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House Majority Leader Defeated In Primary
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in United States political history, the House Majority Leader has been defeated in his primary election. Long time Republican congressman and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated by 10 percentage points in the Virginia primary by Republican Tea Party challenger Dave Brat. This shocking defeat is likely to upset the political balance of power in the United States for years to come."
Allowing all citizens to vote no matter what their label is, isn't fair? Interesting.
The Tea Party may be taking all the credit for this, but the reality is is far more grim than any political insider is willing to admit: this has been the most unpopular Congress since the Do-Nothing Congress of 1947-49.
And if anyone paid attention to history, what happened then is what will happen this time, too. The incumbents are in the crosshairs.
I don't know the rules in Virginia, but can't he run as a third-party candidate in the general election, just like Lieberman did?
Really. The bottom line that I'm hearing locally is that Cantor was perceived to be arrogant and detached, uninterested in his voting constituents' viewpoints (hasn't had a Town-Hall meeting, for example, for several years). He was perceived as focused exclusively on his Leadership position, and not so much in his responsibilities as Representative of the people of his district. All this bovine excrement that you're hearing in the press about this or that red-meat issue is largely DC beltway perspective, which was Cantor's focus, and his problem anyway. It is important that Representatives are occasionally reminded who they are, and why they're in Congress, so I have no problem with what took place.
Correct. Allowing outsiders to inject themselves as spoilers into an internal race isn't fair.
The Koch brothers (and others), many out-of-state- Super-PACs and their advertising campaigns would beg to differ with your opinion.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The surge of people we're getting at the border right now are only showing up because they think they'll get amnesty. Its a related concept.
Really the sick thing is the whole immigration problem is driven by a shadow economy of cheap labor.
People say "oh I want these people to get US citizenship" but if they have it will they work for below minimum wage under currently illegal health standards with no insurance or legal rights?
Probably not. And the corporate interests that are pushing for amnesty are very strange in this regard as well because again if they actually get amnesty they're not going to show up for work. They're going to go get EBT cards and welfare because it pays better then those terrible jobs. Which is why most americans don't do those jobs. We're paid more to do nothing then we are to do that stuff.
By all means argue against the welfare state if that's what gets you going but the point is that the whole immigration issue is irrational.
Our society cannot survive open borders. We can't afford it. And if we did that all the cheap labor the companies think they're going to get would suddenly be gone because they'd just sit in subsidized apartments laughing about when they got up at 3 in the morning to go to work.
And that doesn't address how the whole thing depresses the wages of actual citizens or causes all sorts of other distortions of our economy.
The whole thing is sick.
The first thing that needs to happen is that hiring illegal immigrants needs to be something that is ACTUALLY illegal. As in few do it because you go to jail or suffer huge crippling fines.
Do that and most of the illegal immigration stops immediately without having to do anything at the border.
A really effective mean to police the thing would be to offer people a bounty for catching it. Say 10 to 50 percent of collected fines. So if you're fining companies 10 thousand dollars per illegal employee... and some of these operations employ thousands... you'll be looking at 10 thousand times thousands. Who wouldn't turn that in?
It would police itself. Sure, you'd get witch hunts and false positives etc. But I'm not saying you show up with SWAT teams either. Just a federal official with a camera, notebook, and badge. He goes in, sees what is going on, makes some notes, takes some pictures, and then goes back to the office to process the paper work. Nothing aggressive needed. You don't even go after the illegals directly. You go after their employers.
If they can't find work here they won't come. Just that simple.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This Congress actually did less than the do-nothing Congress. Least productive in US history.
Republican voting base has gone full bat shit, the party won't last much longer now.
The current GOP is worthless anyhow. No one on the right likes it: they don't serve a financially conservative agenda at all, the don't serve the socially conservative agenda beyond lip-service, and the anti-illegal-immigration feeling on the right is far stronger than the GOP seems to realize.
A new party is needed, as this one is done. If the so-con portion represents a new generation who not racist and rabidly anti-gay (eject the Boomer so-cons) then it has a future again. We'll see.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Not really... They are not going nuts...
What's going on is the Tea Party is apparently dragging the republican party to the right of center (politically). Some folks think that this is a good thing, some don't. But I don't think you can make the case that this is a symbol of the party self destructing or going crazy. What is going on though is the party is being forced to recognize that it's base is not happy with it's leadership and that the Tea Party's conservative message has at least some resonance with the base. From my perspective, it is a good thing when a party's leadership represents it's members.
