Eric Cantor – the highest ranking Republican to be kicked out by his base – the conventional wisdom was that he had lost touch with those that put him into office. So they replaced him with a TEA Party guy: Dave Brat. So, Cantor shows that he hasn’t learned his lesson even now – from an interview on CNBC (really, CNBC? Avoiding your former base and not on Fox?):
In a veiled warning to tea party lawmakers Wednesday, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called on Republicans to work with Democrats and President Barack Obama before the end of the year on lingering spending issues.
Er, wasn’t this one of the reasons why you LOST – that you had been seen to be too much DC and not enough “back home”? And now you’re doubling down? And taking a whack at those that put you into your proper place?
Cantor, a seven-term Republican congressman from Virginia, lost his GOP primary race in June to David Brat, a tea party-affiliated economics professor. Brat ended up winning in Tuesday’s midterm election, which saw Republicans widen their House majority and win control of the Senate. In his first television interview since leaving Capitol Hill in August, Cantor said a “small minority” should not hold Republican leaders hostage like they’ve done in the past, “whether it was a fiscal cliff or whether it was a shutdown or the near approach to a debt default.”
Emblematic of the entire problem that the base sees coming out of DC – you got spanked and you just couldn’t gracefully go “I messed up and lost perspective”. Nope – he was more Obama in that he couldn’t see the beam in his eye that blinded him to why he’s not in Congress anymore. I’m sure his chances were enhanced with his whack at the guy who beat him AND the folks that voted for Brat and not him. So his advice is worth….what? WHY would he tell others to continue to follow the same old stuff that got him canned? Again, it is not to work with the Dems – it is to completely STOP them and their agenda. Period.
The continuing spending resolution that’s keeping the government running expires in December. Cantor said it’s an issue that can’t wait until the next Congress. “If, on the other hand, you see some folks who say, ‘Wait a minute. We want to make sure we kick the can so we can deal only with Republicans’ … that gets complicated.”
This election was not about wagging a finger in the faces of the Dems – this was all about throwing them into Purgatory (and if you are an Atheist, try an alligator moat). Stop with the same NON-procedures that got us to the brink – NO Continuing Resolutions that funds for an entire year. MAKE it a problem for the new Congress to handle and handle quickly – and handled it via “regular orders” – the old fashioned way with real budgets and real separate bills for each area of Govt; the right way. Not just throwing 2,000 pages together so that no one knows what’s in it. And by all means, read the bills!
And nothing says “in touch” with the ordinary folks that make up his former base than this:
Cantor is now vice chairman and managing director at boutique investment banking firm Moelis & Co.
