Cohn on Cantor's Loss

Jonathan Cohn interprets Eric Cantor's GOP primary loss in The New Republic.

But Cantor’s loss sure looks like a reminder that the GOP establishment may not have so much control after all. If so, it seems only fitting that Cantor, who repeatedly stoked Tea Party frustrations in order to undermine Boehner, would himself fall to a Tea Party challenger. As my colleague Danny Vinik points out, this probably isn’t good news for the Republican Party’s political prospects in national elections, given how out of sync the Tea Party is with the rest of the country. But the 2016 election is still a long way off. In the interim, the country needs a government that can actually function, which means it needs an opposition party that can bring itself to compromise once in a while. With Cantor's loss, the Republican Party seems even less likely to fulfill that role.