Cantor worth a closer look

The News Virginian
Published: August 20, 2008

Once a candidate behind in the polls and fumbling in the dark for the switch, John McCain seems to have found the light in California. His strong performance in last week’s forum at Saddleback Church has driven a surge that has turned the presidential race into a tossup. But is McCain still unable to see?
Close advisers to the Arizona senator whisper that Joe Lieberman remains a leading contender for the second position on the Republican ticket. This would be in keeping with McCain’s reputation as a party nonconformist, which he translates to mean a noble willingness to defy convention and others construe as an insistence on betraying allies. Whichever is true, its immediate effect, if applied in the case of Lieberman, would be to vex a base McCain has just discovered and needs badly.
Lieberman is admired among Republicans and disdained among Democrats for his unwavering support of the war in Iraq. This position places Lieberman to the right, but only a minute measure of him and only in an area principally occupied by neoconservatives with whom thoughtful conservatives disagree. Lieberman is otherwise consistently liberal. He would not enhance a Republican ticket but dilute it, and ultimately defeat it.
In the shadows stands Virginia’s own Eric Cantor, the House deputy minority whip. Two years younger than Obama, 47, Cantor represents an emerging force in conservatism – a corps of youthful true believers – backed by a stellar record on key issues. Cantor consistently has voted pro-life and anti-tax since winning the 7th District in 2000, transforming himself into an ascendant GOP star in the process.
The lone Jewish Republican in the House, Cantor has forged ties with conservatives and moderates in his party and is a prolific fund-raiser with powerful alliances on Wall Street. He wants for Lieberman’s name recognition or that of Tom Ridge, another potential running mate whose leftist leanings would hinder rather than aid McCain. But what Cantor lacks, McCain himself provides. Further, Cantor has a well-developed constituency in a state both candidates want and need to win.
On the subject of the economy, Cantor understands that which moderates, a group that too frequently includes McCain, do not: job providers need tax relief. Cantor won notice in conservative and business circles earlier this year when he proposed permanently slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and offering tax breaks for businesses that buy new equipment and make other capital investments. It is popular among the left to excoriate U.S. companies for relying on cheap labor overseas while forgetting the part America’s high corporate tax rate has played in driving the exodus.
Nonetheless, Cantor is an unlikely running mate because of the response he would generate among most voters beyond the boundaries of the commonwealth: Who?
Provided he resists his predilection for poking fingers in the eyes of those who long to believe in him but can’t, McCain is more likely to choose either former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Though Romney has changed positions with a frequency rivaled only by John Kerry, conservatives favor him and his name alone would energize. Pawlenty at 38 is the youngest of the three contenders in question and the most likable, but he would be unable to swing his home state for McCain and offers only slightly stronger name appeal than Cantor.
On the issues, Romney and Pawlenty stir reservations that Cantor does not. But any of these three would be more sensible politically and otherwise than the alternatives. If McCain does not exercise prudence in his first decision of significance as a presidential contender, it could prove to be his last.