Now, it remains to be seen if this movement to the right translates into more votes and more success in elections or not. I have my theories on that... But the most telling fact one needs to consider is how the other party and the talking heads reporting are becoming apathetic about this. Remember back in May when they declared the Tea Party dead? Now, when it's obvious they where wrong, they are in a panic for some reason? Right....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Allowing outsiders to inject themselves as spoilers into an internal race isn't fair.
What isn't fair is taxpayers footing the bill for internal parties elections. Does the Libertarian party get to use the electorate? or the Tea Party? Why do the Democrats and Republicans get to?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Republican voting base has gone full bat shit, the party won't last much longer now.
The Tea Party may be trying to spin this into a "win" (since they've been soundly defeated elsewhere this primary season) but at the end of the day this really comes down to Politics 101. Mr. Cantor was more interested in running the House than he was in providing consistent services. Drill past the national media's obsession with the Tea Party and/or immigration for a moment and look at the local media in his district. Read some of the complaints about him that have nothing whatsoever to do with ideology. Then ask yourself how frequently incumbent Legislators manage to lose primary elections, particularly ones in a leadership role that give them all manner of opportunity to funnel pork (err, I mean "investment") to the folks back home.
All politics are local. The Tea Party didn't win this. Mr. Cantor lost it. The funny/sad (depends on your perspective I guess) thing is he probably didn't see it coming until the first returns started coming in. This is what happens when you've held elective office long enough to treat elections like mere formalities.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So would George Soros and any number of rich progressives and socialists. You don't need to single out the Koch Brothers.
That said, my issue isn't with money in politics, it is with the demise of Federalism as a governing principle. As a Virginian (and now as a Marylander), I don't consider it any of my business who represents people in say, California. I would never give money to a race in a state in which I don't live in, and have never really bothered with a district other than my own either. I can't vote in California (although they probably wouldn't bother to stop me), and I don't need representation from California.
When I worked in the political world, I used to have that argument all the time -- people wondering why I refused to get mad at, say, Nanci Pelosi for doing what she does. It doesn't matter if I like her or not, so long as she accurately reflects the will of her constituents. If she doesn't, then that's a problem for them -- not me over here on the east coast.
However, I also have an issue with people using the tactic of injecting themselves into their opponents primary in order to try and cause them to choose the worst candidate rather than trying to select the best candidate that their party can themselves. It's that kind of bullshit tactic that leads to polarization and animosity. Unfortunately, it seems as if that's the type of thing you need to do in order to have your voice heard, because if enough people are doing it then being honest becomes a liability. (And that, right there, is what is wrong with America today).
Clearly you don't know what you're talking about. The voting base were turned off by Cantor's amnesty stance, and were quite comfortable voting for the libertarian minded economics professor instead. The result is a refreshing change to the usual politics in America, where uninformed or uninterested voters continue to vote for the same idiots simply because of the name. If the voters were more engaged and paying attention to what the politicians said and did, instead of just what party banner they run under, you'd never have politicians like Reid, Pelosi, Boehner, McCain, or Sharpton getting reelected.
WHAT??!
Brat is actually the poster child for "getting the money out of politics." Cantor had him outspent 4 to 1. He was the little guy in this race.
From what I've heard about him, he's also very libertarian leaning. I think libertarian leaning Republicans have a bright future. I think the old guard and the social conservatives will have a hard time against them in the future as well.
Because being a US citizen has benefits that are paid for by the US economy where as being a citizen of Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala has few benefits and Americans can't enjoy them even if they try to go through the legal process.
Riddle me this... which country do you think its easier to become a citizen in... The United States or Mexico?
Do you know what you have to go through to become a citizen in either? Compare them. The US has pretty much the loosest immigration policy in the Americas. I don't think there's any other country in the America's that even close... north or south America.
And yet as loose as our policies are it is we that are called the racists and monsters for having a policy more humane and inclusive and permissive then any other in in the Americas.
Explain the logic on that.
You want open immigration? Fine... no really... we'll do that. But understand this, if you do that and leave the welfare system intact the country will go broke very quickly.
