Cantor Getting Noticed
Eric Cantor isn’t just the House Republican Whip. He’s the guy President Obama highlighted as the man he’d win over. He’s also getting noticed by the national media as giving the “GOP back its mojo.” First, I’d caution President Obama from thinking that Rep. Cantor as being easy to persuade. Here’s the flippant thing that President Obama said in referencing Cantor:
“I’m going to keep on talking to Eric Cantor,” the president said. “Some day, sooner or later, he is going to say, ‘Boy, Obama had a good idea,’” he added, prompting some laughter. “It’s going to happen. You watch, you watch.”
The odds of President Obama winning over Rep. Cantor while advocating irresponsible, radical policies is essentially non-existent. I understand why President Obama is pursuing this tactic. It’s just that he’ll have to change because Rep. Cantor won’t abandon the conservative principles that have served him well.
Rep. Cantor’s conservative principles are what drive him to craft policies and inspire party unity in his effort to return the GOP to majority party status:
Representative Eric Cantor has a giant mounted photo propped like a canvas on a chair in the corner of his office in the Capitol. The image seems like an innocently iconic one, a shot of the National Mall from Congress, until a staffer explains that it’s the view from the Virginia Republican’s old office when the GOP controlled the House, and it’s there to serve as a daily reminder of what he’s working toward: regaining the majority.
Toward that end, Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican behind minority leader John Boehner, has been busy of late. The party’s chief vote counter whipped his colleagues into united opposition of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan. Taking on the relatively unpopular congressional Democrats is one thing, but flagrantly opposing a wildly popular new President is risky, especially when any payoff could take years. But the move energized the GOP for the first time in a long while, inspiring six Republican governors, all rumored 2012 wannabes like Cantor himself, to threaten to decline some of the stimulus money.
I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: President Obama is popular; His policies aren’t. If Rep. Cantor was taking on a popular president’s popular initiatives, I’d question his tactical abilities. That isn’t what he’s doing.
What’s helping Cantor is the fact that the House GOP hasn’t been just saying no. During the stimulus debate, they proposed an alternative to the Democrats’ plan. In fact, the CBO’s analysis was that their plan would create more jobs and cost less than the Obama/Pelosi/Reid plan. Having that alternative gave Rep. Cantor the abililty to tell his House GOP colleagues that they return to their districts and tell their constituents that they’d voted for a superior plan.
What’s unveiling before our eyes is the newest GOP leadership team. Mike Pence works with Tom Price and Paul Ryan to craft appealing alternative legislation while Mr. Cantor sells these alternatives to their colleagues. It won’t be long before the team of Pence, Ryan, Price and Cantor will be making a major impact in DC.
To those strategists that think the GOP is leaderless, I’d suggest that they haven’t done their due dilligence or that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Or both. Eric Cantor is a leader, as is Mike Pence. It appears that Cantor spends his time persuading colleagues to vote for the GOP’s alternative solutions. Meanwhile, Pence spends time talking with the media, whether it’s with Jon Scott or Sean Hannity or Megyn Kelly.
What’s been fun for me is watching Pence articulate his unabashedly conservative message to the public while Rep. Cantor wins praise from his colleagues for keeping the troops adhering to the right principles. Here’s an example of Cantor sticking with his principles:
Cantor bristles when asked about taking an opposing position from business interests on the stimulus plan. “I knew about the endorsements from some of the business groups for sure, but their obligation is not to the voters and the people of this country like mine is,” he says. “I feel that my obligation is to be a prudent guardian of taxpayer money.”
Thanks for not losing sight of the prize, Rep. Cantor. It’s about time we had leadership that won’t abandon principle for popularity on the Beltway cocktail circuit.
Technorati Tags: Stimulus, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Policy Wonks, Mike Pence, Media Savvy, Tom Price, Conservatism, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, President Obama, Radicalism, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog