Saturday, January 03, 2015

Conservative of the Year: Dave Brat

2014 was a great year for Republicans, as the GOP won control of the US Senate, and picked up governorships and seats in the US House.  The results for conservatives, however, were more mixed.  The GOP establishment pushed aggressively against conservatives in primaries and won many of them.

The biggest conservative primary victory was Dave Brat's defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.  Brat was an obscure economics professor at a small college who took on one of the most powerful men in Washington.  Cantor had become a creature of Washington and grown distant from his constituents.

But Brat didn't just run against Cantor.  He ran on a platform of conservative populism.  He opposed amnesty and mass immigration, pointing out the harmful impact on American workers.  He also opposed corporate welfare and bailouts as a tool that the rich use to steal from average taxpayers.

Dave Brat created a successful template for conservatives to win primaries and general elections, while defeating one of the most powerful men in Washington.  He is 2014's conservative of the year.

Previous winners (including retroactive):
2013: Jeff Sessions
2012: Ted Cruz
2011: Scott Walker
2010: Jim DeMint
2009: Glenn Beck
2008: Sarah Palin
2007: Ron Paul
2006: Jerome Corsi
2005: Tom Tancredo
2004: John O'Neill
2003: Roy Moore
2002: John Ashcroft
2001: George W. Bush
2000: William Rehnquist

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