So Eric Cantor is a Jew?? Why didn’t anybody tell me? Now everything has become crystal clear and all the talk about him losing because he sold out to big business has become easy to decode. Of course, a juicy fresh Evangelical fanatic was going to hammer him dead in the primaries. This isn’t year 2000, so this was to be expected.
If I’d known Cantor was Jewish, I would have predicted this months ago.
In view of the zeolotry of the extreme right Cantor’s defeat isn’t all that surprising. Dave Brat’s economic philosophy is based on Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. He has been sponsored by John A. Allison who is another Rand adherent (but his bank still accepted 3.1 billion bailout dollars from TARP). “Atlas Shrugged” was required reading for all the bank’s executives. When the Koch brothers wrested control of the Cato Institute, they appointed Allison to the board of directors. I found nothing to indicate that Allison did anything to sway the election. But in a climate in which victorious candidates campaign on an “I’m more conservative than …” it’s not surprising that Brat “out conservatived” Cantor. I doubt that his Jewishness was of any particular help though the 7th district is pretty urban — near DC.
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Any Rand has nothing to do with this. They trot her out when it’s convenient and forget all about her when it isn’t. Rand was passionately pro-abortion rights, and who among these folks is advancing that idea!
My thinking is: nobody cares enough to vote in Republican primaries but religious fanatics. And they will always choose somebody who spouts the same religious crap. Which Ayn Arabs detested, by the way.
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Apparently there was only 14% turnout of eligible voters, so the people who did vote were no doubt the ones who cared passionately about electing Brat, while the people who assumed that Cantor would naturally win because he always had didn’t feel any urgency to vote.
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And that’s exactly what I’m saying. Most Republicans don’t see the point of voting so the ones who go vote are the most fanatical. There is an enormous opportunity here for a moderate Republican but nobody is grabbing it.
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Cantor’s plurality declined over the years he was in Congress. 2000: 76%. “02: 69%. 06: 64%. 08: 63%. 10: 59%. 12: 58%. However, a 58o% plurality in the general election two years ago leading to a 12% defeat in the subsequent primary indicates that Cantor either recanted his right wing credentials or he got “out conservatived” in the primary. I suspect there is little doubt that Cantor would have won the general election. He just got mired in the extreme right bog. You are probably correct about the voters in “Republican” primaries though maybe too restrictive. Along with GEEsus freaks the the other splinter groups are ready to turn on a suspected apostate. Rather like piranhas who attack a wounded fish — even another piranha.
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