Eric Cantor loses to Tea Party.

[bilby]

...by voting for David Brat in the Seventh District Republican primary, we Democrats, independents, and Libertarians can make a big difference in American politics. It is your right to cast that vote. It is an “open” primary and it doesn’t preclude anyone from voting anyway they wish in November. It may be the only way to empower those who want to make a statement about the dysfunctional Congress and “politics as usual.”

There was a time not so long ago when the South was called “The Solid South” by the national Democratic Party and the national press. The Republican Party in the South was, where it existed at all, historically on “the disabled list.” The two-party system in the South was “The Democrats who were in, and the Democrats who were out.”

So the action was in the Democratic primary, where the eventual winner was inevitably coronated.

'Coronated'?

Seriously, 'coronated'??

 

[Tom Sawyer]

There was a time not so long ago when the South was called “The Solid South” by the national Democratic Party and the national press. The Republican Party in the South was, where it existed at all, historically on “the disabled list.” The two-party system in the South was “The Democrats who were in, and the Democrats who were out.”

So the action was in the Democratic primary, where the eventual winner was inevitably coronated.

'Coronated'?

Seriously, 'coronated'??

What's wrong with coronated? It's a standard usage of the term for someone who'll win without any real challenge.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

It was the Democrats who voted overwhelmingly for the TARP bail-out after Republicans had defeated it.

Yes, but:

The crucial vote was 263-171, passing by a comfortable bipartisan margin. Most Democrats voted in favor (172 yeas to 63 nays), while a slighter majority of Republicans voted against (91 yeas to 108 nays). Every member of the House voted. (There is one vacancy, created by recent death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.)

 

[laughing dog]

That's the media spin but it doesn't seem to be well supported. ]

Not according to the NPR story. It was replete with sound clips from radio talk show host Laura Ingraham.

 

[bilby]

There was a time not so long ago when the South was called “The Solid South” by the national Democratic Party and the national press. The Republican Party in the South was, where it existed at all, historically on “the disabled list.” The two-party system in the South was “The Democrats who were in, and the Democrats who were out.”

So the action was in the Democratic primary, where the eventual winner was inevitably coronated.

'Coronated'?

Seriously, 'coronated'??

What's wrong with coronated? It's a standard usage of the term for someone who'll win without any real challenge.

When used as a transitive verb, 'to crown' means to place a crown or wreath on the head of a dignitary or someone with a regal position. A coronation is the ceremony held for crowning someone. This can also be used figuratively to denote inauguration of a person to an office where no physical crown is used. 'Coronate' or 'coronated' is an adjective that refers to something that is crown-shaped and is also a biological term. Coronated is not synonymous with crowned. I rather doubt that Democratic congressmen were inevitably crown-shaped, or that they had a crown-shaped part to their anatomy.

If they were, I would like some pictures please.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

When used as a transitive verb, 'to crown' means to place a crown or wreath on the head of a dignitary or someone with a regal position. A coronation is the ceremony held for crowning someone. This can also be used figuratively to denote inauguration of a person to an office where no physical crown is used. 'Coronate' is an adverb that refers to something that is crown-shaped and is also a biological term. Coronated is not synonymous with crowned. I rather doubt that Democratic congressmen were inevitably crown-shaped.

Do you also complain when people identify themselves as gay men even though they're not happy all the time? Or when articles talk about someone sabotaging a situation even though he didn't use shoes to do it? Regardless of the etiology of the term, it's properly used these days to describe someone who's in a position where he can't really lose.

 

[bilby]

When used as a transitive verb, 'to crown' means to place a crown or wreath on the head of a dignitary or someone with a regal position. A coronation is the ceremony held for crowning someone. This can also be used figuratively to denote inauguration of a person to an office where no physical crown is used. 'Coronate' is an adverb that refers to something that is crown-shaped and is also a biological term. Coronated is not synonymous with crowned. I rather doubt that Democratic congressmen were inevitably crown-shaped.

Do you also complain when people identify themselves as gay men even though they're not happy all the time? Or when articles talk about someone sabotaging a situation even though he didn't use shoes to do it? Regardless of the etiology of the term, it's properly used these days to describe someone who's in a position where he can't really lose.

