McCain and Cantor ticket?
Supporters of Republican Richmond area Congressman Eric Cantor are boosting the 45-year-old as a potential running mate for John McCain.
Friends of Cantor from Richmond, Washington and New York recently began an online dialogue and are circulating a petition urging McCain to choose Cantor.
No doubt, McCain will get similar pleas from the supporters of many other potential running mates, both male and female.
Cantor has become a rising star in Congress in only a short time.
He is the chief deputy whip for the House Republicans. And Cantor carries the distinction of being the only Jewish Republican member of the U.S. House.
Cantor serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and is chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.
And Cantor would certainly offer a dose of youth on the ticket to the 72-year-old McCain.
The speculation about Cantor comes in the wake of recent reports that Barack Obama will spend considerable resources to win Virginia in November.
Some polls have actually shown Obama in the lead in the Old Dominion, and the Democrat has plans to register thousands of young and African-American voters before the fall election.
Should Obama win Virginia, he will be the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to take the commonwealth in a presidential race.
Meanwhile, the Augusta County Republican Committee will meet Thursday night to elect a successor to Kurt Michael, who recently resigned as chairman.
The selection of a chairman should end the months of rancor within the Augusta GOP over leadership.
But it’s best for the transition to happen before expecting a permanent peace.
Regardless of who is selected, it would seem the division within the local party will continue, whether it is quiet or not.
Posted by Bob Stuart at 11:57 AM. Filed under:
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Posted by ( ) on June 26, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I don’t know that we end up seeing Cantor on the ticket, but he will play an important role in the McCain campaign, as he is already. He has been featured on the trail and in a conference call put together by the campaign to raise issue with Obama on a foreign-policy matter recently.
I think it would be a stretch to put him on the ticket, personally, because his value isn’t as much in helping sew up Virginia, given that he is relatively unknown here outside of his district, but in reaching out to voters in states with sizable Jewish voting populations, like New York and particularly Florida. He can add value to the ticket in that respect without having to actually be on the ticket, if that makes sense.
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