Patterico's Pontifications

8/2/2008

Readers: Tell Me What You Know About …

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 5:24 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

… GOP Congressman Eric Cantor (R-Va), the chief deputy minority whip in the House.

The Politico‘s source says the McCain campaign has asked for Cantor’s personal documents and he may be on McCain’s VP list.

— DRJ

36 Responses to “Readers: Tell Me What You Know About …”

  1. He’s younger than Obama, and has been in the House since 2001. Most of his notoriety is from his strong support of Israel (he is Jewish, not that it matters to me, but it will matter to some). He lost a relative in a suicide bombing.

    He looks a bit geeky, I might add. I would be floored, jaw on the floor, if this person was selected for VP. I actually like him, but Mccain needs someone who is great on energy or the economy and preferably is a woman (yeah, it’s lame to say that, call me what you want).

    Juan (4cdfb7)

  2. He was my Congressman when I lived in VA. Briefly met him once at an R-Braves game. McCain could do worse.

    Xrlq (62cad4)

  3. Did anyone bother to look at Fred Thompson for VP? Name/face recognition, strongly conservative, southern States, experience with law enforcement and prosecution, experience with the SCOTUS, and someone who has an energizing manner.

    Drumwaster (5ccf59)

  4. McCain could do worse.

    Given the way that he has run his campaign to this point, isn’t it a safe assumption that he will do worse?

    JD (712926)

  5. Thompson said long ago he wasn’t interested.

    ECM (de5660)

  6. His name kind of rhymes with ‘Xanthor’, which would be a good name for either a superhero or a supervillain.

    Kevin (834f0d)

  7. Thompson is too old but Pawlenty or Palin would be exciting. McCain needs a young VP but with more of a resume than Obama, which is why Jindal is not being considered.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  8. You know the sad part, Dr. K.? Jindal does have a MUCH more impressive resume than Barack Obama, in every way that matters.

    Yeah, Jindal is too young for this cycle.

    But he has done some impressive things, even from a very early age, in government.Look ’em both up on Wikipedia and tell me that Obama is equivalent in experience and accomplishments to Jindal. You can’t.

    My guess is Pawlenty will be McCain’s choice. I would rather see Palin chosen, but she has a full plate right now.

    But I would love to be wrong. Anyone whose nickname while playing high school basketball was “Sarah Barracuda” would be a great choice. And I liked the way she handled some recent media grilling.

    Eric Blair (6c5b7e)

  9. The GOPers who “rebelled” in the House yesterday put Cantor front and center at the press conference, suggesting that they are pushing him for VP. Emphasis on suggesting.

    Glen Wishard (02562c)

  10. Yeah, Jindal is too young this time around, but in 4 or 8 years a Palin/Jindal ticket would kick ass…

    Jindal as VP, of cource…

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  11. Eric Blair,

    It probably will be Pawlenty and, like you, I like Palin but I agree she has problems that rule her out for now. (She was probably ruled out already because of her age and experience.) Please, though, don’t let it be Lindsey Graham.

    DRJ (9d1be2)

  12. Glen Wishard #9,

    If so, that makes me think this is a courtesy gesture to make those House GOP members feel like the McCain people were listening to them. It also makes the campaign’s interest less noteworthy.

    DRJ (9d1be2)

  13. Hussein O’s pick is kind of hard. According to his own writing’s he hates all white people, including his own mother.

    At least McCain doesn’t have that to live down, His mother would still kick his a** if he said anything bad about her, or anything she considered bad about anyone.

    The Messiah’s rants against white people:
    From Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”

    From Dreams of My Father : “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.”

    From Dreams of My Father& lt; /I>: “There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

    From Dreams of My Father: ; “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”

    From Dreams of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

    From Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

    Scrapiron (c36902)

  14. #13 Pray tell Scrapiron, why doesn’t the RNC just use Obama’s own words against him? That last line about standing with Muslims should give Jewish voters pause, at least, but it seems they are buying into his so-called promises to Israel.

    So nice that Obama thinks highly of a father who was a polygamist and abandoned him. My father also vanished and I have never had one kind thought of him. But then, I was not trying to ingratitate myself with the black supremacy movement or the New Black Panthers.

    madmax333 (0c6cfc)

  15. #13

    These quotes should be widely circulated — after being triple-checked for authenticity.

