"It can't happen here" - or, at least, "it can't happen to us" - seemed to be the underlying mantra of the GOP as they worked to master the hand-in-glove messaging machine that they've built while simultaneously attacking and doing their best to destroy the Voting Rights Act, ACORN and any other program, policy or regulation that could even the playing field by encouraging actual thinking Americans to vote. They've known for years that the more people who engage in voting, the more they lose.
But they never expected to be hit with a situation where a district they controlled, in a race they considered in the bag, where all the voters were already Republican, could have turned against them. And it did - because their own stalwart troops figured it was "in the bag" for the popular candidate, and didn't vote.
From the Rec-listed diary Replacing Darth Vader with Jar Jar Binks by nuketeacher:
Today tens of thousands of VA 7th District Republicans are kicking themselves because they didn't get out and vote for Cantor yesterday.
The polls were not wrong and 70% of them had every intention of voting for Cantor yesterday. If you ask any Republican out here in the rural part of the 7th District whether or not they are going to vote, they will always say, "yes," and they usually do. But yesterday they didn't.
That's a perfect example, in a nutshell. It can happen - it often does, when people who can vote, don't. And that's why the GOP has tried so hard - and, unfortunately, so successfully - to squelch voter registration drives, to make it more difficult for voters who are registered to actually cast their votes, to purge voter rolls so close to elections that few if any realize they've been dropped and are often unable to re-register to vote in time to cast their votes...because the more people vote, the more we win. The more they lose.
They know it. And they've been stung, badly, by this event. They'll move heaven and earth to prevent that from ever happening again - hopefully, it's too late for them, and their monster-child Tea Party is taking them down from within.
We need to take advantage of this. Above all, however, we need to GOTV. We need to get as many people back on the rolls, or registered if they're not already and qualified - and want to - vote.
Every vote counts. Every. Vote. Counts. No matter where - no matter how heavily gerrymandered the district. Every. Vote. Counts.
Don't let this delicious event go uncelebrated; help with local GOTV efforts. Particularly since replacing Darth Vaders with Jar Jars doesn't necessarily bode well - we can, perhaps, take advantage of the relative unpopularity and unskilled capacity of the newbies and hopefully take what could have been previously "guaranteed GOP red" seats.
Namaste.