Three things.
Most important thing of all, the GOPs are listening to the wrong experts and they will continue to do so for a long time to come.
Three things.
1. GOP pollster and consultant Frank Luntz, was on CBS This Morning. The first question: How did Cantor lose like this?
He started by saying, “Well, first of all GOP pollsters suck! I suck! Cantor’s pollster told him he was ahead by 34 points last week!”
Think of that. A GOP pundit comes on TV to give his opinions, and the first thing he does is tell us how incompetent he is.
AND THEY ALLOWED HIM TO SIT THERE AND CONTINUE TO GIVE HIS PREPOSTEROUS OPINIONS! His opinions were wonderfully clue-free, too. One hopes he is advising a boatload of candidates.
2. CBS News political analyst John Dickerson was also on. He was asked if pundits will read too much into this one race.
His witty answer: “Yes. That's what we do.”
Got a great laugh from Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell. He went on to say that it's what congressmen do, too.
I like him more and more.
3. Last night all the commentators observed that the guy who beat Cantor had a single issue: Immigration Reform. Not that Cantor has been a supporter of Immigration Reform, but to those crackpot voters he wasn't against it enough.
But the thing I noticed was that I didn't hear a single commentator recall that in 2012 the Democrats, and mainly the Obama team, were going to push hard on Immigration Reform because it would tear the GOP to shreds.
Fist-bump to the Obama strategists. This obviously worked like a charm!
The thing to remember is that 80% of ALL Americans want immigration reform. More than half of all REPUBLICANS want pretty much what President Obama and the congressional Democrats are proposing. And every single one of those GOPs who, as John Dickerson mentioned, will take the Cantor defeat as a message to run vociferously against Immigration Reform, is now more vulnerable if our guys have plans to use this against them. It is hard to imagine that our guys do not have plans…
Remember, just 10% of republican voters voted in the that primary yesterday. It's likely that a lot of Cantor voters stayed home because he was known to be a shoo-in. Why take the hour out of your busy day? The pundits are all pointing at Immigration Reform and Cantor running all over the country helping other candidates instead of spending time in his own district. And the GOPs are going to run on what they hear from their pundits and pollsters who, as one of their most prominent number admitted, SUCK!
It is far more likely that most GOP voters there didn't bother going to their polling place because they didn't think Cantor needed their vote.
Long may the republicans run against highly popular issues. That's how we put a super intelligent Black man in the White House twice in the last six years.
The other thing that every pundit “knows”, is that the GOP will make big gains in Congress in November.
Just remember when the pundits give you the willies once a week until November: Pundits suck!
[Late breaking addendum: a friend just sent me this: A friend who lives in the 7th District of Virginia wrote me last night, "In my opinion, this had nothing to do with The Tea Party. We were just tired of him."