Fallout from Eric Cantor's primary loss: what should people take away?

Ah, there's nothing better than a political shocker.  In a field that seemed to get just a bit too predictable, the Republican voter's of Virginia's 7th congressional district handed the political establishment of Washington a bit of a surprise.  Eric Cantor was defeated in his own party's primary by Dave Brat, a formerly little known economics professor that has now managed the impressive feat of unseating a sitting majority leader in a primary for the first time since the Constitution went into effect in 1789.

There will be many takeaways from this race, especially among the Republicans in the House.  This can be very dangerous, for despite Cantor's inability to retain his seat, this new trend is so far a trend of one; it is very difficult to accurately determine long term consequences based on one race in one district in one state out of fifty.  However, Republicans all over do have some reason to be worried: if Cantor could lose his primary, it means that they could too.

This, to a certain extent, has always been the case, but it still won't stop Republicans from overreacting to the Cantor race.  The fact that Brat ran emphasizing his opposition to immigration reform means that many Republicans will run away from an issue that they should in fact be embracing.  The longer Republicans ignore the need for immigration reform, the more immigrant and minority groups will vote for Democrats instead, and in large numbers.

We'll see for certain in the coming weeks and months what the Republican leadership takes away from Cantor's race, but they need to be careful not to read to much into it.  Brat ran a grassroots campaign, didn't take anything for granted, and capitalized of of Cantor's perceived complacency about the race.  If the GOP continues to drift to the right, as it has in other races, nominated candidates who oppose compromise, they will set themselves up as a parliamentary party that does not appeal to the nationwide electorate and they will struggle in presidential elections.

Changes Beyond Immigration Needed on GOP Policy

For the Republican Party to improve its standing among Latinos and other immigrants, much more is needed than simply immigration reform.  Immigrants need to feel included by the Republican Party and wanted in this country.  Like all of us, they want jobs and economic security.  They want, as many of us do, strong education for their children.

To a certain extent, this can be a lesson to both major parties.  The Republican Party, however, is the party that lost the minority vote by a very large margin this election, so we'll focus mainly on them for now.

Policies that Democrats have championed that are favorable to Latinos have been rejected by many Republicans, such as the Dream Act.  Below is one poll, out of many, that shows strong Latino support for the dream act, which was passed by a Democratic House of Representatives and fell by a GOP filibuster in the US Senate.

Strong Latino support seems to be ignored by Republicans, who are against what they perceive as amnesty for illegal immigrants.  While Republicans have certainly had ideas about immigration, it usually takes the form of a deport-first, something that rankles some more moderate GOP members of congress.  Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, came up with a competing measure to the Democratic Dream act, sponsored by Illinois's Dick Durbin, to push the issue of immigration.  Here is a Latino preference breakdown of the two competing bills:

The Durbin proposal is clearly more popular in this poll, conducted by Latino Decisions.  The main difference between the two bills is that Durbin's offer's a path to citizenship, while Rubio's does not, instead giving non-immigrant visas to the children of illegal immigrants.  Rubio has cooled on his own bill recently, seemingly outdone by President Obama's executive order.  If the GOP wants to take the lead on immigrant issues, they will have to do far more than simply change their immigration policies.  They need to come up with plans like the Dream Act to empower Latino youths by providing them with a means to get an education.  Being a strong support of the youth movement gained Obama much needed grassroots support in 2008, and to a certain extent, again in 2012.  The Republican Party needs to not only cater to immigrants, but cater to young immigrants/immigrant's children, in order to survive this change in the electorate.

Cartoon View on Illegal Immigration

An interesting view on illegal immigration from a cartoon found on slate.com.  We hope that comics like these can start a debate on what we want from immigration policy.  Sure we want to secure borders and protect American jobs, but many immigrants represent what the spirit of America means.  They to want to live the American dream.  They are also good people.