Eric Cantor Is Now Politically Dead, And The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Killed Him

The results are in, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has not only lost in the GOP primary for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, he’s been blown out by Randolph-Macon College economics professor and Tea Party insurgent Dave Brat.

It’s a 55.5-44.5 wipeout for Brat. They’re on cable news talking about Cantor as a potential write-in candidate, but even if he does that he’s not likely to win.

And the GOP establishment types are trying to say this is a function of crossover Democrat voters trying to torpedo Cantor by stuffing the ballot boxes for Brat. Except Cantor is killing Brat in the parts of the district which are heavily Democrat. It’s hard-core conservatives who are beating Cantor tonight.

Eric Cantor is not a particular RINO. Eric Cantor actually has a pretty conservative – not immaculately conservative, to be sure, but pretty conservative – voting record in the House.

Here are Cantor’s ratings from the major conservative scorecards:

  • American Conservative Union: 84 last year, 95.07 lifetime
  • Club For Growth: 68 percent last year, 77 lifetime
  • Heritage Action: 53 percent this year, 54 lifetime (they don’t like him all that much)
  • FreedomWorks: 59 percent last year, 74 lifetime

A 74 from FreedomWorks and a 77 from Club For Growth are, generally speaking, scores which don’t get you beat in a GOP primary.

And yet, down goes Cantor tonight.

Why? Because Eric Cantor has been pushing “immigration reform.” He’s been pushing amnesty for illegal aliens. He toured the country with Luis Gutierrez, the socialist Democrat congressman from Chicago who encourages illegals to openly flout the law, last year to push an amnesty bill.

Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan were the two Republicans most aggressively pushing amnesty. And now Eric Cantor is a lame duck courtesy of his constituents, who turned him out of office despite his spending some $5 million trying to get re-elected (Brat supposedly spent only $100,000).

Cantor cut his throat on amnesty, and now his political career is basically finished. Why would he do it?

Because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce talked him into it, that’s why.

Cantor is one of several members of the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill who have been convinced that if they don’t go along with the Democrats on some sort of comprehensive immigration reform legislation they’re going to consign their party to obsolescence because of the changing demographics of the country and the supposed fact that white people will become a minority of Americans soon.

This isn’t a particularly convincing argument, mind you. It seems that, in the particular case of Hispanics, the longer they’re here the more often they start calling themselves white. If you want to call that evidence of assimilation, you can, but what it really signifies is that a second-, third- or fourth-generation Hispanic American thinks much less in terms of racial identity than what the racial bean-counters assume.

It’s also an argument which is going to be hard to sustain over time when the full effects of Democrat governance are made known. Does anybody really think the black vote, for example, will ever be the electoral force for a Hillary Clinton that it has been for a Barack Obama? Does anybody think millennial voters, who have been so badly injured by Obama’s policies, will continue to be such enormous Democrat supporters (a clue: younger millennials are already turning much more conservative than older ones are)? This supposed coalition which would permanently destroy the Republican Party is already fraying, and the idea that if the GOP doesn’t agree to amnesty they consign themselves to a dustheap while black, brown and young voters overwhelm its candidates simply denies reality – namely, that there is nothing permanent in politics.

The argument is also mind-bendingly stupid in the shorter term. It’s more and more likely as each race takes shape that Republicans will take control of the Senate this November. Given that, and given the makeup of a typical mid-term electorate which is older, whiter, richer and more conservative…and as a result less likely to support amnesty, pushing an immigration reform deal with Harry Reid before the election makes zero sense. This is similar to 888 casino where 888 casino games can be played from anywhere and UK such as this 888casino. If you can win the Senate this November, and you can do it without taking away a single Democrat seat in a state with a sizable Hispanic population, then if you really want to do an immigration deal before the 2016 election so as to make your peace with this mythical population of Latino voters who could be had if only we made citizens out of millions of illegals what you do is WAIT.

Just wait. And next year you can do a deal with Mitch McConnell, the new Senate majority leader, instead of the dysfunctional and corrupt Harry Reid.