I guess it may be in America; It most certainly isn't used that way in English.

That is the first time I have seen the word used in that way, and it derailed my train of thought like a semi-trailer stalled on a level crossing.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

American slang does things like that. As in "Y'all been coronated, dog".

 

[Keith&Co.]

American slang does things like that. As in "Y'all been coronated, dog".

American POLITICS does that.
Bush: 50,456,002 of the popular vote (while Gore 50,999,897) and called it a clear mandate from the People.

 

[bilby]

American slang does things like that. As in "Y'all been coronated, dog".

American POLITICS does that.
Bush: 50,456,002 of the popular vote (while Gore 50,999,897) and called it a clear mandate from the People.

Are you sure he didn't call it a 'clarificationalised mandatification from the people'?

 

[RavenSky]

G

Yes, I'm still hungry.

crjq

 

[Underseer]

American slang does things like that. As in "Y'all been coronated, dog".

American POLITICS does that.
Bush: 50,456,002 of the popular vote (while Gore 50,999,897) and called it a clear mandate from the People.

Are you sure he didn't call it a 'clarificationalised mandatification from the people'?

No, he and the "liberal media" treated it like a landslide in favor of Bush, but when Obama won more votes and more electoral votes, he barely squeaked by.

 

[RavenSky]

This is bad news for incumbents, but I would suggest that it is especially bad news for Democrat incumbents.

this really stuck out to me.
why on earth would you think that?

Well, for one thing, Cantor was an incumbent. People are fed up with the way things are going in Washington, and I think that is a good reason why Brat won. Brat also thinks that, by the way. For another, Democrats are the incumbent party in Washington. At least at the presidential level. So voters will strike back more heavily against Democrats. They nearly always do in off-year elections anyway. Cantor's defeat, against overwhelming odds in his favor, merely highlights the public mood.

I was listening to former Virginia Republican Rep Tom Davis on the radio today, and his take was not that Cantor was an incumbent, but that as Majority Leader he had to take national politics into consideration when making choices. He had to not only corral the disparate factions of the GOP, but potentially negotiate and compromise with Democrats. This didn't fly in his district, which has swung far to the right. They don't want their representative in Congress to compromise, negotiate, or even (apparently) work for the State of Virginia. They're certainly angry at Cantor, but failed to realize that they're not replacing a Majority Leader with a new Majority Leader. Brat will be at the bottom of the power structure in DC. His influence - if he has any at all - will be a tiny fraction of Cantor's, and his district and state will suffer for it.

If Virginia's Congressional delegation were a football team, the voters just fired the star quarterback and are going to send in a rookie who has never played a quarter of pro ball in his life. Good luck with that.

Good analysis, I think

 

[ksen]

Government regulation is costing the consumer bundles.

Uh huh, tell me more about how businesses are just itching to lower their prices but can't because of the evil government.

I already have. Read my previous posts.

No, you really haven't. You've just parroted the usual right-wing talking points about evil government without bothering to bring up specific instances to bolster your case.

Maybe it's just a communications problem. My boss does this to me all the time. She'll come down and start going on and on about some problem and I'll have to always stop her and tell her I have no idea what she's talking about because she hasn't bothered to start out by telling me what she was looking at or what she was thinking about before diving in as if I already had in mind the information she was working off of.

 

[boneyard bill]

Yes, but:

The crucial vote was 263-171, passing by a comfortable bipartisan margin. Most Democrats voted in favor (172 yeas to 63 nays), while a slighter majority of Republicans voted against (91 yeas to 108 nays). Every member of the House voted. (There is one vacancy, created by recent death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.)

That was the vote the passed after all the arm-twisting and the bribes. The original vote failed in the House but passed the Senate so it came back to the House which actually makes it unconstitutional since all money bills must originate in the House.

 

[boneyard bill]

That's the media spin but it doesn't seem to be well supported. ]

Not according to the NPR story. It was replete with sound clips from radio talk show host Laura Ingraham.

Talk radio pushed the immigration issue, but it was a small part of Brat's own campaign, and integrated into his other talking points.

