The historic defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia has given rise to a number of interpretations. After all, it marked the first time a sitting House majority leader has been ousted in a primary election since the position was created in 1899.
Some saw Cantor’s defeat as de facto recognition of the homogeneity that has beset the Republican Party, as Cantor was the only non-Christian in the House Republican Caucus. Others saw it as the hubris of seeking political power at the expense of the people one was meant to represent, while others still interpreted the situation as a resurgence of Tea Party politics in the Grand Old Party.
Regardless of the cause, the effect was sudden and drastic: Cantor’s defeat both shook up the Republican establishment and effectively put the party’s strategy heading toward November’s midterm election into question. Cantor’s defeat by Tea Party-supported Dave Brat — a candidate Cantor outpaced in political spending by a factor of more than 25 to 1 — could be read as a victory for the conservative Right. But considering Cantor’s role in promoting the Tea Party platform in Congress, it is unclear whether there are any winners at all in this scenario.
Since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Cantor has — more than any other member of the Republican leadership — cast himself in opposition of Obama’s agenda. As minority leader, he led the rally against the economic stimulus of the president’s early days. As majority leader, he backed and set to vote more than 50 challenges to the president’s signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
In a 2010 meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he “stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration” and “made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States.” This meeting, held just before Netanyahu’s meeting with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was seen as a clear overreach of authority and a hindrance to the White House’s attempts to restore the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Despite this, Cantor was never embraced by the far Right, which saw him as part of the establishment they sought to get rid of. Even though Cantor’s conservative credentials are impressive — he is rated 100 percent by the National Right to Life Committee; zero percent by NARAL Pro-Choice America; 19 percent by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; zero percent by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations; and “A” by the National Rifle Association — his intentions have always been read as a product of political calculus, leading many, including his constituents, simply not to trust him.
An example of this was his stance on immigration and establishing a path to naturalization for the nation’s undocumented immigrants. When the Republican National Convention’s autopsy of the 2012 presidential election — the Growth and Opportunity Project — suggested that the Republican Party cannot regain competitiveness unless it makes inroads with minority communities, especially the Latino community, Cantor initially supported simplifying the road to citizenship. However, as the Tea Party and the conservative Right rejected any notions of accommodation toward the nation’s undocumented immigrant population, Cantor tried to play the situation both ways — being anti-immigration to his home base, while not closing the possibility of immigration legislation on the national stage. For many, this reflected a disconnect from his true job, which was to represent the wishes and wants of the 7th district of Virginia.
“He embodied — from many of their perspectives — sort of the arrogance of power. That I think has a lot to do with it. And along those lines … he didn’t tend to the district,” said Dana Bash, CNN’s chief congressional correspondent. That was reflected in the fact that on election day, he was in Washington — not back in the 7th district.
“When you start having your operatives deal with the little people in your district — like, oh, you take their phone calls, oh, you e-mail them back, I’m too busy for that, I’m this big dog in the GOP — the way that Eric Cantor, John Boehner, John McCain have acted, you get your rear end kicked eventually,” Republican strategist Ben Ferguson told CNN.
While the role conservative media and the Democrats played in Cantor’s defeat can be debated at length, it would seem that Cantor’s political career is at an end for now. Cantor has indicated that he will step down as House majority leader in July and that he will not seek a write-in or third-party nomination for the November general election. However, amid all of this chaos and noise, a very real, serious question remains: If Cantor — arguably among the most conservative Republicans — is not enough to satisfy the far Right, who is?
“I think they’re kind of at the proverbial fork in the road,” said CNN political analyst Gloria Borger. “They can either be a congressional party and win these congressional seats by going further to the right, or they can become a presidential party in which you have to move to the middle.”