But no. It has to be done this year.

Why? Who convinced GOP House members like Cantor to jump off this cliff?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that’s who.

Remember this from a few weeks ago?

The GOP shouldn’t even field a presidential candidate in 2016 unless Congress passes immigration reform this year, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue said Monday.

“If the Republicans don’t do it, they shouldn’t bother to run a candidate in 2016,” Donohue joked at an event on infrastructure investment in D.C. “Think about that. Think about who the voters are. I just did that to get everybody’s attention.”

Tom Donohue made that threat, veiled behind a joke, and then he tripped down to Havana to kiss Raul Castro’s ring.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants amnesty, because the Chamber’s members like the idea of being able to hire cheap Mexican labor without messy immigration compliance issues. And they want it yesterday.

But it’s worse than that. The Chamber wants to hire cheap Mexican labor because the Chamber thinks American workers aren’t worth having. The Chamber thinks Americans are lazy, too litigious, whine too much about things they want, can’t pass a drug test, you name it. And they’re giving up on American workers. They want illegals they can crush underfoot.

That mentality isn’t irrational or demonstrably evil, mind you. When there are workplace issues like employees who demand to bring their dogs to work, for example, or when you can’t hire kids out of college without coddling their hovering parents, you begin to see the Chamber’s point.

But those are cultural issues. You can’t fix culture with politics. The GOP should know this, as it has spent most of the past 25 years trying. Cultural issues have to be fought in the culture, and the Chamber refuses to fight that battle. They’ve surrendered on the culture and their advice to the GOP is to surrender on the politics.

And they back that advice with campaign checks, and promises of more. “We fund your party,” they say, “and we’ll break you just like we can make you.”

But here’s the thing: Republican voters, even the ones who think economics is crucial and that the party has to be pro-business, aren’t on board with much of anything in the Chamber’s agenda where immigration is concerned. Republican voters see amnesty and its likely effects as follows…

  1. Mass legalization of illegals and a path to citizenship will fundamentally change the demographics of the country – not just racially; in other ways which are far more important – in ways which could be devastating. Bringing in millions of voters who can’t speak English, aren’t educated, don’t have high-end job skills and are more likely than not to be drawing public assistance makes for a much weaker population in economic and cultural terms, and thus a weaker electorate, than we currently have.
  2. The social infrastructure of the country is groaning under the weight of the mass immigration we’ve already had; just look at California. To go further will only make those effects spread, to the detriment of everyone.
  3. The Democrats want amnesty because they believe they can turn those illegals into millions of bloc Democrat voters, and they will stop at nothing to achieve that goal. Making a deal with a Chuck Schumer or Gutierrez on immigration will only further the Democrats’ plans, with the only considerations being that big business gets cheap Mexican labor.
  4. Amnesty will be a magnet for even more illegals to cross the border, as we’re seeing with the massive flood of children coming here thanks to Obama’s open invitation, and when you couple the 10-20 million illegals becoming legal with 10-20 million more on the way thanks to the magnet you’ve created, how do you create enough jobs to accomodate all of them AND the 50 million Americans who can’t currently find work?

Republican voters would like to find a solution to the immigration issues in the country, and Republican voters aren’t interested in rounding people up and deporting them. Republican voters don’t hate Mexicans or Guatemalans or any of the other folks coming across that border and in fact completely understand why they’d want to come here. But they don’t trust Democrats to do what’s best for the country, and they don’t want their leaders to sell out to big multinational companies who have clearly given up on the rest of the country (and are increasingly in bed with Big Government in an effort to squash competition from startups and smaller companies, to a sizable degree of success).

Eric Cantor fell into that trap, and as a result he’s finished.

If you’re a Republican politician who wants to avoid ending up like him, do NOT sell out to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. You don’t represent the Chamber of Commerce; you represent your constituents. The Chamber isn’t at odds with your constituents all of the time, but when it is, know where your bread is buttered.

We end with a special message from Elliot Ness…

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