The pundits and talking heads on both sides of the political aisle totally missed the coming defeat of Eric Cantor by a largely unknown and poorly funded Tea Party warrior. Over at Bearing Drift, the various elements of Teabagistan are exulting in Cantor's demise. Meanwhile the GOP establishment has learned that it is dangerous to be cocky and that there is still life in the Frankenstein monster known as the Tea Party. What's frightening is that Cantor's loss will embolden the lunatic elements of the GOP. Meanwhile, being well of aware of the religious extremism of the Tea Party which has about an 85% identification with far right Christians, I cannot help but wonder if Cantor's Jewish faith wasn't somehow in play. Here in Virgina, there is little doubt that the far right of the GOP wants a Christian theocracy. Here are excepts from the Washington Post on the shock waves following Cantors rout last night:
The defeat of the second-ranking Republican in the House by an ill-funded, little-known tea party-backed candidate ranks as the biggest Congressional upset in modern memory and will immediately generate a series of political and policy-related shockwaves in Washington and the Richmond-area 7th district.
"People don't know how to respond because it's never been contemplated," said one Virginia Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about Cantor's loss. (Worth noting: Cantor didn't just lose. He got walloped; David Brat, his challenger, won 56 percent to 44 percent.)
In conversations with a handful of GOP operatives in the aftermath of Cantor's loss -- a loss blamed largely on an inept campaign consulting team that misread the level of vitriol directed at the candidate due to his place in Republican leadership and the perception he supported so-called "amnesty" for illegal immigrants -- there were several common threads about what it means for politics inside and outside the House.
1. Immigration reform is dead. I'm not sure it was ever really alive in the House -- we've written plenty about how the average House Republican has zero incentive to support any immigration reform -- but Cantor's loss ensures that even chatter about making minor changes will disappear. Anytime an incumbent -- and particularly a well-funded incumbent like Cantor -- loses there are lots of reasons for the defeat, but this one will be cast as a rebuke of any moderation on immigration.
2. House legislative activity will cease. Again, there wasn't a heck of a lot of grand legislative plans before Cantor's loss. But, that trickle will totally dry up now as Republican members avoid doing anything -- literally, anything -- that could be used against them in the many primaries still to come this summer and fall. Members will be afraid of their own shadows.
3. The "establishment strike back" storyline will disappear.... In the space of the last week, the narrative that the establishment has finally figured out how to beat the tea party has exploded. First, state Sen. Chris McDaniel finished ahead of Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran in the state's GOP primary. Now, the Cantor loss.
4. ....Tea party challenges will surge. David Brat -- and McDaniel if he wins -- will become the newest tea party heroes, taking their places alongside the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Mike Lee (Utah). In the near term, that will embolden tea partiers who seemed dead in the water in their own attempts to take out incumbents. . . . . In the longer term, there's every reason to believe that other prominent members of the GOP leadership -- in the House and Senate -- will face tea-party challenges come 2016.
5. The race to replace John Boehner as Speaker is now wide open. We've written before about how difficult it will be for Boehner to hold on to his Speakership -- assuming Republicans keep the majority this fall. But now the heir apparent has been dragged under by a conservative uprising. The third man in command -- House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) -- is not exactly a tea party darling or stylistically speaking, the sort of hard-liner that the most conservative wing in the House likes.
Cantor's defeat will continue to send rumbles through the political system for the next few days -- and even weeks and months.
It will be interesting, entertaining and in some ways frightening to watch the GOP civil war continue. The nation truly cannot afford for the GOP to be completely taken over by party elements that openly celebrate the embrace of ignorance and out right racism and homophobia.
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