The news of the last couple of days has mostly dealt with the fallout (radioactive?) of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor losing his primary to conservative challenger David Brat, an economics professor who only had $200,000 to his name compared to the $5 million Cantor campaign war chest. The knee-jerk reactions have mostly been on a spectrum between "shock" and "earthquake" or something along those lines. This result was so unexpected, the prediction for the rest of the year is that nothing will get done in Congress because everyone is afraid that if they have to cast a vote on anything they might get "Cantored" either in the primary or in the general election.
Two things:
1) Was this really all that unexpected? Until this happened, the big story line from primary election season has been that the "establishment" types, especially on the Republican side are finally starting to put the "far-right extremists" (aka the Tea Party) out of their misery by winning in primary elections, whereas 2 and 4 years ago it was the nobodies in the Tea Party that were winning primaries. However, this electoral result puts a huge monkey wrench into that theory, especially with establishment guy Thad Cochran about to lose his Senate primary runoff in Mississippi. I think that we still see evidence of people in general getting fed up with the "establishment" and "politics as usual." I know that seems cliché, but whether its Republicans taking money from corporations or Democrats taking money from unions, ordinary people are getting fed up with getting ignored in the political process. That's why you are going to see fresh blood from both sides get elected in the next few elections. "Knowing how Washington works" is more likely to work to candidates' detriment than their advantage, especially in this upcoming election cycle.
2) I have long been in favor of congressional term limits, and under my (unscientific) proposal, Cantor would have been gone after the 2012 election cycle. For what its worth, I propose that 12 years is the maximum amount you can spend in Congress which would be 2 Senate terms, 6 House terms, or 3 House terms and 1 Senate term, and not a year more.** A big reason for my proposal is that it prevents people from becoming "career politicians," which appears to have victimized Cantor here. When he was first elected in 2000, he was kind of a David Brat kind of politician in his district. However, as he moved up the food chain in the party, he started to focus less on his constituents and more on where the money came from. And now he has paid the price.
**Since Senate terms are 6 years and House terms are only 2, the only way somebody could make the jump from House to Senate would be to make the move before 6 years are up in the House. More than 3 House terms plus 1 Senate term would put that person over my hypothetical 12 year limit.
Already, several long-time Congress people have already declared that they will not be running for reelection this year, on both sides. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall. No matter what Congress does between now and the general election, the remaining primaries and the general itself will be a referendum on what Congress has ALREADY done, especially the guys that have been there for a while, and if Cantor's dilemma is any indication, there will be plenty of upheaval this year.
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