Lessons

Klein is fundamentally correct about the lessons from Cantor’s loss (side note: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha). This is especially important:

If Republicans hadn’t scared Senator Arlen Specter into the Democratic Party and if Democrats hadn’t kept Senator Joe Lieberman on their side Obamacare would never have passed. If the Tea Party didn’t keep knocking off viable Republicans Mitch McConnell would have been Senate Majority Leader since 2010. If Mitt Romney could have run as the Massachusetts moderate he once was Obama might well have lost in 2012. It’s possible Republicans will now lose in Virginia’s 7th District. The Tea Party is good at policing purity but they’re terrible at winning power.

Of course for the Teahaddis, anything short of a violent coup to institute Jim Crow, er, overthrow Obama, er, restore Constitutional rights is unacceptable. So a sellout compromiser like Cantor needs to be eliminated to save the nation for real Americans.

I hope Eric Cantor likes making millions of dollars as a lobbyist. Because that’s his sad future.