General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums538 and Krugman Eric Cantor upset what happened.
Last edited Wed Jun 11, 2014, 10:30 AM - Edit history (1)
Krugman's take"
Wow Eric Cantor lost his primary, by a large margin. Amazing.
Obviously I know nothing about his district, or what exactly happened. Fivethirtyeight does have something interesting, pointing out that Tea Party upsets seem correlated with the second dimension of DW-nominate, the Poole-Rosenthal system that maps roll call votes into an implied position space. If you have no idea what Im talking about, I might come back to this, but basically Im telling you that I remain a serious nerd.
What I think I might add to this discussion is a note on incentives: Cantors loss is part of a process that could well unravel movement conservatism as we know it.
Movement conservatism as distinct from just plain conservatism, which has always been a part of the landscape and always will be is a distinct feature of modern American politics. It dates, more or less, back to the 1970s, when conservatives, with lots of money from the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife, set about building an institutional infrastructure of think tanks, pressure groups, captive media, etc.. At first this infrastructure mainly provided backing to right-thinking (in both senses) politicians. But eventually it provided a career path for up and coming conservatives.
In particular, being a movement conservative in good standing meant considerable career safety: even if you or the politician you worked for lost an election, there were jobs to be had at think tanks (e.g. Rick Santorum heading up the Americas enemies program at a Scaife-backed think tank), media gigs (two Bush speechwriters writing columns for the Washington Post, not to mention the gaggle at the WSJ and Fox News), and so on.
In other words, being a hard line conservative, which to be fair involved some career risks back in the 60s and into the 70s, became a safe choice; you could count on powerful backing, and if not favored by fortune, you could fall back on wingnut welfare............
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/fall-of-an-apparatchik/?smid=re-share
My addition to the story
Anyway one thing we do know is that
Republican internal polls are really bad as this election showed and
Romney's internal polls showed.
538's take
here are a few quick thoughts.
First, this race had a heavy insider vs. outsider dynamic, and the tea party is definitely not dead. As my colleague Nate Silver pointed out previously, it was probably too early to call for the tea partys demise. Cantors loss puts an exclamation point on that.
Yes, the difference between being part of the establishment and being a tea party member can be overplayed. In this case, however, it applies. Brat had the backing of local tea party groups, and you cant get more establishment than being the House majority leader.
Cantor, in contrast to past victims of GOP primary challenges, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska or former Indiana senator Dick Lugar, has little history of bucking his party. As you might expect of a Republican in a leadership position, hes voted with his party 95 percent of the time. Because Cantors party is quite conservative, his votes have been quite conservative.
But his position of authority also saddles him with any grievances that voters might have against the GOP leadership.
We can look at the statistical system DW-Nominate scores to confirm this. DW-Nominate ranks members of Congress on two dimensions based on their roll call votes. The first dimension is essentially a liberal-to-conservative measure. Cantor is more conservative than any of the Republicans thought to be in trouble in 2014, according to DW-Nominate. (He has about as conservative a voting record as Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, so hes no moderate.)
The second dimension of DW-Nominate is less commonly discussed. It describes differences among members of Congress that cant easily be placed on a left-right scale for instance, voting on civil rights issues during the mid-20th century. (Many northern Republicans voted in favor of civil rights legislation, while many New Deal Democrats from the South voted against it.) More recently, the second dimension has come to represent something like an insider vs. outsider (or establishment vs. tea party) spectrum.
I dont want to claim that Cantors defeat was all that predictable it wasnt but..............
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-eric-cantor-upset-what-happened/
MADem
(135,425 posts)"No contest." "Work on pushing him in the general, don't expect a lot of money; it's his to lose." Even the worst polls had him up by double digits.
I'm curious as to how the "outstanding expert in the field" missed this...or didn't anyone look?
Timez Squarez
(262 posts)When he predicted that GOP will take the Senate, and hold the House.
Right now, with the primary losses, the House of Monkeys have lost their grip, and it is favored and remains favored (since Jan) that I am of the opinion that the Democratic Senate will be retained, with zero or minimal gains for the Democratic side, and there WILL be a Democratic House with Grayson as the Speaker, not Pelosi.
No more Turd Way compromisers in the Leadership positions. No more currying favors for the Republicans. They've had their turn. It's over.
Yes, I said it's over.
MADem
(135,425 posts)The Speaker of the House is a blatant popularity contest--and Grayson doesn't have a prayer of getting the votes for it. If the Dems could take back the House, Pelosi would likely be returned to the podium. She has MAD administrative and negotiating skills, plus she's got a lot of loyal friends seeded throughout the building.
Reter
(2,188 posts)I'd also add that leaders in the House and Senate are almost always establishment people. Newt I think was an exception, as he was much to the right of then current Republicans at the time.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)since he mentioned 538 and said it was interesting.
Wow Eric Cantor lost his primary, by a large margin. Amazing.
