Rep. Kevin McCarthy

When the vote occurs on June 19th to pick Eric Cantor’s replacement as House Majority Leader, it looks like the winner is going to be Rep. Kevin McCarthy, current Republican Chief Whip, who represents California’s 23rd Congressional District, centered around Bakersfield. No one else is currently running.

Politico

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The Financial Times describes McCarthy as a pro-business moderate with strong ties to the GOP establishment.

Kevin McCarthy, a senior California Republican close to the party’s establishment, has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed Eric Cantor as House majority leader, damping business concerns that next week’s big shake-up on Capitol Hill will bring more power to the Tea Party. …

Mr McCarthy would be elevated to the role from his current post of majority whip, bringing a measure of continuity and steadiness to the job that will be of comfort to corporate America, which counted Mr Cantor as one of its biggest allies in Washington.
“The last thing [business people] want is a conservative firebrand in the majority leader’s office giving speaker Boehner headaches in maintaining order”

For instance, Mr McCarthy, along with other California Republicans, is a supporter of immigration reform – a top business priority – in defiance of the Tea Party base. Although his ties to corporate America are less tight than Mr Cantor’s, he still rakes in large contributions from business. In fact, the securities and investment sector was the biggest donor to Mr McCarthy, contributing $355,989 to his campaign this election cycle, even though he does not face a challenger this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The real estate sector came in second, followed by the insurance industry.

Of his top individual corporate donors, Goldman Sachs came in first, while Hewlett-Packard and Blue Cross/Blue Shield were in the top five. Bank of America and Google were in the top 10.

“[Mr McCarthy] is a known quantity to the Street,” says Corey Boles, a US policy analyst at the Eurasia Group. “The last thing they want is a conservative firebrand in the majority leader’s office giving speaker Boehner headaches in maintaining order,” he adds.

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HuffPo took a look at him, and basically concluded that he is a bland professional pol, basically all about “empty ambition.”

And, since he represents a farming district with constituents totally dependent on immigrant labor, he is softer on illegal immigration than Eric Cantor.

So much for the strategic genius of our movement’s great minds, Richard Viguerie, Mark Levin, Micky Kaus, and Laura Ingraham.

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Ann Coulter (no fan of Amnesty herself) warns about investing in “Tea Party” rebellions against establishment Republicans which so frequently wind up electing democrats in the end.

In fact… the tea party had nothing to do with Brat’s victory. Only the small, local tea party groups stand for anything anymore, but they’re as different from the media-recognized “tea party” as lay Catholics are from the Catholic bishops.

National tea party groups did not contribute dime one to Brat. Not Freedom Works, not Club for Growth, not the Tea Party Express, not Tea Party Patriots. They were too busy denouncing Sen. Mitch McConnell — who has consistently voted against amnesty.

As I have been warning you, the big, national tea party groups are mostly shysters and con-men raising money for their own self-aggrandizement. (Today, they’re blast-faxing “media availability” notices to television networks claiming credit for Brat’s victory.)

The Tea Party Express, for example, “represents” the views of ordinary Americans by supporting Chamber of Commerce demands for cheap labor through amnesty.

As Eric Hoffer said, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

Nonetheless, the claim that Brat’s victory was a win for the tea party is everywhere — pushed with suspicious insistence by people who do not usually wish the Republican Party well. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schulz, for example, said: “Tonight’s result in Virginia settles the debate once and for all — the tea party has taken control of the Republican Party. Period.”