The decision of the Republicans in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District to retire the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, and advance a young economics professor strikes us as promising, even if we are in the radical pro-immigration camp. How in the world can Congress address the address the lack of economic growth with curbs on immigration? And how can it address the problem of growth without addressing the collapse of the dollar? And how can it address the collapse of the dollar without addressing a debt ceiling that Mr. Cantor kept voting to raise?

The debt and related spending questions were well marked by Professor Brat in the primary campaign, where he repeatedly went after Mr. Cantor for voting to borrow yet more money. He hasn’t even had the nomination a day and the Democrats are suddenly aghast that Mr. Cantor has been retired. They are already mocking Professor Brat for his admiration for Ayn Rand. It reminds us of the New York Times criticizing Paul Ryan for being an unworthy disciple of the Objectivist author. It happens that neither Mr. Brat nor Mr. Ryan describes himself as a per se “Randian.”

It would be naïve for Mr. Brat, or anyone else, to imagine that the young Virginian would, if elected, have a sudden impact on policy in the House; it takes several terms for a member to gain stature. But rarely has anyone entered a House race with the kind of attention that Mr. Brat has gained by virtue of being a giant slayer. Our hopes for Mr. Brat rest on the fact that he has studied economics through the prism of ethics — and vice versa. Taxing and spending are largely policy debates, after all, but sound money is at bottom a moral question.

The issue in Mr. Brat’s kit that we worry about most is immigration. We take immigration to be a sign of America’s position of relative attractivensss and the immigrants themselves as a gift. We have previously written about the need to merge the pro-immigration and pro-life movements, to choose life. But Professor Brat has been making a point that your editor has been making for more than a generation — namely the need to create the conditions for economic growth in the developing countries. It’s in America’s interest that prosperity be enjoyed by other countries as well.

We mark the point because we oppose the nativist arguments. And we’re glad we’re not hearing them from Mr. Brat. On the contrary, we’re hearing a pro-freedom, rule of law, pro-growth, pro-capitalist argument. So we wish him well in the general election. If as a result of what just happened at Virginia the Representatives House shifts to the right, as the New York Times is precipitating, it’ll be a good thing. It will strengthen the hand of those who want to force, among other issues, the question of debt and monetary reform on which Mr. Cantor, for all his many virtues, failed to deliver.