Okay, we all know now that a very powerful entrenched leader of the national Republican Party and the US House was tossed out by a previously unknown opponent. That’s the politics.
But for the rest of us, it’s more than politics. It’s hope. Eric Cantor outspent his challenger by 26 to 1 and lost. Cantor campaign spent OVER $5,000,000; Brat spent $200,000.
Money got a big fat slap upside the face last night. Sleep better tonight – everything looks more possible today.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
You are right about this. Money means a lot, but it can be defeated.
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Well, maybe. I think a big part of Brat’s win was old fashioned bigotry. Which, sad to say, is all the rage amongst some groups.
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I just love how certain sorts feel compelled to play the race card and equate being against illegal immigration (a crime) with bigotry.
You do know that America has, even the they were properly enforced, the weakest immigration laws in the Developed World and close to the weakest in the world.
That people want to bring us more on par with the global norm is hardly bigotry or racism. It’s self protection laced with the societal tag ends of the Abolitionist movement.
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“Certain sorts” — by that I’m assuming you mean well informed liberals.
I live in Virginia and travel through Cantor’s district not infrequently. The bigotry I refer to is anti-semitism — I really think that the issue was NOT immigration here. The good white Confederate/Gadsten/US flag waving folks down there just don’t like Jews.This time they didn’t have to pick one to vote GOP.
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Well, MIS-informed ones. 😉
As for their anti-Semitism – perhaps or, at least, I wouldn’t rule it out completely as a factor. I don’t think it was enough to make a difference though in these days because the dynamic has changed.
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Your spelling needs work — or your typing. I’m assuming you mean Ms Informed. At least if your referring to me or Moe.
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😆 No. It’s not that you don’t know much, it’s that you know so much that is wrong. Then, that’s what liberalism, as it defines itself these days, is predicated upon – being misinformed.
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Right. Like about climate change, willful ignorance about science and the belief in the existence of dinosaurs. Forgive me MY ignorance.
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Well, you’ve shown you understand some of your misinformation, e.g., AGW. I’ve sort of got to give you the dinosaur part, assuming you referring to Young Earth Creationism ( the largest plurality of belief at 46% of the US).
Then, much to the chagrin of both sides of the issue, I’ve solved for that quandary by applying a single postulate – Yahweh’s a Douche. One you add that it reconciles the conflict – Earth is 6 – 8 millennia old but was created 4.5 billions years old just to fuck with us. (Alternatively – it’s a MMORG world like WoW or UO). 😆
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Oh jonolan – you and your damn anachronyms 😆
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jonolan – re our immigation laws – they’ve always been intentionally liberal. We are, always have been, a nation of immigrants. It’s been our strength.
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What was once a strength can become a weakness, Moe, as times and available resources change. In any event, the vast majority of Conservatives aren’t looking to end immigration; they’re just against expanding any further and providing amnesty to the criminals who refused to adhere to our already incredible liberal immigration laws.
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I don’t disagree entirely. But any laws that punish youth for the sins of their parents is vile. When someone has been here 20 years and knows no other country, they must be embraced. Or when someone new is legalized and given an opportunity to apply for citizenship after a decade in the US working and paying taxes, we should welcome them.
At the very least, automatically extend green cards to foreign students graduating from US universities!
Include those things in any legislation and the opposing sides would be a lot closer together.
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No, not including those things, limiting it to those things. That’s how you bring the opposing sides together because you’re right with a few caveat based upon the age of children – refer to the current immigration issue in the news.
I am, however, not sanguine about automatically extend green cards to foreign students graduating from US universities. The insanity of our H1B program is already bad enough and this could exacerbate it.
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Even if ‘limiting it to those things’ were the proffer, that’s at least a starting point for dialogue.
How could the green card extension exacerbate H1B? By attracting more students just to get to stay in US? Okay, they’d be very motivated graduates who managed to afford college tuition. And to graduate. I say welcome to them.
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Look at what H1Bs have done to wages in the tech fields. Labor is as supply and demand as much as any other product or service and when you have foreigners willing to work for 50% of what Americans are getting paid, you lose American jobs.
Yes! That’s free and fair market, but it also why I’m not sanguine about increasing that sort of immigration…or happy about its limit getting raised whenever the big corps. want it to be. I can’t bring myself to fight against it but that doesn’t mean I want to further it either.
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Moe,
I’m surprised your happy about that since Dems regularly outspend Republicans in elections.
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Not a partisan thing for me. Money from stateless corps watching only their bottom line offends the citizen in me.
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As long as you include the Labor Unions – consistently in the top 5 of political contributors – we’re not in total disagreement.
I suppose that the difference between us is that, just because I’m offended doesn’t always mean I’m against it as a matter of law.
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I don’t include labor unions . . . they are not stateless. They’re American. I’d say lobbying by and contributions from issue groups, from pro-life to pro-choice, is okay. They are not stateless. Nor are they profit driven.
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Then we can’t really agree. If you can’t or won’t cut out Labor’s buying of politicians, you can’t cut out Management’s either.
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Then we won’t agree. Today, private sector unions are dying. They represent barely 6% of the work force in the United States. For-profit corps (stateless corps) with no national allegiances should not have the same standing. This has nothing to do with my personal view of unions. It only has to do with my views on campaign money.
An addendum: unions today are the only ones trying to protect the wages of Americans, which have fallen drastically in 30 years and which don’t reflect the productivity gains in those years. Employees are no longer valued. Seen as a necessity, not an asset.
So screw the ones who screw them.
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My personal view is it had nothing to do with money….
Eric Cantor forgot a basic of politics 101….
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL….
He might have been the House Majority Leader…
But he owed his seat to the people on Virginia US House District 7…
Primaries for GOPer’s feature right leaners…
Primaries for Dem’s feature left leaners…
A guy in Congress for 14 years should NEVER forget the basics….
He did….
It has cost him his job….
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james – absolutely right. You do politics ON the ground. He got further and further away from his constituents. Apparently hadn’t even held a single town hall his entire last term. And (I’m being repetitive here) I hear that he spent the early part of election day in a DC Starbucks with some lobbyists setting things up for his next term.
You are so right. He defeated himself.
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make that in the 7th Virginia CD
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Hey, Moe! [Someone cue the Stooges]
It may be #2 after all. None Of The Above just won the Dem Gubernatorial Primary in NV – http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2014/06/12/none-of-the-above-tops-dem-gubernatorial-primary/
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Well, I’m liking that affirmation very much. And it was a Dem primary too which is even better. So we’re one-for-one in the ‘throw the bums out’ sweepstakes. Interesting . . .verry interesting.
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