Eric Cantor’s Role Models: Newt Gingrich And Winston Churchill
Yesterday the news broke that GOP House minority whip Eric Cantor — who helped lead the GOP in unanimous opposition to the stimulus package — is modeling his approach to political combat with Dems on Newt Gingrich’s performance as House GOP leader in the 1990s.
Cantor is apparently taking advice directly from Gingrich, and the revelation prompted some critics to ask why Cantor is making an apparent role model out of someone with a spotty record of success and a history of extreme partisanship.
Today, however, Cantor’s camp is letting it be known that Gingrich isn’t the only political leader he’s modeling himself after. He’s aiming higher:
Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston Churchill’s role leading the Tories in the late 1930s, a principled minority that was eventually catapulted into power over the Labor Party. He calls the stimulus bill “a stinker.”
Cantor is routinely described on all sides as hyper-ambitious, so it’s perhaps not surprising that he’s seeking to emulate someone who holds a slightly loftier rank than Gingrich in the pantheon of world historical figures.
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A little off topic, but I’m wondering what Eric Cantor thinks of Lindsey Graham’s support for bank nationalization. Sounds an awful lot like ’socialism’ to me – and isn’t that what the Republicans are always railing against? I’m surprised Graham wasn’t challenged about this yesterday. Why is bank nationalization OK but not universal healthcare? Thoughts on this Greg?
When I think of Cantor, I’m more likely to think of Pontius Pilate washing his hands.
I think when Lindsay Graham talks about nationalizing the banks, he’s talking about something more akin to a government-overseen bankruptcy reorganization of some kind than anything like an ongoing national policy…
…so this wouldn’t really be akin to universal health care. as for Cantor, I can’t imagine he’d support it even in the above sense.
interestingly, Josh Marshall thinks that bank nationalization defined this way could paradoxically get support from free market types:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/02/wheels_turning.php
Winston Churchill did not lead the Conservative Party in the late 1930s. Indeed, he was not in government.
Also, the Conservative Party dominated U.K. governments from the 1931 elections. In the mid and late 1930s, the Conservative Party supplied the Prime Minister: first, Stanley Baldwin; then, Neville Chamberlain. In the 1935 general election, the last before the War, the Tories won 387 seats, on 47.8% of the vote. Labour won 154 seats on 38% of the vote. The so-called National Government, as a whole, won 429 seats on 53.3% of the vote.
Here is Cantor’s major problem. Nobody thinks he is smart except other House Republicans. Newt pulled the wool over the nation’s eyes with an assist from the Village by convincing everyone that he was smart and had all these useful new ideas. In the end however he still ended up being an epic fail because it turns out that you can only fake having ideas for only so long. With Eric Cantor he can’t convince anyone he is smart because his only answer to the economic crisis is the same old Republican canard of tax cuts. All hat and no cattle so to speak. But hey if he wants to ride Newts coattails I say let him. He is going to ride that horse right off the cliff. And the sad thing is the SNL clip can’t even be seen as a parody at this point.
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By the way Greg, just to show you how stupid Cantor is. He thinks pointing out his study of Churchill’s opposition is in some way a feather in his cap right? But does he REALLY want to be bringing up Churchill RIGHT NOW?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
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Greg: Yeah, I caught this piece from Shear and Kane this morning. No mention of Nagournay’s reporting in the NYT yesterday. Grrrr.
A bit over a year ago I was in NY with my wife for a yearly professional conference. A colleague and friend of of my wife came over to meet the new husband (me). A very bright and engaging lady, we were quickly into a discussion on politics and just as quickly I was into my rant on the serious dis-service evident in our modern press. Then I inquired what her husband did. Turns out he is a senior exec at your paper there. D’oh. I asked her, as a personal favor, if she’d kick Krauthammer in the shins the next time she saw him. She pointed out (bigger D’oh!) that of course he wouldn’t feel it.
All this to expand on why I’m requesting that the next time you see Shear or Kane….
ps…I ought to have added that the lady is quite fond of Krauthammer personally and I confess that her opinion (a fine lady) softened my notions of the man.
From politico.com
House GOP whip Eric Cantor tipped the GOP’s talking points opposing Obama’s coming mortgage assistance plan on CBS’s “Early Show.”
“We just cannot continue to pay for the kind of things that this administration thinks that we can,” Cantor said. “We’ve got trillions upon trillions of dollars adding to our deficit and our long-term debt now, each and every month we proceed. At some point, I think the people of this country are beginning to understand, who is going to pay for all of this?”