The welfare state and open immigration are exclusive concepts. You cannot do both at the same time. The simple math on that should be obvious to anyone that thinks about it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
and the anti-illegal-immigration feeling on the right is far stronger than the GOP seems to realize.
If you look at polling that sentiment is shared in the center and center-left. Opposition to immigration is one of the few truly bipartisan things in the American electorate. The political establishment doesn't acknowledge it because big business wants cheap labor and Democrats think Hispanics are always going to vote for them. You can see similar trends in any developed country, fly over to one of the better developed EU countries and ask John Q. Public how he really feels about immigration. It's not popular even when it comes from other EU members (migration from Eastern Europe into Western Europe or the Nordic States), and $deity help you if you're one of the poor bastards coming there from Africa or the Middle East.
Another issue with a broad consensus in the electorate that's soundly ignored by the political establishment is non-interventionism. People are sick of interventionism, be they left, right, or center. The establishment ignores the electorate on this issue because of a combination of perceived economic interest, bureaucratic inertia in the national security apparatus, and entangling alliances set up after WW2 specifically to prevent an American retrenchment.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I really think the GOP has a strong future if it can become the "pro-capitalism, anti-big-corp" party. The Left thinks that's impossible, so that ground is unoccupied (ha!) today. Get the focus back to trust-busting and local monopoly breaking and consumer rights, and leave the Left wondering what just happened to them. But the current guys are too entrenched with the current sources of funding, not realizing they're stuck in an ever-diminishing local maximum.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Romney hinted at this in one of the Presidential debates, with a line about too big to fail that was predictably ignored by the mainstream media. George Will picked up on it in one of his op-eds. Will has written extensively on the subject of crony capitalism, with a focus on the unholy alliance of business and regulators. Will speaks for the intellectual wing of the GOP, such as it is, so it's not as though they aren't aware of this problem.
Romney was probably the wrong person to try and make this argument, though it would have been refreshing to see him try. I can't recall him saying anything on the matter other than the throw away line about too big to fail, which is a pity, because it's an issue he could have made headway on.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Dear God.
I used to know this guy. It took me a little while for it to register, but the goofy grin confirms it: this is the same doofus I went to college with. The college is a haven for Republican Calvinism (i.e. God chooses certain people to be successful), steeped in the worship of capitalism (God's invisible hand rewarding hard work). (The Amway/Blackwater dynasty are major donors.) I didn't know Dave well (sorry, no damaging stories to tell), but he was active in student government, and struck me as a classic empty suit: superficially charming with an upper-middle-class sense of entitlement. Not stupid, but not a deep thinker, the sort who doesn't question the values he was taught as a child... because they've always worked for him. (One of the key ways I differ from him.) I should've known he'd run for Congress someday.
I'm sorry.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
OK. Just remember that at this point your opinion is not objective, but subjective. The elections are what really matter, and THAT is the real objective measure of the Tea Party's success or failure....
BTW, I consider anybody who uses the "teabagger" name a dishonest broker and liberal robot. If you start by trying to offend your opponent (and make no mistake, this term is intended to offend) you really must have nothing better to say than the standard liberal talking points, which I find boring on top of being offensive. You could at least try to be clever or somehow unique, other wise, I don't have the time for boring offensive leftist ideologues.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Exactly. For me, this isn't about the Tea Party. This was about chucking a brick through the glass bubble that is DC. Fuck all 'em! May this election bitch-slap them back to reality in whom they really work for!
Life is not for the lazy.
Yeah.. THIS!! I'm an Independent voter in Nevada, up until the middle of BushyJr's second term I was a life-long Republican.. The Republican party has gotten so FAR from its roots, I couldn't remain a "member"... Since I am no longer a Republican, I'm prohibited from voting for ANY candidate in our primary yesterday other than the non-partisan races, like Judge, Sheriff, etc.. This is a crock of SHIT, so I now do not vote in primary elections.. There were several Republican candidates for state and national office that I'd loved to have voted for, but the State of Nevada has seen fit to prohibit me from voting for them, unless I attach a label to my name.. I'M NOT A REPUBLICAN NOR A DEMOCRAT, I'M AN AMERICAN....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Assuming "being productive" is passing laws.
Doing nothing might be the best thing.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Thing is, just about all of those things you listed are so-called "wedge" issues that have very little bearing on most people, even if they deeply affect some consequential number of people. Remember that we are mostly talking about federal government here, which is supposed to be tackling things that make sense on a federal level:
- Public funding of stem cell research: While it might be promising, there aren't any real therapies as of yet and the republic will boldly march on in any event.