    Evil Pundit (646727)

  16. Mike K and Eric Blair (and anyone else hoping for Palin),

    Larry Kudlow has an insightful interview with her up this week at NRO. While certainly her family needs come first its easy to see that if she were selected she would bring some seriously needed verve to McCain’s campaign. She would also possibly help draw in those still uncommitted women who were behind Hillary and are not willing to support Obama.

    “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has exactly the high energy, political toughness, and conservative reform message that would boost Sen. John McCain’s presidential run if Big Mac were to put her on the ticket. In an interview last evening on CNBC, Palin was very clear on her drill, drill, drill message for Alaska and the rest of the U.S., along with her strong supply-side tax-cutting and free-market economic views. She did not shirk from questions about an investigation of her firing the state’s safety commissioner. She told us she has nothing to hide — let them bring it on.”

    http://kudlow.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Nzc0NzA2N2M5ZTM2ZDI3ZTBiNDM2YTcwNzU4MGFiYTM=

    Dana (aed2e9)

  17. Evil Pundit, the actual books ‘were’ available on the web for as little as $5 each last week. The Hussein regime, aka Chicago Mob, may have removed them all from circulation. Check your local public libary, they (liberals who run them) may not have removed them all, yet.

    While there look up Peeelshi’s book. It’s rated down around 2,000 or so.

    Scrapiron (c36902)

  18. #17 It might be interesting to check out what the reviewers at Amazon.com are saying about Pelosi’s and Obama’s books. Funny how liberals will jump all over anything conservative and pillory it as horrible. Want to bet the far left politicians’ books get highest praises? Oft times in bookstores, the conservativelit. is hidden or underordered.

    Doesn’t even matter what specific passages you point out that show what a marxist Obama is as most anyone dem here in moonbat S. Fla. thinks Obama is the second coming of Christ.

    You’ll note that regardless of how many conservative books are sold, many times liberal icons like the NY Times can’t be bothered reviewing them.

    So many liberals and so little prospensity to support their various radio and TV shows or, for that matter, show much interest in dipspit Politburo Pelosi’s literary acumen. Reinstitute the “Fairness Doctrine” to stymie conservative speech? Why doesn’t that apply to L3 garbage like Air America, CBS, CNN, NPR, PBS and MSNBC??

    I don’t listen to Rush, but apparently sponsors think he is worth that $400 million contract. Someone is both listening (ratings) and buying the advertisers’ products. How come the same cannot be said of L3 garbage? Answer that one love40BC.

    madmax333 (0c6cfc)

  19. He’s my Congressman, and he is also a member at the local Jewish Community Center, where I work. Good guy, solid conservative. I get the impression he’s not much in the intelligence department, but as a Congressman, I feel I’m lucky to have him. Especially when you consider I live two blocks from Bobby Scott’s district.

    Now, VP is a whole different story. He’s too young, too inexperienced, etc, etc.

    Britt (c69fa1)

  20. @Scrapiron – Did you even read the book? I highly doubt it. These are just quotes you gleaned off some racist smear E-mail forward – Wow, I’m so impressed – NOT.

    Read the book and read the quotes in context. If Republicans want to have even a CHANCE of winning in November, stop using these Rovian tactics. It’s immoral, un-Christian, and you are turning away more voters than the ones you are gaining.

    Tracy (5bcc3b)

  21. I’m about 1/2 through Dreams From My Father. It’s not at all like the typical ghost-written political-memoir blather. Instead, it’s very literary and self-reflective–surprisingly so for a guy who was planning to jump from the Illinois State Senate to the U.S. Senate at the time it was published.

    As Steve Sailer has points out in his insightful reviews of the book (look amongst these posts), Obama’s prose is particularly poorly-suited for incisive, short quotes. Instead, Obama makes his points in meandering, allusion-rich paragraphs.

    This makes me skeptical of the quotations in comment #13: they may well turn out to be taken out of context. Even if a skeptical non-leftist reader would agree that some do convey a sense of Obama’s overall message.

    Supply the page numbers, and let’s look at the surrounding text.

    AMac (ccb6e8)

  22. Those Obama quotes sound like he wrote the book using his old journals…
    Putting it in public may not have been the best idea, because the reader gets the option of making the quiet things loud and the loud things quiet as well as deciding context.
    When Obama tries to explain, he often digs himself a deeper hole and has to shift positions. Not a great attribute for the leader of the free world…

    Obama is likely our next President.
    Let’s hope he’s a fast learner and can change his tendency to adopt the grandiose, articulate, yet witless straddle

    SteveG (71dc6f)

  23. Tracy:

    Read the book and read the quotes in context.