Obviously I know nothing about his district, or what exactly happened. Fivethirtyeight does have something interesting, pointing out that Tea Party upsets seem correlated with the second dimension of DW-nominate, the Poole-Rosenthal system that maps roll call votes into an implied position space. If you have no idea what Im talking about, I might come back to this, but basically Im telling you that I remain a serious nerd.
What I think I might add to this discussion is a note on incentives: Cantors loss is part of a process that could well unravel movement conservatism as we know it.
Movement conservatism as distinct from just plain conservatism, which has always been a part of the landscape and always will be is a distinct feature of modern American politics. It dates, more or less, back to the 1970s, when conservatives, with lots of money from the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife, set about building an institutional infrastructure of think tanks, pressure groups, captive media, etc.. At first this infrastructure mainly provided backing to right-thinking (in both senses) politicians. But eventually it provided a career path for up and coming conservatives.
In particular, being a movement conservative in good standing meant considerable career safety: even if you or the politician you worked for lost an election, there were jobs to be had at think tanks (e.g. Rick Santorum heading up the Americas enemies program at a Scaife-backed think tank), media gigs (two Bush speechwriters writing columns for the Washington Post, not to mention the gaggle at the WSJ and Fox News), and so on.
In other words, being a hard line conservative, which to be fair involved some career risks back in the 60s and into the 70s, became a safe choice; you could count on powerful backing, and if not favored by fortune, you could fall back on wingnut welfare............
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/fall-of-an-apparatchik/?smid=re-share
Anyway one thing we do know is that
Republican internal polls are really bad as this election showed and
Romney's internal polls showed.
MADem
(135,425 posts)it was gonna rain with the weather channel on! They just suck at it!
I guess when they can't stuff the ballot box, it's harder to come up with accurate numbers...?
hack89
(39,171 posts)I don't think primaries produce enough meaningful polling data for him to apply his methods.
MADem
(135,425 posts)I wasn't even following Cantor closely, but I know I saw three or four polls--a couple the "usual horseshit" but even the ones that I usually regard as even-handed had him up by ten or MORE.
hack89
(39,171 posts)he knows that his method works best on general elections where there is a greater depth and breadth of data available.
MADem
(135,425 posts)make predictions when there's an embarrassment of riches.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)back in the 70s for my PS degree.
I used to trust polls and exit polls but then something happened to the system where I found them more and more unreliable and suspect and that was 6 years before `kerry's exit polls in Ohio.
I went to 538 because of Krugman's observation . Neither mentioned how Cantors internal polls were so wrong and why.
so I think I will include that in the OP so not to upset the sensitive.
Demsrule86
(68,351 posts)I have heard from my family that many Democrats voted in this primary...Cantor is blamed for the government shutdown which caused hardship in this area too...not so sure this is a tea party victory ...may they just don't like the guy...low turn out and Democrats crossing over to vote in this primary...who knows? I can't stand Cantor because of his rudeness to Pres. Obama. Thus I am delighted to see him go down.
MADem
(135,425 posts)They need to depress the GOP vote by bashing, trashing and dragging the name of this Tea nutter through the mud. OPPO research, and plenty of it!!! The minimum wage gaffe he made this morning--pin him down and pin that on him. Get him to say some wildass shit. Find tapes of his old lectures, pull them apart. Get him on the defensive now--early and often, every time he gets back on his feet, hit him w/something else.
GOTV in a big way on the Dem side. Rides, phone calls, take 'em by the hand, get 'em to the polls. "Your social security DEPENDS on it!!!!" Now's not too soon to start reaching out to people and "keeping in touch." Those "What's important to YOU?" phone calls can go a long way towards engaging a voter.
Fundraise, fundraise, fundraise. Buy lots of ads that look home-grown but are subtly sophisticated. TARGET the electorate, and target independents and malleable one-issue Republicans. Make sure the ad buys work and are appropriate --no "young voter" stuff in the middle of a Lawrence Welk rerun.
Get a hold of that Dem candidate and clean him up. He needs a bit of "Media 101" class. He's a prof too, so he can talk on his feet, but he needs to get the national syllabus down and be able to apply it to his district.
It's NOT TOO SOON to start debate prepping the guy. Early and often!
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Now that Cantor will be unemployed maybe republican fox will hire the peacock
Larkspur
(12,804 posts)he didn't visit his district as much as he had when first elected. And he seemed to be shooting for national GOP leader and thus neglected his constituents.
I saw this happen with Sam Gejdenson D-CT. Sam was a congressman from CT's 2nd district for 20 years, but he lived more outside of his district than in it. He made his family's farm his residence, but he lived with his girl friend in the western part of CT. Sam was defeated in 2000 by Republican Rob Simmons.
Cantor was in Congress for 14 years. Neglecting his constituents added to the anti-establishment feeling running through his district that Eric overlooked. He should have gotten a clue when his hand-picked man for Republican chair lost to a Tea Partier.