Cantor in Tampa Background
Cantor’s detractors suggest another narrative—that Romney and other national Republicans prefer to hide him from the television-viewing masses, particularly from potential swing voters.
“If I were Mitt Romney, I wouldn’t want the leader of the most unpopular Republican Congress in history—the face of the obstruction that voters are rejecting—to speak at my nominating convention either,” said a Democratic Party strategist who asked not to be identified.
Cantor’s office says he wasn’t offered, and didn’t seek, a speaking role. Spokesman Doug Heye ticked off a long list of newspaper interviews and TV appearances that Cantor is doing in Tampa, indicating that he is anything but invisible.
Adds David (Mudcat) Saunders, a Democratic strategist advising Cantor’s challenger this fall, Wayne Powell: “This is Romney’s dance, it’s not a debutante ball, as Cantor would have you believe.... [Romney’s] already tied to a dysfunctional Congress, and Mitt knows Eric Cantor can nail him to it.” . .
But more so than Boehner’s, some of Cantor’s uncompromising positions, combined with occasional personal bluster, have drawn less-than-positive attention. Exam-ples include his abrupt exit from debt-ceiling talks last August or his much-publicized flare-up with President Obama at the White House. To some, Cantor represents internal dissension within the GOP, too. At a campaign town hall meeting last week held by Powell in Bon Air, Va., several attendees raised questions, unprompted, concerning Cantor’s support of a young House freshman over a veteran GOP member in a primary earlier this year. Some also speculated that Cantor is maneuvering to challenge Boehner for the speakership.
The Powell campaign says polling results from Hickman Analytics gauging sentiment in Cantor’s Republican-leaning central Virginia district show that although the Democrat is not well-known, Cantor is not particularly popular. Nonetheless, some of Cantor’s fellow House conservatives welcome him on the stump back home.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/cantor-in-tampa-background-20120828
