Thursday, June 12, 2014

Virginia's Brat Stumbles On Day One

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Previous Related Posts:
Upset in Virgina as Cantor Loses to Libertarian Brat

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The main joke about the Brat Campaign on Day One was their name. I saw many variations on Twitter of "Brat Wurst/Worst" or "Worst Brat." Then there were the jokes about the literal meaning of "Brat" as a snotty-nosed kid, a description that might apply to his defeated opponent, the snarky Eric Cantor, as well as himself.









But it turns out, all silly jokes aside, the Beltway pundits were actually awestruck by Professor David Brat, the man who "Vanquished" Eric Cantor the same way Harry Potter vanquished the Dark Lord. He was some kind of superhero who had not only melted the wicked Republican warlock of Virginia but had come out of academia like Indiana Jones cracking the bullwhip.

David vs. Goliath times 1,000. ~ Chris Cuomo on CNN

But then he got his first big network interview, and this happened:



From Forbes
Chuck (Todd of MSNBC) began by tossing Professor Brat a softball, asking whether the candidate supported a federally mandated minimum wage.
Bear in mind that this is a candidate, an economics professor, who had spent the majority of the interview up the point of Todd’s question, extolling the virtues of a free market. Yet, when asked for his position on a federal minimum wage he struggled to avoid the question, obviously afraid of angering any voters who might be listening or create any news he felt could be harmful to his chances in November.
Smelling blood in Brat’s lack of a solid response, Todd pushed him for an answer, causing Mr. Brat to reply—

“I don’t have a well-crafted response to that one.”

. . . (Todd) “On a foreign policy issue, arming the Syrian rebels. Would you be in favor of that?”

. . . “Hey, Chuck, I thought we were just going to chat today about the celebratory aspects,” Brat said. “I’d love to go through all of this but my mind is just— I didn’t get much sleep last night. I love all the policy questions but I just wanted to talk about the victory ahead and I wanted to thank everybody that worked so hard on my campaign. I’m happy to take policy issues at any time, I just wanted to call out a thanks to everybody today.”

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So what we have with Brother Brat is another shining meteor like Rick Perry or Sarah Palin - flashy on the outside, but not all that deep on the inside. In fact, most voters will quickly figure out that his message is quite familiar, a carbon copy of Paul Ryan's rejected message from 2012: Money is truth and the greater good; the poor are moochers and immigrants are undesirables. Almost all government is BAD, even though he will be so proud to work in Washington and draw a paycheck and benefits for life.

And many have been quick to point out that the GOP has cast aside the only Jewish member of either the House or Senate, and a man who wasn't particularly religious, for someone who has some, uh, interesting Christian beliefs. Except I don't recall Jesus preaching much about Capitalism.

From Raw Story:
“Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on,” Brat wrote. “Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong?”
“We appear to be a bit passive,” he continued. “Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance. I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily. The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong.”
Brat encouraged Christians to harshly condemn their neighbors’ sins.
“We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it,” he wrote. “If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.”
. . . “I think the main point is that we need to synthesize Christianity and capitalism,” Brat concluded. “Augustine synthesized Plato and Christianity. Thomas Aquinas synthesized Aristotle and Christianity. Calvin synthesized all the rest, but capitalism was still coming. There is a book in here somewhere for the next Calvin. Go. God Bless.”



Brat is walking a tightrope like literary hypocrite Elmer Gantry - praising Jesus and Friedrich "God is Dead" Nietzsche at the same time, proving he is just another Tea Party schnook with cognitive dissonance, and probably not any nicer of a guy than Eric Cantor. And some of his campaign associates are worse, if that is possible (see quotes below). We know he is an anti-government Libertarian, but we don't know if Brat is a misogynist yet, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (until he starts referencing rape and ladyparts). He ran against Immigration Reform, so he's obviously not too fond of the brown people. With his Biblical base he probably has a few cringeworthy things to say about The Gay.

