Is The Tea Party Making A Comeback?

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia lost to a Tea Party challenger on Tuesday in a stunning Republican primary upset that sent shockwaves through Congress and gave the conservative Tea Party movement the biggest victory in its four-year history.

Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, was easily beaten by college economics professor David Brat, CNN projected. With nearly 90 percent of votes counted, Brat had 56 percent to Cantor's 44 percent.

Brat, a political newcomer who teaches at Randolph-Macon College, had argued Cantor was not conservative enough and accused the seven-term incumbent of betraying conservative values on spending, the national debt and immigration.

Cantor had been seen by many as an eventual successor to House Speaker John Boehner, and his loss is certain to unsettle members of both parties already nervous about the depth of anger toward Congress among voters.

Cantor had spent more than $5 million to head off the challenge from Brat, who spent about $122,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The victory followed a string of primary losses by Tea Party candidates this year to candidates backed by the Republican establishment.

The race was the highlight of voting in five states on Tuesday. South Carolina, Maine, Nevada and North Dakota were also selecting candidates for the Nov. 4 midterm elections.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also faced a Tea Party challenge on Tuesday. Graham was expected to beat a crowded field of six challengers who had accused him of not being conservative enough.

The Tea Party movement would like to make clear that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Victories this week by Tea Party-backed candidates in Nebraska and West Virginia Republican primaries are helping to reinvigorate the movement, which some had written off amid a difficult campaign season. But as its own members point out, whether the movement is winning primaries or not, it's hard to argue its small-government message has faded.

Famous, or infamous, Tea Party-aligned lawmakers in Congress continue to play a strong role in the direction of the party. Polls of conservatives consistently show figures like Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as political favorites in a hypothetical 2016 race. And it is those figures who keep the Republican Party something of an evolving force -- Paul arguably made drones a bipartisan issue, and also filed a lawsuit this year against the administration over NSA surveillance, pushing the GOP to rethink the balance between security and privacy.

"Political pundits love to role-play as coroners, but they aren't very good at it," Tea Party Express Executive Director Taylor Budowich said after wins Tuesday night in Nebraska and West Virginia. "The mainstream media has been pushing the recycled 'Tea Party is Dead' headlines, but tonight's results show how again they've got it wrong. What these pundits don't understand is ... the broad appeal of the Tea Party's message of fiscal responsibility and economic growth."

In Nebraska, the primary victory by Republican Senate candidate Ben Sasse should help his party in November retain the open seat -- he is immediately considered the favorite for the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Mike Johanns.

In West Virginia, former Maryland GOP chairman Alex Mooney won the Republican primary with spending help from such outside groups as the Madison Fund, the Senate Conservatives Fund and Tea Party Express.

The Tea Party is optimistic about winning both general election races -- with Mooney's 2nd Congressional District being a Republican stronghold and Sasse, a former Bush administration official, rebuffing the kind of fringe-candidate label that dogged some unsuccessful Tea Party candidates in 2012.

In addition, Tea Party leaders are touting the narrow victory Tuesday by Nebraska GOP Rep. Lee Terry for a House seat he is expected to keep and Florida businessman Curt Clawson's victory last month in a special election for the House seat left by Republican Trey Radel.

Still, it is becoming clear this year that the Tea Party will struggle to repeat its past record of ousting high-profile Republican incumbents in the primaries.

It's been a while since Britain forced taxation on us without representation, but I suppose anything can happen in this FUTURISTIC NEW MILLENIUM!!

They should have updated the name to something more in tune of what's being taxed to death today.

Trying to think of a good one, lol.

I got it! Education!

No, wait. No one cares about education. My bad.

The well deserved loss of Eric cantor certainly makes America a better place, he accomplished nothing during his long tenure. Now that seat can be won by a democrat.

Democrat Jack Trammel, who, like Brat, is a professor at Randolph-Macon College

Randolph-Macon College Professor and Director of Disability Support Services Jack Trammell will discuss his latest book, The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of The Old Dominion (The History Press, 2012), at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 19, 2012 in the Washington Room, Washington-Franklin Hall. A book signing will follow the lecture. This event is free and open to the public.

Few people appreciate the extent to which the American slave economy fueled national industrialization and an encompassing continental economic growth. After the ban on the international slave trade in 1808, the North American slave trade gravitated and eventually centered along Wall Street in Richmond, Virginia. The capitalized value of slave labor became as important as the dollar itself, a commodity to be loaned, bought and sold, speculated on, and eventually even serving as a means of financing a fratricidal Civil War. Learn more about this trade, and in the process, challenge some of the sacred myths that still persist about the history of slavery in America.

In addition to his work as the director of Disability Support Services in R-MC’s Higgins Academic Center, Trammell is also the director of the Honors Program and teaches part-time in the Sociology Department. He earned his M.Ed. and Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Trammell is the author of several books, including the 2010 Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Silas House Volume II and Down on the Chickahominy: The Life and Times of a Vanishing Virginia River. In 2009 he won the Virginia Writer’s Club award for non-fiction for his Reflections of a Southern Gentleman Farmer, a collection of vignettes about life with his wife and children on his small farm in Louisa County.

This event is sponsored by the R-MC Departments of History, Black Studies, and Sociology.

Trammell's book is available at the R-MC Bookstore, and will be available for purchase at the lecture for $19.99 plus tax.

Brat attended Hope College and received a B.A. in Business Administration in 1986. He also graduated with a Master's degree in Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1990, and earned a Ph.D in economics from The American University in 1995.

After working for Arthur Andersen and as a consultant for the World Bank, he became a professor at Randolph–Macon College in 1996.

Brat is currently working on a book titled “Ethics as Leading Economic Indicator? What went Wrong? Notes on the Judeo-Christian Tradition and Human Reason.” His published works include “God and Advanced Mammon – Can Theological Types Handle Usury and Capitalism?” and “An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand.”

Oh VA you so craycray.

It looks like I'll have to get off my *** in November and vote against this tea party loon.

a divisive conservative base only helps the opposition

To be honest, the Tea Party is really the best thing the Dems could ask for.