How the Lunatic Right Celebrated Cantor's Defeat

Brent Bozell - Right wing lunatic

If one wants to see the ugly face of the underbelly of the GOP base that will be emboldened by Eric Cantor, look no farther than a group of extremists who were at a dinner gathering that turned into a celebration as it became obvious that Cantor was going down to defeat.  The group consisted of a who's who of what is wrong with today's Republican Party, including the mentally disturbed Brent Bozell and hate group leader Tony Perkins, a racist and homophobe extraordinaire.   BuzzFeed looks at the coven of lunacy and hate.  Here are excerpts:

A small contingent of right-wing elites was gathered for an intimate dinner party at the Great Falls, Va. home of ForAmerica chairman Brent Bozell when returns first started trickling in from Rep. Eric Cantor’s primary race. They weren’t there to watch election coverage, but Tea Party Patriots president Jenny Beth Martin couldn’t help but check her phone for the early numbers. With the first two precincts reporting, she told the group, Cantor was trailing his obscure opponent, an economics professor named David Brat. 

“Cantor should give his concession speech now!” Bozell joked.

Everyone laughed, but it wasn’t long before their phones started buzzing with the startling news: The House Majority Leader was about to lose his primary to a grassroots insurgent — upending the common wisdom in Washington that the Tea Party was dead, and serving notice to the old guard that the grassroots wasn’t done with the Republican civil war.

The dinner guests — which included Andy Roth of the Club for Growth, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Mike Needham of Heritage Action, David Bossie of Citizens United, and prominent conservative fundraiser Richard Norman — began hurriedly making calls to activists on the ground, and scanning their phones for updates.

“Can you think of a greater political upset in your life? I can’t think of one,” Bozell said over the phone, as his guests chattered excitedly in the background. “This is stunning. This is the conservative movement on fire.” Bozell described the group’s mood as “ebullient,”

[W]ith Cantor’s defeat, the leaders at Bozell’s dinner table had proof that the movement was still very much alive — a fact that warranted some gloating.

“Is the establishment going to get questions for the next week and a half asking whether they’re dead?” Martin asked sarcastically. “The fact of the matter is freedom is alive.”

As they dined on vegetable lasagna, the guests plotted their next moves — from beating Thad Cochran in the Mississippi Senate runoff, to marshaling an army of activists that would make sure the GOP nominated a true conservative for president in 2016.

“This is good for anyone who has a connection with the grassroots,” Bozell said. “It’s good for [Ted] Cruz, it’s good for Rand Paul.”

“The sound you just heard was the death knell of the immigration reform within the establishment of the Republican Party. It’s kryptonite,” Bozell said, by way of warning to Paul. 

He added, “It’s time for Grover Norquist and the Chamber of Commerce to think of Plan B, because their agenda is dead.” 
 
As his guests basked in victory, the host briefly retreated from the celebration with his public relations consultant, Greg Mueller, to craft a statement that they would soon blast out to reporters. The result was thoroughly triumphant: “Eric Cantor’s loss tonight is an apocalyptic moment for the GOP establishment. The grassroots is in revolt and marching.”

When he returned to the dinner, Bozell was struck by the weight of the moment.  “If you looked around that table and you looked at the organizations represented, it was virtually every major conservative group in America,” he said. “There was real muscle in that room, and a real sense that something historic happened tonight.”

These people and groups are delusional enough as it is.  If they are emboldened, it spells bad things for both the GOP and the nation.