So all we can do is watch and wait for the next shocking utterance as the new Tea Party "hero" in due time becomes the next Todd Akin or Ken Cuccinelli. Let's hope the Virginia Dems can get out the voters in November. I'm already planning a donation to Brat's opponent, Jack Trammell.



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. . . on the morning after, Brat is either the Tea Party's white knight or its motley fool – at center stage if also at the edge of the political spectrum.
But come the fall, Brat may be an historical footnote, having beaten the first sitting majority leader since the position was created in 1899, only to have gone on to lose the general election. (Which is unlikely when running against a Democratic slave-trade / disabilities / vampire scholar in one of Virginia's most conservative districts, but possible, especially given how wrong all the primary polling was, by a clean 34 points or so.) Or Brat will be one of dozens of incoming freshmen Congressmen … which is to say, an historical footnote in the making.
~ Ana Marie Cox in The Guardian



The media is making it seem like Brat was some sort of underdog, but in reality, he's strapped to the hilt with billionaire support and billionaire money.
. . . Like hundreds of other college professors across the country these days, David Brat is really just a  bought-and-paid-for shill of Charles and David Koch and their buddies.
But the connections between Brat and the dark money machine don't stop there. He was also the hand-picked candidate of the Koch-backed world of right-wing media..
Over the past few months, right-wing talkers like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin have been pushing Brat and attacking Cantor non-stop on their radio shows. Ingraham even went so far as to say that she wished that President Obama traded Eric Cantor to the Taliban in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl.
~ Truthout and Thom Hartmann




This is being branded as a tea party victory. That's not quite accurate, and Brat addressed this last night. Not one major tea party organization came out and endorsed Brat. Supported Brat in any meaningful way. We had a difficult time getting the tea party groups and Brat connected. They bascially told him, 'you don't have a chance,' they wrote him off.
And there were a few people -- myself, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Mickey Kaus, Breitbart News, The Daily Caller -- they were pretty much the only people covering this race. I said this yesterday on Fox & Friends. We had 625 people hanging off the balcony of Eric Cantor's own country club last Tuesday night and there was no major media there except for Breitbart News and a little reporter from the local NBC. That's it.
~ Laura Ingraham, paid shill, on Fox News

I hope it will at least shut down any more happy talk about amnesty this year. I wish it would have the effect of Republicans waking up and seeing that this is a winning issue for the Republicans.
. . . Republicans have gotta put their foot down to the Chamber of Commerce and say, ‘Look, if we bring in 30 million, 40 million illegal aliens who are going to break for the Democrats, we’re not gonna be able to give you anything else. That’s it, because it’s gonna be the end of the Republican Party in this country.
~ Pundit Ann Coulter on Fox News, via Raw Story




Stop chasing ethnic groups, stop chasing genitalia. Talk to the American people. Talk about liberty, opportunity. Explain to them that Obama’s wrong, and that we need to unleash the American people and unleash the economy.
~ Conservative Radio Host Mark Levin discussing Brat's campaign strategy with Fox's Sean Hannity




And finally, Brat may want to get a new campaign manager. The one he has is only 23 years old and had to scrub his facebook account yesterday due to so many weird posts.

Via Yahoo News
The campaign manager for the tea party-backed Republican who ousted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in one of the biggest upsets in congressional history is a 23-year-old class of 2013 Haverford College graduate who posted a slew of provocative opinions on a public Facebook page that was removed from view overnight following David Brat's victory.
. . . “Can someone who was outraged that George Zimmerman was found not guilty of ‘SOMETHING ANYTHING’ and who is simultaneously pro-choice explain the logical dissonance there? Ie. Why its not ok to kill someone who is banging your head into concrete but its ok to kill someone for simply existing who, through your conscious actions, you brought into the world?” Werrell had written in an Oct. 24, 2013, posting.
. . . On Oct. 29 of that year, it was a piece by Fred Reed from Lew Rockwell’s website on the wussification of boys that set him off. “There is a war on boys!” Werrell wrote. “Rough housing, playing soldier, etc, are all punished or medicated away. And we wonder why there is gender inequality in the classroom and in college/attendance/graduation rates.”
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