How Will Cantor Defeat Affect Griffith, Goodlatte?

Griffith: Knuckles dragging.

There's one serious local question for us hanging over the Eric Cantor trip to the woodshed yesterday: What does this surprising win by a Tea Party regular mean for Bob Goodlatte (6th District) and Morgan Griffith (9th District), the two Republicans representing us?

Goodlatte and Griffith are Cantor conservatives who are far, far to the right. Griffith is more the libertarian, Goodlatte the opportunist whose philosophy has changed with the Congressional mood. Neither could possibly be considered to be anywhere near moderate, except by the Tea Party, which is on a right-wing planet of its own manufacture.

Goodlatte: Changes with the mood.

I know Goodlatte is terrified. He ran hard against a Tea Party candidate two years ago and was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs the entire primary season. He won relatively easily (spending a ton of money), then swamped the Democrat in the general. Griffith's path has been easier, but there are rumblings that he's a "liberal" in the coal fields among the TPs.

If these guys get any more conservative, we might as well forget having any kind of representation at all, because the TP's goal is to shut down government and turn over all functions to private industry and (with one with of the party) the church, Al Bedrosian's church, specifically.

How this plays out has a huge state for all of us. We need to pay close attention.

(Griffith photo: politicususa.com; Goodlatte photo: bildungblog.blogspot.com)