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Archive for the ‘Eric Cantor’ Category
Obama and the Narcissism of Big Differences
August 6th, 2011 | 
Author:
‘He becomes visibly agitated. . . . He does not like to be challenged on policy grounds,’ says the House majority leader of the president.
The Wall Street Journal August 6, 2011
By JOSEPH RAGO
New York
Whatever the rhetoric that preceded this week’s deal, the debt-ceiling debate was never really about the debt at all. It was about the terms on which the debate would continue. The “two different worldviews” that divide Washington, explains Eric Cantor, are too far apart for anything more than an armistice. Still, listening to the House majority leader—who says the deal is “not perfect” but “there were some achievements”—it’s remarkable that the two parties were able to agree even to its modest terms.
The “philosophical starting point” of today’s Democrats, as Mr. Cantor sees it, is that they “believe in a welfare state before they believe in capitalism. They promote economic programs of redistribution to close the gap of the disparity between the classes. That’s what they’re about: redistributive politics.” The Virginian’s contempt is obvious in his Tidewater drawl. “The assumption . . . is that there is some kind of perpetual engine of economic prosperity in America that is going to just continue. And therefore they are able to take from those who create and give to those who don’t. We just have a fundamentally different view.”
Ken Fallin
Mr. Cantor’s aggressive style has earned him the enmity of liberals and most of the D.C. press corps, though his larger offense is against their orthodoxy that a fiscal compromise must by definition include tax increases. Mr. Cantor, who holds the second most powerful post in the House after Speaker John Boehner, did more than any other figure to prevent “revenue” (that is, tax increases) from entering the final package.
Like Mr. Cantor, President Obama is also a man of deep and strong convictions, and perhaps that’s why they seem to dislike each other so much. Call it, to adapt Freud, the narcissism of big differences. Mr. Cantor cautions that he isn’t a “psychoanalyst”—before politics, he was a real-estate lawyer and small businessman—but he says, “It’s almost as if someone cannot have another opinion that is different from his. He becomes visibly agitated. . . . He does not like to be challenged on policy grounds.”
In a meeting with the Journal’s editorial board Wednesday, Mr. Cantor, 48, gives his side of one of his more infamous altercations with the president. In a mid-July Cabinet Room meeting, Mr. Cantor made a suggestion that Mr. Obama and other Democrats took as impertinent. “How dare I,” Mr. Cantor recalls of the liberal sentiment in the room. He was sitting between Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, “and they were in absolute agreement that [the president] was such a saint for having endured all this.”
“No president has sat here like I have, in these kinds of meetings, with congressional leaders, in this detail,” Mr. Obama said in Mr. Cantor’s recollection, which Democrats dispute. Mr. Cantor says the president also invoked Ronald Reagan “to be a little patronizing of us, because he assumed that anything Reagan did we like.” Mr. Obama then told Mr. Cantor, “Eric, don’t call my bluff,” and walked out.
***
The roots of the Obama-Cantor animosity date back at least to another memorable exchange in 2009, some three days after the inauguration. In a meeting with the president, Mr. Cantor—then the No. 2 Republican in the House—discussed the economic recovery plans that the post-2008 GOP remnant favored. “Elections have consequences,” the president responded, “and Eric, I won.” The White House promptly leaked the remark to the media.
House majority leader Eric Cantor and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan discuss the debt ceiling deal and the political fallout.
Mr. Cantor went on to whip the GOP minority against the near-$1 trillion stimulus, and all 187 members ultimately voted against it, though at the time that was not a given. The unanimous opposition was a political coup for the canny, ambitious Mr. Cantor, who was elected to the House only in 2000. He holds the seat that James Madison once held, now Virginia’s seventh district that stretches from Richmond to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
After the GOP won in 2010, many of its 87 new members—one-third of the caucus—planned to block any increase in the debt ceiling, full stop. It was only after concerted lobbying by Mr. Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan that they flipped to a debt-ceiling hike with conditions. “Most people who were elected this time feel they were elected to change the system,” Mr. Cantor says, with some understatement.
The debt talks began in earnest in May. Mr. Cantor principally spoke for the Republicans in talks with Vice President Joe Biden, which met two to three times a week for a month and a half, with daily “free and open communication” among staffers.
