![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"I don't have a well-crafted response on that one."
—Professor of Economics and GOP Congressional candidate David Brat, when asked if he favored raising the minimum wage
The House Majority Leader was dethroned by this idiot, who is an economics prof, who doesn't have an answer on supporting raising the minimum wage. Yeah. He had similar statements showing a total lack of preparation for the potential positions in TV interviews after he won the primary, including on whether the USA should arm Syrian rebels. (The correct answer to that one is 'which group?' as there are a thousand distinct groups fighting the current regime.)
Cantor had problems which he apparently ignored. First, his job approval rating in his district was on the order of 30/60, good vs bad. Next, he spent something like $5,000,000 on his re-election, over ten times what his opponent spent. And that isn't bad enough, but most of it came from Wall Street, only 2% came from small contributions. Cantor reportedly spent more on steakhouse dinners than his opponent spent on his entire campaign, I'm not sure if those were fund raiser or rewards for staff or what. He also made a huge mistake in hiring a polling company that consistently shows ridiculously inaccurate results and said company showed him having a comfortable margin of victory, which may have led to overconfidence if he ignored other polls.
The odd thing is that a different polling company's polling of his district showed overwhelming support for immigration reform, which is the sole issue that his opponent ran on. The Tea Party infuriated the electorate, and Cantor went down. Not in flames, but it was a pretty clear defeat. Since then, he's announced that he will resign his position as House Majority Leader effective the end of July, it'll be interesting to see who gets slotted in to that for the rest of the term. Also, Cantor says he's not going to run a write-in campaign.
Not doing a write-in campaign is probably a good thing, I think it might totally hand the race to the democratic opponent, it would split votes from Brat which would make Dem votes stronger. But a subversive write-in campaign would have the same effect, regardless of whether or not Cantor wanted one. Considering all of the dirty electioneering tricks that the Repubs, and some Dems, have done, I'd say go for it.
I'm sure Eric will land on his feet 'consulting' for a K Street lobbyist in February.
—Professor of Economics and GOP Congressional candidate David Brat, when asked if he favored raising the minimum wage
The House Majority Leader was dethroned by this idiot, who is an economics prof, who doesn't have an answer on supporting raising the minimum wage. Yeah. He had similar statements showing a total lack of preparation for the potential positions in TV interviews after he won the primary, including on whether the USA should arm Syrian rebels. (The correct answer to that one is 'which group?' as there are a thousand distinct groups fighting the current regime.)
Cantor had problems which he apparently ignored. First, his job approval rating in his district was on the order of 30/60, good vs bad. Next, he spent something like $5,000,000 on his re-election, over ten times what his opponent spent. And that isn't bad enough, but most of it came from Wall Street, only 2% came from small contributions. Cantor reportedly spent more on steakhouse dinners than his opponent spent on his entire campaign, I'm not sure if those were fund raiser or rewards for staff or what. He also made a huge mistake in hiring a polling company that consistently shows ridiculously inaccurate results and said company showed him having a comfortable margin of victory, which may have led to overconfidence if he ignored other polls.
The odd thing is that a different polling company's polling of his district showed overwhelming support for immigration reform, which is the sole issue that his opponent ran on. The Tea Party infuriated the electorate, and Cantor went down. Not in flames, but it was a pretty clear defeat. Since then, he's announced that he will resign his position as House Majority Leader effective the end of July, it'll be interesting to see who gets slotted in to that for the rest of the term. Also, Cantor says he's not going to run a write-in campaign.
Not doing a write-in campaign is probably a good thing, I think it might totally hand the race to the democratic opponent, it would split votes from Brat which would make Dem votes stronger. But a subversive write-in campaign would have the same effect, regardless of whether or not Cantor wanted one. Considering all of the dirty electioneering tricks that the Repubs, and some Dems, have done, I'd say go for it.
I'm sure Eric will land on his feet 'consulting' for a K Street lobbyist in February.
