This week on the Political Scene podcast, John Cassidy and Ryan Lizza join host Dorothy Wickenden to unpack Eric Cantor’s surprising primary loss to David Brat. Brat has been described as a Tea Party candidate, but, Cassidy says, “He’s not a sort of pitchfork, let’s-march-on-Washington type of guy at all. He’s quite a cerebral economist, from the right-wing, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand view of the world.”
Though not firmly entrenched in Tea Party policies and rhetoric, Lizza says, Brat “distilled pieces that have always been in the Tea Party messaging, but more effective than a lot of other candidates out there.”
How, then, is the turmoil within the G.O.P. affecting Democrats? “I wouldn’t be exactly jumping up and down if I were a Democrat who cared about Washington working,” Lizza says. “The fact that the Republican Party is moving farther to the right isn’t good if you want to get legislation passed.”
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Photograph by P. Kevin Morley/Richmond Times-Dispatch/AP.