The talks “did make some progress” because the opposing sides agreed not to agree, says Mr. Cantor. The vice president and majority leader even established a rapport because they tried “not to get flared up over philosophical differences,” as Mr. Cantor puts it. “Throughout the weeks there was always the possibility that we would veer off into our own worldviews, but we really did try and say, all of us know we’ve got to cut some spending.”
“Nothing was agreed upon until everything was agreed upon,” but the group identified between $2 trillion and $2.3 trillion in savings. Major proposals included means-testing Medicare so that higher-income seniors paid more for benefits, revising the wraparound “medigap” policies that insulate patients from out-of-pocket costs, and changing the federal-state Medicaid payment formula. “It was those types of nibbling-around-the-edges entitlement reforms,” Mr. Cantor says.
Mr. Cantor’s insight was that no modus vivendi could be reached this year that would solve the fiscal crisis, so it was better to focus on “incremental wins with this president.” Even the $4 trillion “big deal” that Messrs. Obama and Boehner nearly closed in separate talks was too small to be worth the cost (though it may have raised the Medicare eligibility age and made technical changes to inflation measures to reduce the annual growth of Social Security checks). “None of those, none of those, really address the underlying problem,” Mr. Cantor says. “We need transformation in those programs in order to sustain them.”
Mr. Cantor quit the talks in late June amid Democratic tax demands, which he considered non-negotiable. Their position, he says, was that “we can’t do this unless you Republicans are going to relent on revenues.” His truculence did not endear him to Washington—though of course no one likened Mr. Obama to a terrorist for similarly refusing to give on any part of his new health-care entitlement, which was not even in the vicinity of “the table.”
Somewhat surprisingly, Mr. Cantor was in fact prepared to bargain on about $20 billion in higher taxes on “the shiny balls of the millionaires, billionaires, jet owners and oil companies” that Mr. Obama so often mentioned in public. “If they wanted to be able to claim the win on that,” Mr. Cantor says, he wanted net revenue neutrality in return, by lowering the corporate income tax rate or perhaps enacting an even larger tax reform. In effect, he was calling Mr. Obama’s bluff on “cheap politics.”
In private, however, the debate always returned to the status of the top marginal rate for individuals earning over $200,000 and $250,000 for couples—aka the Bush tax cuts for people who do not own private aircraft. Mr. Cantor argued that some large portion of the income that flows through the top bracket comes from “pass-through entities”—that is, businesses—and “to me, that strikes at the core of what I believe should be the policy, and that is to provide incentives for entrepreneurs to grow.”
By contrast, he says, “Never was there ever an underlying economic argument” from Democrats. “It was all about social justice. Honestly, one of them said to me, ‘Some people just make too much money.’”
***
Mr. Cantor is “cautiously optimistic” about the deal, which creates a 12-member “super committee” to reduce the deficit by another $1.5 trillion in return for another debt-limit increase later this year. Apart from taxes, its parameters institute the principle that new borrowing must be offset by dollar-for-dollar spending cuts. And while “we may go through the fit and start again of some kind of big deal,” he thinks it will merely result in more incremental progress. “I just think that’s what’s doable given this almost intractable divide we’ve got with this president and where we are.”
Throughout the debt debate, many GOP freshmen and the tea party in general have found it difficult to accept the limited powers that come from controlling only one-half of one branch of government. Mr. Cantor acknowledges their “consternation, angst, anger and the rest leading to a deal like this” and says the party will continue to try to make “the jump” between “reality” and “rational, solid theory,” like a balanced budget amendment. But he welcomes the fervor and entertains no strategic or other regrets, except that “we were not able to get what we would consider a really good deal. . . . We didn’t get to where we wanted.”
Now that the debt debate is in abeyance, the House is “going to continue the focus on the impediments that continue to be erected by this administration to jobs and job growth.” Mr. Obama’s policies “are what are choking this economy,” Mr. Cantor argues, mentioning the stimulus, health care, the auto bailout, “unpredictable and onerous” regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board, “the God-forsaken Dodd-Frank regime” and “a taxation system that is noncompetitive, to say the least.” He continues: “It doesn’t work for Washington to be granted this almighty power that somehow is going to cure all ills and right all the wrongs that they think exist.”
