Late Tuesday evening, conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham savored David Brat’s historic upset victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District Republican primary.
“This was a cataclysmic upending of the old Republican Guard. A strong, substantive, passionate, earnest conservative flattened an arrogant, out of touch, two-faced, moderate Eric Cantor,” Ingraham told Breitbart News shortly after the Associated Press declared Brat the victor.
Brat, who was not expected to win more than 40 percent of the vote, thumped Cantor by an astounding 55 percent to 44 percent margin. He won going away in a race where he was outspent by the incumbent by at least 10 to 1. Cantor’s campaign will have spent more than $3 million in his loss, while Brat will have spent around $120,000.
Cantor was caught in a perfect storm of increasingly bad news about immigration while Brat ran a disciplined, highly focused campaign that hit relentlessly on the issue of amnesty.
Ingraham was one of the few national conservative voices who publicly supported Brat’s efforts against Cantor. Conservative talk show host Mark Levin was also an early backer of Brat. On Monday, Glenn Beck also endorsed him.
Until Tuesday night, however, the campaign looked very much like a case of David versus Goliath before the onset of that Old Testamanent battle. But Ingraham helped Brat fashion a very effective sling shot in the form of criticisms on Cantor’s record of support for amnesty. It proved to be as deadly against Cantor as the original David’s slingshot was against Goliath.
“In February 2013, Eric Cantor put the word out that he was a chastened by the Obama 2nd term victory. He immediately moved toward the Obama immigration reform position, even toured the nation with amnesty-advocate Luis Gutierrez,” Ingraham noted.
“Then during the primary he tried to convince the voters he was really tough on enforcement, and that Brat was a ‘radical.’ In the end, the people of Virginia saw through the slimy tactics of his high paid flacks,”Ingraham told Breitbart News.
The untold story of the evening, however, is how Ingraham, working quietly behind the scenes with friends and allies built up over a life time in the conservative media, helped bring both credibility and visibility to Brat’s campaign with her endorsement.
Ingraham also gave Breitbart News credit for its coverage of the Brat-Cantor race.
Ingraham, however, did not appear interested in resting on her laurels.
Image source: Duane Berger
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