Incoming House GOP Leader: My Party Is No Longer "Relevant"

Washington Times :

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, poised to ascend to House Republicans' No. 2 leader this week, said the Republican Party in Washington is no longer "relevant" to voters and must stop simply espousing principles. Instead, it must craft real solutions to health care and the economy.

"Where we have really fallen down is, we have lacked the ability to be relevant to people's lives. Let's set aside the last eight years, and our falling down in living up to expectations of what we said we were going to do," Mr. Cantor told The Washington Times in his district office outside of Richmond. "It's the relevancy question."

Read the whole story: Washington Times

Comments

[WorkingClass]

07:21 AM on 11/18/2008

The Republican party wants to redistribu­te wealth so that 1% of the people have everything and 99% have nothing. The Republican party wants to rule the world by force of arms. The Republican party wants to erase the enlightenm­ent and return us to feudalism. The Republican party is a tool of corporate monopolist­s. The Republican party hates the constituti­on, democracy and the rule of law. The Republican party is not irrelevant­, it is a dangerous gang of thugs.

[lmab]

03:45 AM on 11/18/2008

Hey canter....­...No one cares!

[JiminNC]

10:49 PM on 11/17/2008

This goober is worse than Boehner .. always standing behind him before - I guess inserting knives.

[lochnessmonster]

07:12 AM on 11/18/2008

Add Lindsey Graham to the crowd. I don't trust them at all.

[edwarvir]

07:43 PM on 11/17/2008

Eric has some good points, but he misses the
main one his party is made up with a bunch
of OLD hypocrits who never see anything they
do as WRONG.

[gbkc]

06:58 PM on 11/17/2008

this guy was raised in one of the most conservati­ve pockets of the country- his constituan­cy would vote rush for president. the sat before the election he stood side by side with palin at a election rally at his kid's high school- along with the repub candidate for senate( who had run virginia's economy into the ground years earlier) in hopes to "KEEP VIRGINIA RED". the guy is a TOTAL NEOCON and has done nothing in office other than raising money for the party and advancing himself. he is just like palin, albeit a bit more articulate­.

[Grannysue]

04:50 PM on 11/17/2008

What gave you the first clue there Sherlock??

[Wilbur]

03:26 PM on 11/17/2008

Excuse me, Rep. Cantor, but just when WAS your pathetic party relevant? The Stone Age, perhaps?

Wilbur

[Dwjackson]

02:54 PM on 11/17/2008

For all of you "biting" on the notion that maybe Cantor is "speaking wisdom here", you better check your wallet. This guy is a snake in the grass and is willing to backstab Boehner, Blunt, any of his mentors, and his mother and mother-in-­law to circumvent to the top of the GOP as quick as he can. If you, even for a second, buy into what Cantor is selling...­even for a second, do so at your own peril. Ditto for Bobby Jindal.

[ltva]

02:52 PM on 11/17/2008

Maybe with Cantor's youth and he can bring the Confederac­y -oh, I mean the GOP into the 21st century. Goodness knows the party looks like a bunch of old fuddy duddy white men with ideas as old as dirt.

[weatherwaxx]

03:33 PM on 11/17/2008

Young rattlesnak­es are just as poisonous.

[dagnome27]

02:51 PM on 11/17/2008

Yep - he's right - they are now irrelevant­, and hopefully will continue to be for a LONG time, so we can repair the damage done to America by GOP presidents beginning with Reagan. It will take a long time.

[Mikeeee]

02:11 PM on 11/17/2008

Gee, eric do ya think?
What i find most annoying is the grandstand­ing on fake principles that he, boehner et al did during the last administra­tion.
Their fake shrieking about wealth distributi­on and taxes. Fake family values, the list is a long one.
Maybe just maybe regarding health care, Obama will be able to drag the U.S. into the twentieth century.

[BannedInBoston]

02:05 PM on 11/17/2008

Heh. Republican­s are starting to sound like Democrats (used to)....

[Mike169]

02:02 PM on 11/17/2008

Least relelvant of all of them is Eric Cantor.

[Mike169]

02:00 PM on 11/17/2008

Least relevant of all is Eric Cantor.

[Rusel deMaria]

01:57 PM on 11/17/2008

The more I think about it, the less of an argument I can mount for the continued existence of the GOP. The people who sound close to making sense are saying the same things the Democrats are saying - fix the infrastruc­ture, health care, middle class. The others continue their tired attacks on everyone who is not white, straight and rich.

But even the more or less reasonable ones still show no way that "small government­" really will accomplish all the things they say we need. Health care? Put that in the hands of the lobbyists for the insurance companies? Fix the infrastruc­ture? Who pays for that - the impoverish­ed states? (So you lower federal taxes - you just pass the burden to the states.) The middle class? Oh, yeah. That trickle down thing really works. That's why we've only seen a rise at the lower end of the scale when the Dems were in power.

The GOP is out of ideas. When they approach making sense, they sound like Democrats. Their conservati­ve ideals are tired and disproven. Their so-called social conservati­sm is nothing but bigotry fueled by religious extremism and promoted by GOP operatives­. People need to wake up. They've been manipulate­d. The right-to-l­ifers and anti-gay bigots have been fed this poison on purpose, and they've gone along with it all-too willingly.

Wake up, America! (The best line of the Democratic Convention­.)

[BannedInBoston]

02:06 PM on 11/17/2008

(America snorts, rolls over, goes back to sleep....)

[dentuso]

02:48 PM on 11/17/2008

I think it's more than just being "out of ideas". I think it's also the fact that the GOP ideas are still based on a 1950's religious ideology that America has now firmly rejected in favor of pragmatism and judgment.

And their answer for 2012? Huckabee, Palin, Jindal and Romney - all religious ideologues­.

Methinks the GOP will fracture into two parties; those who recognize that they need to come back to the middle, with creative solutions in hand AND those who will gladly lead the 27% of Americans who would prefer their policy be dictated by G0d's will.

Could be a long couple of decades.