But since the GOP is “pit against a White House, a president and a party that just doesn’t share the same worldview,” Mr. Cantor says “the real fight is going to be making sure that President Obama doesn’t have a second term.” He describes the 2012 election as “a very existential question” that will determine “what it is that we’re about in this country and what kind of country we are and want to be.”
As for the 2012 Republican field, Mr. Cantor seems cautiously optimistic, but he hasn’t endorsed and doesn’t divulge a rooting interest. There’s “no question” that the campaign will turn on jobs, the economy and growth, or lack thereof, Mr. Cantor says. He suggests candidates argue that “Washington has become an impediment to the American way of life. That American way of life has to do with entrepreneurship, it has to do with everyone having a fair shot at equal opportunity. . . .
“They need to change Obama’s Washington, but it’s really a return to what we know is America. Obama ran as an agent of change, and I don’t know what that hope and change really was at this point. It’s turned out to be something a lot different than what most people thought. But yes, we need to change and take the country away from President Obama.”
A debate in that key was never going to be resolved in a matter of months over the debt ceiling.
Mr. Rago is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
Ridiculous Denials from NPR
Townhall.com March 16, 2011 By Brent Bozell
In the public policy conversation today, there is nothing funnier than hearing the leadership of NPR deny there’s a liberal bias at play over there. 
Even when the Daily Caller posted sting video of their top fundraiser Ron Schiller describing America as remarkably undereducated and the Republicans as ruined by racist, gun-toting, phony Christians, NPR’s reaction was repeating Sentence One: Who, us, biased?
Schiller resigned, and then the NPR Board ousted CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation), who hired him. She was only a sacrificial lamb. Nothing has changed, policy-wise. The new interim CEO, Joyce Slocum, picked up exactly where the last boss left off.
“I think if anyone believes that NPR’s coverage is biased in one direction or another,” she suggests, “all they need to do to correct that misperception is turn on their radio or log onto their computer and listen or read for an hour or two.”
This is some serious denial — like arguing that if anyone doubts that Japan is a terrific spring vacation spot right now, they should just observe the TV news and see how wonderful it looks.
This anti-NPR sting video reveals an NPR fundraising drive that’s clearly focusing on financiers that are hostile to conservatives. Last year, leftist philanthropist and hedge-fund billionaire George Soros announced a $1.8 million donation to NPR and days later, Juan Williams was canned for offending liberals by appearing on the Fox News Channel.
The same week that NPR unveiled that donation, Soros announced another million-dollar contribution to the censorious left-wing thugs at Media Matters for America, to “more widely publicize the challenge Fox News poses to civil and informed discourse.” Their campaign slogan to advertisers and cable companies is “DROP FOX.” (Am I the only one who finds it curious that the “Open Society” folks want Fox closed?)
The reporters at NPR are in even more denial than the executives. NPR rushed to interview Susan Stamberg, hailed as a “founding mother” of NPR, who insisted that executives have caused some “terrible, terrible hits,” but the “news” product is superb: “The work that we do has been so consistently extraordinary, the strongest news organization in electronic broadcasting, and that has been untarnished.”
Since NPR lives in a bubble of their own arrogance, their media reporter David Folkenflik sought no opposing view. (He didn’t even fish through NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard’s box of listener complaints, such as NPR’s recent erroneous on-air declaration that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was dead.)
Folkenflik allowed for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to say NPR doesn’t need federal funds, but that’s not an evaluation of NPR’s professionalism. It implies Republicans are indifferent to a liberal political slant.
Most Republicans do want to focus simply on how NPR is an unnecessary federal expenditure because it’s truer today than ever. In response, public broadcasters predictably cry that rural stations will shut down — as if NPR really cares about those people they consider uneducated, less-than-Christian, gun-toting hayseeds.
Anyone who looks at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant budget knows the government offers scads of money to multiple NPR and PBS stations in urban areas. In the Baltimore-Washington TV market, there are three stations — why three? — that took almost $7.5 million in “community service grants” in 2009. The $4 million-plus given to D.C. superstation WETA is more money than TV stations receive in 19 states.
