Following House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) primary loss to his Tea Party challenger, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin rushed to play up the loss as evident of how “conservative the contemporary Republican Party is.”
Appearing on CNN Tonight on Tuesday, June 10, Toobin proclaimed, “The happiest person in America tonight is Hillary Clinton. Because this is who she's going to be running against in 2016.” [See video below.]
Toobin began his rant by insisting “Can we also discuss about what alternative universe we are in where Eric Cantor is not conservative enough. This is the guy who helped shut down the government. Now maybe he didn't shut it down long enough but I think what this really illustrates is just how conservative the contemporary Republican Party is.”
Ben Ferguson, conservative commentator and CNN contributor, immediately slapped down Toobin’s assertion: “You're implying that Eric Cantor was somehow beat by some crazy tonight. He wasn't. He was beat by a principled conservative that didn't have close to the amount of money he had from big GOP establishment, which is boring and dull and uninspiring and that's why he he lost. That's not scary. That's good for Republicans.”
While Ferguson didn’t directly address Toobin’s insistence that Hillary Clinton was the big winner following Eric Cantor’s defeat, the conservative soundly refuted Toobin’s claim that Eric Cantor’s loss represents “how conservative the contemporary Republican Party is.”
See relevant transcript below.
CNN
CNN Tonight
June 10, 2014
10:16 p.m. Eastern
BEN FERGUSON: I think it was much more simple than that. I think it was Eric Cantor forgot that his job was to go to Washington and fight for conservative ideas. And that's what got him in trouble. He went there and all of a sudden he wanted to be Speaker of the House. And his base, he left them behind. He did not take care of them. And when you're hanging out with John Boehner and losing to Barack Obama, who let's be honest, is not exactly his political prime right now, this is what happens when you don't pay attention at home.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Can we also discuss about what alternative universe we are in where Eric Cantor is not conservative enough. This is the guy who helped shut down the government. Now maybe he didn't shut it down long enough but I think what this really illustrates is just how conservative the contemporary Republican Party is. This is frankly the happiest person in America tonight is Hillary Clinton. Because this is who she's going to be running against in 2016.
FERGUSON: I disagree.
TOOBIN: And this is not America.
FERGUSON: I totally disagree.
TOOBIN: I bet you do.
FERGUSON: The reason why I disagree is simply this. You're implying that Eric Cantor was somehow beat by some crazy tonight. He wasn't. He was beat by a principled conservative that didn't have close to the amount of money he had from big GOP establishment, which is boring and dull and uninspiring and that's why he he lost. That's not scary. That's good for Republicans.
