Eric Cantor’s Challenger from the Right (Primary Tuesday!!)

Add another to the lengthy list of contests between powerful Republican incumbents and Washington far-outsiders: An economics professor from Henrico, Va., Dave Brat, will announce his entry into the race for Eric Cantor’s House seat on January 9. He has already hired John Pudner of Concentric Direct as his consultant.

That’s not an easy prospect by any stretch of the imagination, and Cantor is certainly not throwing in the towel. Rory Cooper, a spokesman for Cantor, tells NRO: “Congressman Cantor is proud to serve the people of the Seventh District and hopes to earn their trust again so he can continue creating jobs and opportunity for hard-working Virginia families and defending conservative values.”

But Brat looks to have a better shot than anyone who has tried to unseat the majority leader thus far. “This is probably the first time that Eric has had a credible opponent with a comparable education and background,” says Amanda Chase, Cantor’s former political director.

She adds that defeating Cantor is difficult for a variety of reasons. For one, though some of the majority leader’s moves have rankled grassroots activists in his district, he’s highly regarded among establishment Republicans. He also has a preternatural gift for fundraising, Chase adds, and, naturally, there’s his name recognition.

There are some other factors at play as well. Since I live in this district, I’ll give you my perspective.

Eric Cantor does not do town halls - never has. If he does public events, they are very scripted and you have to pay into his campaign coffers to attend. He is not one to mingle with the great unwashed. This has set him up as distant and aloof and not at all sympathetic to his constituents problems.

Eric and his young guns posse spent the spring trying to slate at various mass meetings. Slating in slimy trick to elect hand picked delegates for the district and state conventions. Eric was trying to flex his muscle. Fortunately, by the time the Henrico mass meeting took place, we were on to him and stopped the slating in its tracks. Bear in mind this is Eric’s home county. This pushback was huge.

Furthermore, Eric did not bother to attend the Henrico County republic committee mass meeting. IMHO, it was a slap in the face to everyone in the county who has supported him over the years. I was there and it was EPIC. Dave Brat DID attend and give his stump speech. He was interrupted numerous times with huge applause. I think that was the moment that Cantor’s team started to wet their pants.

At the 7th district convention, Cantor-crony Linwood Cobb was defeated as 7th district chair. This may all seem rather much like inside baseball, and it is. The point being, enough people are sick of his games that they rebelled. It was awesome. Cantor did show up and gave a speech at this convention. He was booed throughout and from all reports that really rattled him. His habit of only doing scripted events really hurt him - he has no experience in dealing with less than friendly audiences. He fled the convention after his speech.

I have personally turned two Cantor voters to Brat voters. I have done some door-knocking and NO ONE had anything positive to say about Cantor. Not.one.single.person. My anecdotal experience is there is seething resentment of Cantor and people are ready to send him packing.

Finally, at the moment, there is no democrat candidate. The deadline passed with no dem filing to run. Now, as we all know, the dems will ignore the rules if it suits their purposes, so a dem could file after Tuesday. But a lot of dems view this as their opportunity to stick it to Cantor. They hate him with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. No dem is going to take him out in the general - but this primary is another story.

Brat has been getting national attention and the money is coming in. He’s got radio and tv ads going. I get a mailer a day from Cantor - which goes into the trash where it belongs. I’ve gotten almost daily emails from Cantor begging for help. The tone of these emails is waaaaay different from past primaries.

One last little tidbit. I was told by a campaign worker that someone close to the Brat campaign has been in some of the Cantor campaign activities/meetings/something more inside than showing up and doing phone calling. This source says the Cantor campaign is really, really, really worried. Like freaking out kind of worried. They all see their gravy train derailing and they are not happy.

So, donate to Dave Brat’s campaign if you can. Volunteer if you can. And pray. If Cantor loses, it’s seismic. And on Tuesday, I will revel in the joy of upsetting the establishment applecart.

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