Fanciful Fish from Waterfront Whimsea

The tea-baggers bagged a big one yesterday in Eric Cantor and I can not fully express my sense of schadenfreude at his demise, but I’m going to try here. To think that the number two most powerful elected Republican was bumped-off by a political novice, a college professor. No one gave David Brat a chance of beating Cantor, least of all Cantor’s own pollsters. They had Cantor to win with a very comfortable +34% margin. I’m sure that they were just as surprised as Cantor was last night, when all the votes were tallied and Eric found himself -11% in the only poll that matters. That’s a 45% swing. How more wrong can you be? This is after Cantor outspent his opponent 25-1. If you can’t buy reelection at that price maybe you should get the heck out of politics.

Pundits have declared that immigration was Cantor’s downfall. He had tried a little, a very little, to work with Democrats to concoct a compromise, but when the going got tough and the political winds tuned against him, he quickly bailed. Not soon enough though, because the far-right branded him squishy on core conservative principles. He was vilified on talk radio. Now Virginia has lost the Speakership and its last Republican with national stature. Boehner is retiring and the Speaker’s gavel was Cantor’s to lose, which he did. He announced his resignation as majority leader today. Cantor had probably spent more time and planning on the redecoration of the Speaker’s office than he had running for his reelection. Cantor lost because he was careless, but I do enjoy gloating over it.

Should I write a letter to My Congressman?
Each Congressman has got two ends,
A sitting end and a thinking end,
But since his whole success depends upon his seat,
Why bother friend? – E.Y. Harburg