Discussion for article #223776
Ooh, that being against the ACA is going to make him so relevant even if he gets elected.
Unfortunately, he probably will be elected, as his district is full of simple suburbanites. These are people of the subdivision. The common clay of the new South. You know… morons.
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You are so good. And they are so dumb!
Given that district, he’ll get elected with no problem. As much as I detested Cantor, he at least had the ability to discern when ideology needed to be set aside to prevent economic calamity.
This douchebag is a true believer in the Cruz mold. So much for the notion that the GOP “establishment” had successfully put down the Tea Party insurgency. For all intents and purposes now, the Tea Party controls the Republican Party. Don’t be surprised if the new GOP-controlled House tries to get rid of Boehner after next January.
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I defer to the people here who know the district but are they crazy enough to vote for him in the general? Salazar (contemporary or Mussolini and Franco) was an economist, may he burn in everlasting hell. Not sure yet but I strongly suspect Brat may be there with him.
I just watched a short snippet of a campaign appearance Brat had… the guy is pretty smooth; he doesn’t strike me as the kind of Akin-style moron who’s going to put his foot in his mouth over rapey shit. He’s also talking a populist economic game, which will make him seem as though he’s not going to be totally in the pocket of rich corporate interests. Oh, the voters in his district are going to be in for a rude surprise if they vote for him on that basis because he’ll be Kochsucking as soon as he takes the oath.
Brat is the BB&T Ethics Program Director, serving 2010-2020. The program resulted from a $500,000 grant awarded to Randolph-Macon College for the study of the moral foundations of capitalism and the establishment of a related ethics program.
Could he possibly be worse than Cantor?
I’ve just been reading Prat’s academic CV at the Randolph-Macon web site, and it suggests a few things. First, as an economist he’s a very minor scholar–few publications, especially in recent years, and in mostly Virginia-based or regional venues, none with any significant visibility, even within the cloistered world of academic publishing. From his CV, it’s difficult to determine if Brat has ever traveled outside of the southeastern US. A partial, possible mitigating factor here is that small liberal arts colleges sometimes privilege teaching over scholarship. But even if that’s true of Randolph-Macon, Prat’s publication record is very weak for someone at the rank of professor.
Second, he describes himself as holding the rank of professor since 1996, when he was hired by Randolph-Macon. This is almost certainly not true, unless he is a major stockholder of the college. You start as assistant professor and work your way up the seniority ranks. This is probably no more than a careless conflation within his CV. But, considering again his weak publication record, it begs the question of how he achieved tenure and promotion. He may be an excellent teacher, which may be given extra weight at Randolph-Macon.
Third, he conflates actual publications with public appearances in his CV, and this is very much frowned upon in serious scholarly circles.
Fourth, his publications and presentations are littered with names that are predictable for a conservative economist: Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, CATO, AEI, Heritage. Given his political affiliations, this isn’t surprising.
Fifth, his declared activities in recent years are top-heavy with speeches, advisory activities, and consultation for corporations, local/state government agencies, and conservative think tanks. This suggests, again perhaps unsurprisingly, that Brat is not truly a political novice; rather, he’s a veteran political and corporate networker who has circulated for some time in halls of considerable conservative political and social power, and was well positioned to recruit high visibility right wingers to support his candidacy.
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I wondered which way he leaned in economics. Sadly, I’m not surprised.
We can easily predict how this is going to go… he’s going to be the new darling of the D.C. wingnutosphere, he’ll be appearing on every cable news network, Sean Hannity will fellate him live on-air, and the reichwing pundits will breathlessly start speculating about him unseating Boehner and being on the GOP ticket with Ted Cruz in 2016. His fifteen minutes of fame is coming now, and it will be interesting to see if his mouth will cause him as much grief as did the pie-holes of Angle, Akin, Mourdock, O’Donnell, and the other Tea Party numbskulls.
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“moral foundations of capitalism”
That’s delicious.
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Considering his background and supporters, the only possible conclusion he could reach is this: Ayn Rand has already proved that greed is good, and only a fool would argue against it.
I’m amazed. Cantor’s departure alone is a bigger improvement to Congress than I’d dared imagine. This noob might well turn out to be an even bigger negative sum, but I consider that a separate issue and a whole other election.
IIRC, the CEO (or maybe by now ex-) of BB&T is a huge Ayn Rand groupie.
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At least he stiffed Norquist and he will have none of the influence Cantor had so maybe this is a good thing? Only time and a lot of popcorn will tell.
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Seems he is a debt-ceiling denialist. A top Brat critique of Cantor is that he supported raising the federal government’s debt ceiling—however reluctantly. As Brat told Slate’s Dave Weigel last month, “My commitment is not to increase spending; to have a spending bill where you don’t increase it. Cantor’s voted for 10 of the last 15 debt ceiling increases. I just don’t buy the idea that you are truly put in the position of backing the debt ceiling increase the last minute, that you had no choice.”
So we now have as Cantor’s nominated replacement a guy who really will do all he can to default on our debt and shut the government down.
This needs to be played up hard given the number of people’s livelihoods in Virginia directly and indirectly come from Federal contracts.
“So we now have as Cantor’s nominated replacement a guy who really will do all he can to default on our debt and shut the government down.”
Not necessarily. You don’t need to pass a debt limit increase if you balance the budget in the first place. It means the hard (and politically unpopular) choices will have to be made up front, in the spending bill itself rather than kicked down the road.
But while it is possible, it would be bad for the country. At this stage of a recovery, you need to go into debt to grow the economy. A balanced budget would starve the recovery and extend the recession for years.
I understand the Democratic candidate is a sociology professor at Randolph Macon. Should make for some collegial faculty meetings this fall. At least Brat can’t use the old “ivory tower liberal” canard on him. Of course, the new epithets–fascist, socialist–make the old ones sound like gentle joshing. Oh well, at least Cantor’s gone!
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Cantor made the ultimate mistake of voting for a debt ceiling hike while a Democrat was in the White House. Voting for a debt ceiling hike while a Republican is in the White House is just peachy.
THIS from one of Brat’s former students: “For his papers, no one ever understood what he wanted for us to do. He was almost never there when we needed help.”
Perfect description of a true GOP Tea Potty Putz.
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