Down Goes Cantor

A big stick goes boom:

In an upset for the ages, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-most powerful man in the House, was dethroned Tuesday by a little-known, tea party-backed Republican primary challenger carried to victory on a wave of public anger over calls for looser immigration laws.

I suspect immigration had rather a lot to do with it, but that wasn't all. Take it away, Mickey Kaus:

You’ll also hear that “Cantor’s loss only tells us about the views of the right-wing faction of the right-wing party in a heavily right-wing district.” But the comprehensivists and their MSM tools have been trying for two years to convince us that Republicans — even Tea Partiers – -were really OK with legalization, even a “path to citizenship.” Only yesterday the NYT was pitching this case, without bothering to mention any skeptics. Turns out it’s BS. The more difficult point is that while the public may be roughly, inconclusively split on amnesty, the anti-amnesty voters have all the intensity while pro-amnesty voters tend to consider the issue not all that much of a priority. In a democracy, ties go to intensity. (Although the Senate’s Gang of 8 monstrosity wouldn’t survive a plebiscite either — it would be quickly picked apart.)

I think that's correct. Most people understand that you can't just deport everyone who has come here illegally, but you don't have to encourage more people to come, either. Still, I think another issue is that Cantor became part of the Washington establishment and forgot why he was sent there in the first place.  There was a time, not that long ago, when Cantor was seen as a reformer. Those days ended a long time ago. Reforming Washington is tough because the institutional heft of the place makes reform very difficult and it's easy to get caught up in the blandishments of higher office. It's far more likely that Washington will change a politician than that a politician can change Washington. Assuming that the victorious David Brat goes there, it would not surprise me very much if I were to end up writing a similar piece about his career in a decade's time.