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House Majority Leader Cantor Loses Primary
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
June 11, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
In a hard right turn for the Republican Party,
51-year-old House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Vir.) lost his June 10 primary
race 56% to 44% to neophyte Tea Party candidate 49-year-old Randoff-Macon
College economics professor Dave Brat.
Out spent $5.4 million to $300,000, the conservative Virginia
congressional district punished Cantor for showing any inclination of back
immigration reform co-sponsored by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). In the blink of an eye, the House’s
No. 2 Republican went from the most likely to replace Boehner to bounced out of
the House of Representatives. Brat
blasted Cantor for backing Boehner’s immigration bill that supported amnesty of
illegal immigrants. “My beef with
Cantor isn’t the right-or left-thing,” said Brat, resonating with Tea Party
conservatives unwilling to give an inch on immigration reform.
Cantor was a Tea Party darling since becoming one of President Barack
Obama’s biggest critics in Congress.
Railing against Obama’s bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the U.S.
auto industry, Cantor didn’t say boo Oct. 3, 2008 when former President George
W. Bush signed a $700 billion bailout backed by his Treasury Secretary Hank
Paulson to save the nation’s bankrupt financial institutions. Since taking office Jan. 20, 2009,
Cantor led the charge against every piece of Obama’s legislation, especially the
March 23, 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare. No one in Congress was more opposed
to the White House agenda than Cantor, including the White approach toward
Israel. Cantor almost single-handedly opposed the White House position on Israel, practically
accusing Obama of anti-Semitism because he wanted to restart Mideast peace
talks.
Cantor’s defeat at the hands of the Tea Party shows the extreme nature of
right-wing politics where any GOP politician must follow 57-year-old Tea Party
boss Grover Norquist to the letter or face almost certain ostracism. Cantor’s ostracism reveals
Norquist’s continued long reach inside GOP circles. As Cantor prepared himself as
Boehner’s replacement, he had to show he could work with both sides of the
aisle, something against Tea Party’s rules.
When loud Tea Party voices pushed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to shut down
the government Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 16, Cantor defended the move to punish
Democrats for Obamacare. Cantor
defended tossing 800,000 federal workers into unemployment to get Democrats to
acquiesce on Obamacare. When Cantor
joined Boehner Oct. 16 to reopen the government and prevent default, Norquist
and the Tea Party lashed out.
Cruz more completely expressed the Tea Party’s views, willing to default
the government to make a point to Democrats about spending. As long as Democrats fund Obamacare,
Cruz and his Tea Party friends believe the government should shutdown and
default. Resigning today as House Majority Leader, Cantor expressed his loyalty to the
Republican Party. When the Party’s
suffered enough indignity under 42-year-old Reince Priebus management of the
Republican National Committee, Cantor hopes the RNC will give him a second look. “I don’t know what this means. I am very confused,” said Rep. Mario
Diaz-Balart (R-Fl.), asking the same old question: Will backing immigration reform get
you tossed from the GOP? It’s not
rocket science to see that supporting Boehner’s bipartisan immigration reform
got Cantor tossed out of the Tea Party and the U.S. Congress.
Cantor’s fall from grace in his own district shows just how
narrow-minded- gerrymandered districts, whose politics turn on specific
ideology, in this case opposition to immigration reform. When you look at national office,
it’s clear that Cantor lacked the national appeal beyond his district. Bashing Obama’s foreign and domestic
policy apparently wasn’t enough to save Cantor’s job as U.S. representative, let
alone House Majority Leader. While Balart’s not clear what Cantor’s loss means, it clearly doesn’t bode well in the
Midterm elections for what’s left of moderate Republicans. Any hint of Cantor compromising his
extreme Tea Party views resulted in his eviction from the Republican Party. With Priebus at the GOP’s helm,
there’s little tolerance for anything moderate.
Mainstream voters won’t get tapped when conservative and liberal
districts vote next November.
Cantor’s overly serious personality didn’t help his likeability in his
own district. If he had any sense
of humor, he might have survived Brat’s bid to unseat him. Serving as a lapdog for Boehner since 2011, the six-term congressman got caught in a vise
he helped create. Had he shown a more moderate streak from the beginning, his own district—no matter
how right wing—might have cut him some slack.
Ripping Obama indiscriminately and bashing Obamacare at every turn came
back to bite Cantor where it hurts.
Once he showed any support for the House Speaker’s immigration reform, the Tea
Party stabbed him in the back. Had
Cantor shown a more reasonable side and better sense of humor from the
beginning, his district would have cut him more slack. However the extreme the Tea Party,
Cantor has no one to blame but himself for failing to relate to his district.
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