Down Goes Eric Cantor

Official portrait of Congressman . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever since the start of Barack Obama's presidency, the Republican Party and the Tea Party have combined to undermine the President's and the Democrats' attempts to make the nation in their own image, while at the same time polarizing Washington to the point where nothing gets done.

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare?  Grudgingly passed.  Gun control, immigration reform and tax reform?  Nope.  Finger-pointing on Benghazi, Bowe Bergdahl and a militant army occupying Iraq?  Absolutely.

But there comes a time when ordinary people get tired of political parties who can't go along to get along for the good of the country.  That happened Tuesday, when Rep. Eric Cantor lost his 7th District GOP primary in Virginia to a little-known Tea Party candidate named David Brat.  It was shocking, and it wasn't even close.  The next day, Cantor resigned his position as House Majority Leader, effective at the end of July.

Cantor had all the support his incumbency could ever need:  a solidly Republican base, a national profile and outspending Brat by a 2-to-1 margin.  It was that national profile, along with a softening of his previously hard-line views on immigration, that had Cantor's constituents wondering what he's done for them lately.

The defeat of Cantor has every incumbent on edge in this election year, even the ones representing the so-called "safe" districts where there's little chance of not getting re-elected.  It has also given the Tea Party's extreme conservatism a big shot in the arm, after being written off as a bunch of wackos by most of the politicians and pundits.

But Cantor's defeat won't change the projected makeup of Congress come November.  Most pundits believe (and so do we) that the Republicans will retain their majority in the House, then try to do the same with the Senate.  Just who those newcomers will be, and how they will govern, is anyone's guess.

All of which makes Michele Bachmann's decision not to run for Congress again seem smart by comparison.  Bachmann could have spent millions of dollars to keep her seat in Minnesota's Sixth District, risking voter fatigue with her antics over the past few years.  But she didn't.

Don't worry about Eric Cantor, folks.  He'll either land on his feet as a lobbyist, or be in a Cabinet position under a Republican president.  It's the ones who, like Cantor, were arrogant enough to lose elections because they weren't taking care of business back home that we need to worry about.