 

[Nexus]

The original vote failed in the House but passed the Senate so it came back to the House which actually makes it unconstitutional since all money bills must originate in the House.

Since when do they care about constitutionality?

 

[boneyard bill]

Brat's campaign was actually quite an unusual campaign for a Republican. It was basically a libertarian campaign with a strong anti-corporate welfare theme. Here's an article from the New Yorker which calls Brat, "the Elizabeth Warren of the Right."

From what I’ve observed, Brat has not talked like a forty-seven-per-cent conservative complaining about how tax dollars are being shovelled to the undeserving poor (although maybe he does believe that and didn’t emphasize it in the campaign). He comes across, instead, like a ninety-nine-per-cent conservative who sees the real villain as corporate America and its addiction to government largesse. One of his biggest applause lines is about how bankers should have gone to jail after the 2008 financial crisis. Brat is the Elizabeth Warren of the right.

The divisions within the Republican Party since 2010 are not always obvious from the shorthand we commonly use: Tea Party versus establishment, conservatives versus moderates, outsiders versus insiders. Brat’s stump speech, inspired by the country’s top corporate-lobbying group, was notable for the clarity with which it defined these often opaque categories. Eric Cantor “is running on the Chamber of Commerce growth plan,” Brat told a small gathering at the Life Church in Hanover, Virginia, last April. “The Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable. If you’re in big business, he’s good for you. But if you’re in any other group, it’s not good for you.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...d-brat-the-elizabeth-warren-of-the-right.html

Here's a link to "part 1" of his stump speech. That's the first 12 minutes. I have been unable to find any "part 2."

Brat essentially was able to define Cantor as the candidate of corporate America who cared very little about the ordinary American. You can do this with stump speeches before small audiences and without a lot of money in a primary race with a small turnout of party activists. You can't do it in a general election where you would need a lot of money to reach many voters who take much less interest. Nonetheless, this could be a strategy that many others will begin to employ in different ways, and it's a strategy that can be used against Democrats as well as establishment Republicans.

The problem is that in a general election you have to raise a lot of money to get the message out and that could make you vulnerable to the same accusations.

 

[boneyard bill]

boneyard bill


Brat's campaign was actually quite an unusual campaign for a Republican. It was basically a libertarian campaign with a strong anti-corporate welfare theme. Here's an article from the New Yorker which calls Brat, "the Elizabeth Warren of the Right."


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...d-brat-the-elizabeth-warren-of-the-right.html

From what I’ve observed, Brat has not talked like a forty-seven-per-cent conservative complaining about how tax dollars are being shovelled to the undeserving poor (although maybe he does believe that and didn’t emphasize it in the campaign). He comes across, instead, like a ninety-nine-per-cent conservative who sees the real villain as corporate America and its addiction to government largesse. One of his biggest applause lines is about how bankers should have gone to jail after the 2008 financial crisis. Brat is the Elizabeth Warren of the right.

The divisions within the Republican Party since 2010 are not always obvious from the shorthand we commonly use: Tea Party versus establishment, conservatives versus moderates, outsiders versus insiders. Brat’s stump speech, inspired by the country’s top corporate-lobbying group, was notable for the clarity with which it defined these often opaque categories. Eric Cantor “is running on the Chamber of Commerce growth plan,” Brat told a small gathering at the Life Church in Hanover, Virginia, last April. “The Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable. If you’re in big business, he’s good for you. But if you’re in any other group, it’s not good for you.” http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...the-right.html

Here's a link to "part 1" of his stump speech. That's the first 12 minutes. I have been unable to find any "part 2."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpd5pIraG20

Brat essentially was able to define Cantor as the candidate of corporate America who cared very little about the ordinary American. You can do this with stump speeches before small audiences and without a lot of money in a primary race with a small turnout of party activists. You can't do it in a general election where you would need a lot of money to reach many voters who take much less interest. Nonetheless, this could be a strategy that many others will begin to employ in different ways, and it's a strategy that can be used against Democrats as well as establishment Republicans.

The problem is that in a general election you have to raise a lot of money to get the message out and that could make you vulnerable to the same accusations.