Cantor earthquake: meanwhile, back in Wyoming...

By Chris Adamo

The Republican Establishment is still reeling from the political repercussions of Virginia's seventh district congressional primary, in which House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost to challenger Dave Brat, a political novice. Naturally, the entrenched party members are doing their best to convince themselves, and all of America, that the race was an anomaly, with no bearing on the present course or condition of the GOP. But the facts loudly proclaim otherwise.

Clearly, the single biggest issue which doomed Cantor's prospects for reelection was the looming threat of amnesty for thirty million or more illegal aliens. As he became increasingly comfortable within the toxic atmosphere inside the Beltway, Cantor drifted ever further from his conservative roots, while becoming more overtly hostile to grassroots conservatives who refused to follow him. And though the amnesty issue is front and center in this year's political fray, the ethically and philosophically compromised Republican Party has created its own disconnect with grassroots conservatives who are fed up with "business as usual" from the political class.

Admittedly, the GOP Establishment has prevailed in some other races by stoking fears of the supposed risks associated with outsiders, as opposed to the false security of sticking with incumbents. This tactic has been particularly successful in Senate races, which cover entire states. Under those circumstances, the influence of biased media coverage and outside sources of campaign cash can play a more pivotal role. Nevertheless, Dave Brat decisively won his race and achieved the historically unprecedented feat of removing an incumbent House Majority Leader. And this despite being outspent five to one by Cantor.

This triumph for real conservatism and the Constitution resulted from the willingness of Virginians to rise above their fears, driven partly by their realization that, with the prospect of amnesty for those thirty million undocumented Democrats, the very fate of their nation may be hanging in the balance. And that is simply too enormous of a price to pay for timidity. And the insipid crumbs offered by the political class were not sufficient to dissipate their resolve.

But amnesty, or "immigration reform" (as it is often depicted by its advocates), is not the only defining issue of the day on which the greatness of America could either be restored or irreparably squandered. Barack Obama's propaganda blitz on the nation has, as one of its main pillars, the indoctrination of the next generation of American children with his "Common Core" transformation of American schools. Best characterized as "Obamacare in the Classroom," it portends a total restructuring of the manner in which children are "taught," with an end goal of forming and flaking them into a generation of mindless up and coming socialists to be willing subjects of the nanny state.

A curriculum that skirts traditional educational staples such as reading comprehension and math skills, and instead focuses on teaching the twisted tenets of the liberal agenda, would leave graduated pupils intellectually crippled and thus largely incapable of escaping their course set for them. Sadly, they risk facing life from a position of helplessness and compliance.

Fortunately, such a grim scenario is not inevitable. Across America, principled conservatives are challenging the political status quo, and if able to inform and rally the people on Main Street, they can actually beat back this big-government onslaught. One potentially bright spot in this gloomy environment is the State of Wyoming, where Cindy Hill, the current Superintendent of Public Instruction is challenging Matt Mead, the incumbent RINO Governor, in the 2014 Republican Primary.

Just as the amnesty controversy permeated the Virginia election, it is the menacing encroachment of Obama's "Common Core" curriculum, and Hill's heroic single-handed effort to prevent its implementation, which separates her from the other gubernatorial candidates. Governor Mead has already thoroughly embraced Common

Core, forfeiting the quality of Wyoming education for those alluring millions of federal dollars. And sadly, she has received no support in this struggle from Taylor Haynes, Mead's other challenger, who offers some insipid criticism of Mead and Common Core, while sanctioning the bureaucratic power grab that would ensure its implementation.

Yet the Wyoming "grassroots" has been adamant in its opposition to "Common Core," with major gatherings held throughout the state by those who refuse to see their children's academic future sacrificed in service to it. Predictably, as a consequence of her strident efforts to prevent its implementation, Cindy Hill has been the target of numerous state "audits" and "investigations," ostensibly conducted to probe possible malfeasance in her office, but in reality conducted for the sole purpose of digging up any minuscule bit of "dirt" that might be magnified into some semblance of a scandal. Hill was even removed from the official duties of her office by a flagrantly unconstitutional collaborative coup perpetrated by Governor Mead and the legislature. Fortunately, this sordid deed was stridently overturned by the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Yet such attacks and challenges have only served to spotlight the impeccable manner in which Hill has conducted the official duties of her office. No audit or "investigation" has been able to substantiate even the slightest infraction in how the business of the state education department has been conducted on her watch. Instead, she has endured such underhanded confrontations with unflappable resolve, recognizing that her opposition to Common Core is in her words "a problem for those who want to federalize education." In stark contrast to the state's political elites, she steadfastly refuses to be ensnared by the federal leviathan or its lure of massive infusions of cash to the state coffers.

Rather than being the undoing of her endeavor to actually improve education in Wyoming schools, the overall effect of Senate File 104 (the unconstitutional seizure of her office) became the tempering fire which has ultimately propelled her forward. Though the rampant corruption at the highest levels of the state's education system and the complicity of the Governor have been central to Wyoming's political debates, they are not the sole area in which damage from unscrupulous politicians has wreaked havoc on the Cowboy State. As entrenched bureaucrats expand their turf at the expense of the taxpayers, Wyoming has achieved the dubious distinction of being number one in the nation for government growth. Yet the response of the "Good 'ol Boys" in the Republican inner circle has been indignation that the peasantry is unwilling to accept things as they are.

Some are not only disinclined to concede the unending growth and degradation of government at every level, they are willing to confront the prevailing power structure and offer the citizenry a real opportunity to turn the tide on it. In Virginia Congressional District Seven, courage of the people has gained them just such an opportunity with Dave Brat. And in Wyoming, the possibility that Cindy Hill might just be the state's next governor, and would then begin to restore the integrity of the office, has the people energized as they have not been for a long time.

© Chris Adamo