- Abortion: The republic will boldly march on.
- Same sex marriage: Almost completely inconsequential to the health of the republic.
- Discrimination based on sexual orientation: There is probably some meat to this one, as it is difficult to call yourself a democracy with a repressed minority.
- Flag Burning: This would probably have zero practical impact on free speech.
- Affirmative action (well, technically use of quotas): another inflammatory issue, but probably some meat to it as we do need to decide what criteria needs to be met to measure the success and need for these programs.
- Gun control: 30,000 traffic deaths per year shows that society can function perfectly well with a similar number of gun deaths.
Notably absent from your list are things like:
- Debt, government spending, taxes, budget, etc.
- Domestic spying
- Foreign policy
- Military policy
- The role of federal vs state government
- Using the federal government to alter people's behaviors.
And on those issues, I bet he looks surprisingly similar to his Democratic colleagues. Even on wedge issues, I'd bet he's not far off. For instance, I'd wager that for every politician you can find who supports curtailing free speech by restricting flag burning, I can find another who would like to ban hate speech. I'd argue those people are both the same kind of politician, even if they have different motives.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
entangling alliances set up after WW2 specifically to prevent an American retrenchment.
There's nothing of that sort. The US went to Iraq against the will of a majority the UN (it wasn't just France, who simply got scapegoated for speaking out a bit more loudly than everyone else). And that's a general pattern; whenever there's talk about intervening somewhere, the US are the ones enthusiastically firing up the rhetoric while mostly everyone else is calling for cool. It's so predictable that Russia has started exploiting this to make the Americans look like fools (I'm talking about the Syria chemical weapons debacle here). The "our allies asked our help" argument is just a convenient casus belli if your military-industrial complex begs to show off its shiny new toys. Truth is, if you're the biggest bully on the block, whenever there's conflict, you will be asked for help. Most often by both sides. All the US has to do is pick a "long-time ally" on the spot, then send the cruise missiles on the other guy's ass.
Apart from that, +1 good post!
Too bad you don't have any facts on your side, then, isn't it?
You people are as bad as the creationists with your science denial. There's overwhelming evidence that the earth is warming, that it's caused by mankind, and that it's going to be really bad for us in another one or two hundred years. It's so overwhelming that 97% of climate scientists agree with that.
And then you like to point out irrelevant local phenomena as "evidence" against this, like the antarctic sea ice extent increasing this year while ignoring the actual volume of it, ignoring arctic sea ice, ignoring greenland ice melt. Or you like to point to 1998 as being a very hot year and saying "look, we've only had a couple of years hotter than that" while ignoring the trend lines, as if one year of temperature means everything.
Which is why you're as bad as the creationists. You think your tiny little facts, like an incorrectly dated fossil, or some scientific misconduct around one hominid fossil, disproves an enormous body of evidence. You've got your head in the sand and you seem to like it there.
It also depresses automation that we would have put in place ages ago and of course removed labor that was traditionally done by teenagers.
My father worked in a California fruit boxing warehouse for a few summers. Not because he was poor but because kids were expected to get summer jobs back then.
We did just fine before the rampant illegal immigration. Those that think we can't survive without it either suffer from an unforgivable lack of imagination or are spinning tales.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
From what I've heard about him, he's also very libertarian leaning. I think libertarian leaning Republicans have a bright future. I think the old guard and the social conservatives will have a hard time against them in the future as well.
Libertarian leaning my ass!
"We Believe That faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation."
"I reject any proposal that grants amnesty and undermines the fundamental rule of law. Adding millions of workers to the labor market will force wages to fall and jobs to be lost. "
"Human life is sacred, as proclaimed by our founding documents, and I will always support laws that protect life. Our fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness precede the existence of government and come from God, the Author of Nature."
"Dave understands that the most important factor in our nation’s success is the strength of the family unit. As our congressman, Dave will protect the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of marriage, and will oppose any governmental intrusion upon the conscience of people of faith."
He's a typical social conservative nut whose only libertarianism is on economic issues (and even there he conveniently forgets about it when it comes to immigration). Exactly the type that exemplifies what Tea Party movement ended up being.