    You’re the one claiming the quotes were out of context. Why don’t you supply the context that supposedly rehabilitates them?

    Xrlq (62cad4)

  24. If so, that makes me think this is a courtesy gesture to make those House GOP members feel like the McCain people were listening to them. It also makes the campaign’s interest less noteworthy.

    I think it’s a little bit of a publicity stunt. Cantor gets some positive national attention, which every pol loves. McCain gets to be in the news in connection with a positive story. But I don’t think this has much at all to do with McCain actually picking a VP.

    Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c)

  25. Never mind, Snopes already did. Some of the quotes do indeed look better in context (e.g., standing with Muslims – if we brought back the internment camps) and one was not a real quote at all (“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”). I’m not sure context rehabilitates the rest of them, however.

    Xrlq (62cad4)

  26. Timing on Palin announcement:

    1. Several days after gasline passed in Alaska.

    2. Several days before the Olympics.

    3. Ideally before Obama names his Veep (especially if Obama were to name a woman or Hillary).

    Hey, McCain, why not Monday (tomorrow Aug 4) and LET THE GAMES BEGIN already!!!

    In any event, stand by this week!

    Ted (429bc3)

  27. I’ve heard Cantor’s name being floated around as a possible veep pick for a while. I think this is a case of a candidate who sounds great on paper (from Virginia, young, theoretically telegenic, acceptable to the conservative base and theoretically posessiong strong appeal to Jewish voters) but who is completely untested on the national stage. Heck, I don’t even know what he looks or sounds like on TV.

    Sean P (e57269)

  28. Ann Coulter for VP. But dump McCain and put Thomas Sowell at the top of the GOP ticket. He’s short on direct legislative experience, but so is the philistine from Chicago.

    Sowell and Coulter, it’s a dream ticket and sure to give the Dems apoplexy.

    Ropelight (946997)

  29. Sowell and Coulter, it’s a dream ticket

    One I would definitely vote for, too…

    Drumwaster (5ccf59)

  30. Xrlq, while snopes is not a credible source anymore, they do a decent job explaining a couple of those quotes to some extent. Though the idea that Obama thinks Bush would put Muslims in internment camps is offensive enough, and most of the other quotes aren’t ok regardless of what the context is.

    Snopes, however, has gone on a partisan bent for years now. They put out more urban myths than any other website I’m aware of. That site is a total joke.

    Juan (4cdfb7)

  31. Cantor a very good choice.

    Very good indeed.

    PashaG (3de24f)

  32. The exciting pick would be Palin or Jindal.

    DPierre (a88c77)

  33. “Snopes, however, has gone on a partisan bent for years now. ”

    I agree. They are ‘debunking’ true things that are inconvenient to liberals. its spin-doctoring, not debunking.

    Freedoms Truth (cfa2f1)

  34. The problem with Cantor: I don’t know him, and I’m a political junkie. So he probably has about 1% name ID outside of VA. That gives the media free rein to do their Quayle thing on him.

    If he has conservative cred, that’s the main thing for me, and I’ll support him. But if we are going to go for a conservative House member, why not a high-profile one like Mike Pence? Or a good conservative Congresswoman like Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee?

    Freedoms Truth (cfa2f1)

  35. “I don’t listen to Rush, but apparently sponsors think he is worth that $400 million contract. Someone is both listening (ratings) and buying the advertisers’ products.”

    I know it sounds like a lot but I was thinking: This guy does 3 hours a day, 5 days a week and its for 10 years or so. The contract is under $1 million a week, for 15 hours, or $70,000/hr. And he carries the whole show that has 20 million plus audience daily. The advertising space for each hour is surely worth a lot more than $70K, given the audience.

    Freedoms Truth (cfa2f1)

  36. Eric Cantor represented my area both in the House of Delegates as well as in Congress. Quality guy, rock solid conservative credentials…..however, one thing he has never had to do is fight in an election. He was Tom Bliley’s handpicked successor in a district that is as reliably Republican as any in the US. He’s never faced a serious Dem challenger. I don’t know if he has the fighter in him.

    To say you’re a political junkie and you’ve never heard of him?? Kind of surprising since he’s the deputy whip.

    Guy Smiley (84a257)


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