Meet the Man Trying to Unseat Top House Republican Eric Cantor

abcnews.go.com ^ | 5/15/14 | John Parkinson

[cotton1706]

Meet Dave Brat, an economics and ethics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, who has launched a long-shot bid to oust House Majority Leader Eric Cantor from his seat representing Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

Brat, who admits that he has supported several Cantor candidacies over the years, says he mounted his improbable primary campaign because the House GOP’s No. 2 leader has lost touch with his constituents, “veering from the Republican creed.”

“Years ago he had a good conservative track record, but now he’s veered off,” Brat told ABC News during an interview on Capitol Hill. “If you go to Heritage and look at their score, I think he’s at about a 53 right now. I mean, that’s an F-minus.”

Heritage Action’s scorecard tracks Republican votes, co-sponsorships and other legislative activity to gauge how conservative members of Congress are performing. Cantor actually receives a 52 percent, which ranks seventh among eight Virginia House Republicans.

While a recent profile of the race in the Washington Post characterized Brat as “a potential threat,” the quirky challenger knows he has a tough road to victory in the June 10 primary.

“Most of these [primary] races don’t kick in until about 30 days prior,” he said. “Now everyone’s looking, what’s the race? It’s an open primary and it’s just Eric and I on the ticket.”

Brat, 49, isn’t the first primary challenger Cantor has faced. The Richmond Republican smoked primary challenger Floyd Bayne in 2012 by nearly 60 percentage points before cruising to a 17-point victory in the general election.

But with low primary turnout (just 47,000 voters turned out in the primary two years ago) and anti-incumbency fervor at an all-time high, Cantor’s team says they aren’t overlooking Brat, although they “don’t see him getting a great deal of traction.”

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Wouldn't that be sweet?

[OldPossum]

I’m making a small contribution to Brat’s candidacy. Nothing would please me more than seeing Cantor ousted from the House. He’s not one of us.

[Hostage]

It boils down to the passion and commitment of the volunteers and how effective they are to get the message out.

If there’s not enough money in Brat’s campaign, then he needs about 3000 passionate volunteers to put him over the top.

[2001convSVT]

And if Trey Gowdy could also replace Boehner as Speaker we might get some real conservative reform.

[Din Maker]

Well, it sounds like the TEA Party folks are fired up for Brat if you read this article:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3156226/posts

Cantor was booed and Brat was cheered at District GOP Convention the other day and his guy was not elected to the leadership post for which Cantor was pushing him. The TEA Party elected one of their own instead. Pray for a severe T-Storm in VA’s 7th Congressional District on June 10th.