White House: Cantor Lost Because He Wasn't More Pro-Amnesty

by Tony Lee

Jun 11, 2014 2:49 AM PT

As soon as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) stunningly lost his primary to Dave Brat on Tuesday, the White House proclaimed that Cantor lost his race because he wasn't pro-amnesty enough. 

White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Cantor's "problem wasn't his position on immigration reform," bur rather "his lack of a position." 

Though Cantor concealed his support for amnesty and more guest-worker visas for illegal immigrants and sent out deceptive anti-amnesty mailers to voters in his district, Brat made Cantor's past support for amnesty the central issue of the campaign in the final month. Brat started to surge in the polls after he started hammering Cantor on the issue. 

"The central policy issue in this race has become Cantor’s absolute determination to pass an amnesty bill. Cantor is the No. 1 cheerleader in Congress for amnesty," Brat wrote in an op-ed for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "This is not the Republican way to fix our economy and labor markets."

And when illegal immigrant children started to flood across the border in the last few weeks, Brat pointed out that they were coming to America in part because Cantor said one of the "great founding principles" of the nation was giving amnesty to the children of illegal immigrants to not penalize them for the mistakes of their parents. Brat said Cantor's comments represented "one of the most radical pro-amnesty statements ever delivered by a sitting representative."

The White House wanted to partner with Cantor to pass various amnesty bills. In fact, the Friday before the primary, Cantor, in the midst of the current illegal immigration crisis, said that he would be willing to work with Obama to give amnesty to the children of illegal immigrants in an interview on a local television station.

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