Why has NOBODY in the mainstream media asked any of these guys where they were the last 8 years? Fiscal conservatism is fine, but how come it’s only developed when a Dem is in the White House? Who is responsible for the deficit?? Jon Stewart had a great interview with John Sununu, former senator (R) from New Hampshire where he raised a lot of these issues and he point blank asked him “why is it OK to go and build up Iraq with $700 billion? Shouldn’t our country be built up too?” Unfortunately, no TV or newspaper reporter or pundit has this kind of courage.
Personally, I think Cantor probably likes the bisexual aspects of Churchill. Something about Cantor makes the old “gaydar” go off.
ha ha Cantor is such an idiot. I guess he thinks WWIII is just around the corner (or hoping for it) so he can be Churchill. These people really do not know their history (great point upthread about the exchequer position)
psssst. Congressman Cantor.
FDR had to bail out Churchill, too.
I don’t personally know all this history, but Josh Marshall on the same quote:
“Now, I guess it’s possible this is the Post’s error and not Cantor’s. And even if it’s not you’d think they might have corrected this point. But Cantor’s handle on his new hero seems pretty thin.
In the late 1930s, of course, Great Britain didn’t have a Labour government with a principled Tory minority. It had conservative Tory government with a Labour minority. And Churchill was on the outs with both, although on some fronts he was beginning to make common cause with some Labourites on his key issue, which was foreign policy. When Churchill eventually came to power it was in a national coalition government for the purposes of fighting the war. And when he eventually went to the voters as head of the Tory party toward the end of the war they got crushed by Labour in a landslide.
I say all this as a big Churchill fan. But, I mean, not only is Eric Cantor no Winston Churchill, I’m not even sure he’s read a book about Winston Churchill. ”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/02/study_harder.php
Eric Cantor has principles!!? That’s a joke. Cantor is Boehner’s lap dog and they both want America to fail.
Obviously Cantor knows nothing about Churchill or British history.
I can’t wait until Nov. 2010 when the Republicans lose more seats.
Hmmm I seem to remember that McConnell, Boehner, & even the principled Cantor voted for all of “W”’s spending bills.
All they had to do was check Wikipedia…
“The [Conservative] party reached a new height in the inter-war years under Baldwin’s leadership. His mixture of strong social reforms and steady government proved a powerful election combination, with the result that the Conservatives governed Britain either by themselves or as the leading component of the National Government for most of the interwar years and all through World War II. The Conservatives under Baldwin were also the last political party in Britain to gain over 50% of the vote (in the general election of 1931).”
The Conservatives got hammered after WWII, not before – and Churchill only became leader during the war.
And they returned to power under Churchill in 1951 when…
“The party responded to their defeat by accepting many of the Labour government’s social reforms whilst also offering a distinctive Conservative edge”
Maybe the GOP has something to learn from that.
Not only is Cantor’s whining over the growing deficit disingenuous considering his conduct over the last 8 years, this alleged veneration of Churchill is as much a fabrication as Cantor’s lies about the stimulus package.
It is utterly incredible…these guys are partying like it’s 1994.
They need to wake up and smell the coffee: this is 2009.
Yep, smug, smirky ol’ Newt-lite Eric Cantor’s a lot like Churchill all right — WARD Churchill.
yep, he’s a cantor who can’t sing. and the WaPo article shows
true ignorance. the Tories weren’t a principled minority, they
were in power under Chamberlain. Churchill was on the outs with
his party because of his Gallipolli fiasco in WWI, his epic fail
as Chancellor of Exchequer, and his warnings about Hitler and the
need to prepare for war.
yes newt had 1000 ideas, most internally inconsistent, and all
of them bad.
no wonder Broderville loves him.
I would try to be less like a conservative womanizer, if I were him. The two elements don’t go well togather, ask Rush.
Again, not to change topics, but, who hires for the Plum List in reality?
Cantor will be outed bya former member of his staff within the year
I see in his profile Boner is mentoring him.Can we expect the crocodile tears soon?
HE HAS NO PROBLEM GIVING ISRAEL HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS…HE IS NOW IN ISRAEL, PAID BY A.I.P.A.C. A FOREIGN AGENT NOT REGISTERED AS A FOREIGN AGENT.
Its ridiculous,I hope he stay away soon