Discussion: How Did Eric Cantor Screw Up His GOP Primary Race So Badly?

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Discussion for article #223812

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According to this poll, it was not immigration, since a very large majority in the district supports reform http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/page/-/VA7Results61114.pdf
But a large majority disapproves of Cantor.

Basically, he lost because he is a putz that even those who agree with him can’t stand.

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A few reactions to this analysis.

I think he had $5 million on hand, but I don’t think he spent it because he did not realize he was in trouble.

This analysis doesn’t say much about what his opponent did. A professor at the local college beat him by 4,000 votes in Hanover County. Cantor did not have that kind of ground game anywhere.

Eric

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He wears Prada shoes with lifts and regularly attends Davos. None of those things make him a bad man, but they do make him an absentee representative for the people of his district.

So if Earache wore overalls and chewed tobacco while playing a washtub bass and whupping gaymen, he’d have won.

Damn. Just…damn.

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According to the figures displayed on MSNBC last night (and assuming that I read them correctly), he had spent most of it.

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Using Republican logic with regards to the immigration debate, I think I’ve figured out why Cantor lost.

You see, it’s not that voters didn’t like Cantor, it’s just that voters couldn’t trust President Obama to carry out Cantor’s agenda, therefore Cantor had to lose, which proves that Obama is terrible.

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Cantor helped build the machine that turned around and ate him. The article touches on a few of those things. I look at the gerrymandering to make the district more red…did they not anticipate that it might mean a ‘redder’ candidate could win, regardless if he’s a lunatic or not? To me, the only real surprise in this is the suddenness…it was always going to happen, if not to Cantor, then certainly others in high profile positions.

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I’ve been reading complaints about Cantor’s staff’s arrogance for the last 5 years. And no one ever questioned Cantor’s self love.

It may be as simple as some suggest: He’s just an arrogant putz and his new, very conservative district, wasn’t having it.

It certainly couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

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Why should voters in his district let Cantor keep his government job when so many of them were laid off for over a month when Cantor led the charge to shutdown the government?

Republican logic has never been good. Now that the TeaParty lunatic fringe is in charge, there is going to be a lot more surprises in store for the GOP. They’ve abandoned the middle class who is abandoning them.

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2 words - open primary. There was no Democratic primary and the Republicans thought Cantor was a shoe in.

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Hello! My name is Eric Cantor. You killed my House seat. Prepare to die!

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I thought I’d read that the $200K Brat warchest isn’t very accurate when considering the dark money that went to various conservative media outlets, most especially (the despicable) Mark Levin.

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If he spent all or nearly all of the $5 million he had on hand, that means each vote Cantor received cost about $170. That’s astonishing by any measure. But for those pesky laws, he could have probably won and saved money by giving out $50 bills at the polls.

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He was not right wing enough for his district of cavemen.

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He’s short? that’s their explanation?

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that’s just like every other GOP congress critter’s staff. Constituent services? they just laugh at you.

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Of course, it wasn’t immigration. Who in VA is affected by illegals? That was the excuse that the RNC quickly circulated through hate radio last night when this debacle came down.

This defeat was about a divided GOP. And about Independents pissed off with the party’s deliberate plot to make all of the American middle class the working poor. This was an open primary and they had the final say.

Praise the Lord that this putz never became Speaker of the House like he thought he was entitled to have. Let someone stupid but not as cunning like Gohmert or Bachmann have that honor. That would certainly scare enough decent citizens to the polls in November to give Democrats back the House.

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According to the “steak houses” article on TPM, he raised $5.4 million and spent $5 million of that (Brat spent $120k). That’s an astonishing amount of spending for any sitting representative running in a primary against an unknown candidate, let alone the majority leader. Normally that kind of war chest would be banked for future races that might be more competitive. The fact that it was almost all spent suggests Cantor did know he was in deep trouble, bad polls be damned, but made sure it wasn’t widely seen so as not to give more publicity to his opponent.

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He probably pocketed the remainder of that $5 million like Christine O’Donnell did.

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I think you maybe right. He tried to buy the election but it was too late to overcome the bad impression his constituents had of him. He should never have shut down the government with so many government workers in his district. Arrogance is blind as well as stupid.

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