in working with everyone, one candidate said (just what Dean said) that it would be up to the VOTERS to do something about the do nothing Congress. That was Kathryn Xian. It was a breath of fresh air that N.B.35 invited all candidates in our district to participate and that those without campaign war chests could be heard by the voters.
btw, I got a chance to ask Councilmember Ernie Martin why he needed to have $4000/head fundraiser (read it in Ian Lind’s blog) when he’s only being challenged by 2 unknowns. He bristled and said he “may have had” some $4000 donations, he didn’t really know. I told him roads in Mililani used to be repaved every election year — except for 2012 and were only being repaved now, after 4 years — why? Martin said the city did not have enough money! His challenger Dan Hara, a financial analyst by profession, said he was running because he was worried about the city’s bond debt and the amount of interest on the debt… IS Honolulu headed for financial disaster? Martin admitted “not enough money” to fix roads for 4 years — and what about the sewers…?
The Daily Kos offers what I think is a more comprehensive analysis of explaining Cantor’s defeat.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/11/1306241/-Immigration-Democrats-redistricting-None-of-those-caused-Eric-Cantor-s-loss#
How could a sitting Majority Leader (seemingly on his way to eventually becoming House Speaker) suddenly have the rug pulled out from under him in a primary? National pundits have thrown out their theories; the growing tide of the Tea Party movement, Dems crossing over to the GOP primary in sufficient numbers to effect the outcome, the hot button issue of immigration reform. The debate over which of these factors was most responsible for the upset seems to be what everyone is focused on.
But David Jarman took a long hard look at Eric Cantor himself. And in doing so, he picks up on a lot of things that the national talking heads have totally overlooked. Fact is,… Cantor’s support in his home district had gradually been declining over the years. From a high water mark of receiving 75% of the general election vote in 2004, his numbers have consistently been going down in every election since. In ’12, his support had fallen to 58%. So even as Cantor’s national profile was growing, his voter base at home was steadily eroding. Eventually, it was going to catch up to him. Not many people predicted it was going to happen this year, but sometimes, voter disenchantment can snowball in a hurry. As Jarman quotes a blogger,
“Cantor and his staff both lost the trust of conservatives and constituents. They broke promises, made bad deals, and left many feeling very, very betrayed. Much of it was because of Cantor’s hubris and the arrogance of his top staffers. He could not be touched and he could not be defeated. He knew it and they knew it. He kept his attention off his district, constituents, and conservatives while he and his staff plotted to get the Speaker’s chair.”
Thanks, Alan. I was busy writing my comment when you posted yours. Had I seen yours first, I would not have bothered with mine, as yours was a much more elegant submission. Thanks!
I have great respect for John Dean’s clear-sighted and fearless analysis of politics. And I appreciate his effort to deflate the “lesson” of the Cantor defeat as one which would increase the power of the Tea Party to blackmail more moderate Republicans.
I disagree Brat did not receive significant support from the Tea Party. He is labelled a “college professor” in economics. Few stories say the seat he occupies in that college was created by the Koch brothers to promote “free market” views on economics. It should also be noted Brat had received a lot of national promotion by rightwing TV a radio figures who have received large payments from conservative business groups to provide favorable coverage for their favored candidates. These same talking heads had been criticizing Cantor for a long time, working to make him vulnerable to a challenge from the Right. I question how useful a definition of “Tea Party” would be which would exclude their vast media network.
I caution against over-correcting and buying into the notion there was significant Democratic crossover in the race. There is little evidence of that actually happening.
One advantage of the Daily Kos as a forum for discussing political events in the various states is that it has readers who live in every congressional district and who are active in Democratic politics, while remaining independent and frank. Those who live in the affected district say they do not know Democrats who crossed over.
I suspect there were multiple factors which caused voters to reject him. A big part of that does reflect the conflict between the more “populist” Tea Party movement and the more “country club” Republican establishment. Trying to avoid violating “Godwin’s Law,” may I suggest the fact IG Farben and Krups gave money to Hitler did not mean they controlled the Nazis? The corporate agenda and the more populist “Tea Party” agenda overlap and are in an alliance. The TP activists are being played by Big Money, using libertarian language and a reactionary interpretation of American history to serve as their pawns in the battle against government policies which interfere with their profits. But the corporations are also vulnerable to authentic populist concerns against Wall Street bankers and investment firms. The “socialist” component of Nazi ideology, was an attempt to reconcile these two tensions by subordinating them to an appeal to extreme nationalism and anti-semitism. The worry about “the bankers” was re-directed against “the Jews.”
This also happened with the populist movement in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century.
And finally, Cantor had trouble because he is obviously, to all with eyes, regardless of ideology, an arrogant, self-serving prick. There were a lot of reasons for people to vote against him. Let’s try to “draw lessons” from his defeat. But take care we do not impose interpretations on the data which reflect our own hopes rather than those of the voters in his district.
Kolea said: “And finally, Cantor had trouble because he is obviously, to all with eyes, regardless of ideology, an arrogant, self-serving prick.”
That sounds uncannily close to at least one of our local political situations. 🙂
I have a conservative friend in Cantor’s district who voted for Brat. He doesn’t have a clear idea of what Brat stands for, but he and his conservative friends were fed up with Cantor’s flip-floppery and whining arrogance. In particular, they cited the government shutdown that Cantor instigated and then claimed to haver no part of.
Yay, hopefully (and maybe with more people paying attention, perhaps thru social media?) we’ll get more people in office (regardless of party affiliation) who enable our gov’t to do stuff, like pass laws and approve budgets and so on and so forth.