The public radio situation has even more pots in the fire, with three D.C. stations — why three? — and four Baltimore stations — why four? — taking another $2.2 million in 2009. If poor rural stations were so precious to CPB, couldn’t they limit themselves to one station per market?
And why is allegedly suffering NPR building a 330,000-square foot headquarters in downtown D.C. right now, complete with roof terraces, a fitness center and a theater for live performances?
But NPR is also in denial about how evolving technology has ruined the argument of “scarcity” of news. Take NPR anchor Michele Norris asserting on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” that if Republicans defunded the CPB, people in small towns in Indiana would no longer have news.
“These are small stations where people don’t necessarily have access to news because a lot of the news stations and radio have fallen away. Take the state of Indiana. We just heard from Gov. Daniels. If public broadcasting went away, there are people in small towns, small stations, that would not have access to news.”
Apparently, people in small-town Indiana don’t have television, cable, satellite, newspapers or access to the Internet. Everyone’s on a starvation media diet of nothing but NPR.
These are about the most insulated and arrogant elitists anywhere. No wonder George Soros likes them. Fine. Take his money. Do his bidding. Leave the taxpayer alone.
GOP Commerce contenders blast FCC -They Will Stop the Take Over Of the Internet.
KIM HART | 12/1/10 3:33 PM EST
All four House Republicans vying to lead the House Energy and Commerce Committee have vowed to put a stop to any FCC-led adoption of net neutrality rules.
Even if they can’t ultimately convince FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to abandon the net neutrality order this month, the GOP lawmakers say they’re prepared to haul him up to Capitol Hill quite frequently starting in January.
The harsh statements come as all four men are trying to show their conservative credentials a day after they made their cases to the GOP steering committee.
“We’re going to be like a dog to a Frisbee on this issue,” said Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who is widely believed to be the frontrunner in the race for the committee gavel. “No one on our side is going to be putting a toe in the water in support of net neutrality. This is a non-starter from day one.”
GOP members have pledged to examine every regulation they think will cost the nation more than $100 million dollars.
Net neutrality “is almost at the top of the heap in the first month,” Upton said.
Genachowski proposed a plan Wednesday that would prevent Internet providers from blocking lawful content, apps, services and devices on their networks – a proposal largely modeled after a compromise reached by the panel’s current chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), which Republicans refused to support before the mid-term elections.
Now that power in the House is changing hands, GOP leaders say Genachowski’s plan is not a wise one.
“Rest assured we intend to conduct rigorous oversight and explore all our legislative options to put things back on the proper track,” said House
Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “If last month’s election told us anything, it’s that Americans are exasperated by the explosive growth of government and the higher taxes and burdensome regulations that come with it.”
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said net neutrality would mean a “government takeover of yet another industry.”
“Just before Republicans take control of the House, the FCC is pushing an ill-advised and harmful regulatory change despite a bipartisan majority of Congress being opposed to it,” said Shimkus, who is in the running to lead the committee as well.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), ranking member of the committee who would like to become chairman, demanded to know under what authority Genachowski thinks he can pursue net neutrality under the current framework of the law, since a federal court ruled in April that it did not have the legal grounds to do so. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet and also a candidate to lead the full committee, expressed the same concerns.
The men sent a letter to Genachowski on Wednesday asking for a detailed explanation.
Despite the vehement opposition from the House, stopping the FCC with some sort of legislation would be a long shot, considering Senate Democrats, who still have power in that chamber, have been supportive of net neutrality. And the White House has also backed Genachowski’s plan. The only leverage left for House Republicans would be to refuse to fund the agency’s operations until their concerns are met.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45814.html#ixzz17XR6FGxc
Posted in America's Future, Current Events, Eric Cantor, THE GOOD DUDES | 
Tags: Internet | 
1 Comment »
Meet Eric Cantor
Eric Ivan Cantor (pronounced /ˈkæntɔr/; born June 6, 1963) is the U.S. Representative for Virginia’s 7th congressional district, serving since 2001, and the second-ranking member of the HouseRepublican leadership, having been elected Whip in November 2008, and will become Majority Leader once the 112th Congress takes office since the Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 elections.
The district includes most of the northern and western sections of Richmond, along with most of Richmond’s western suburbs and portions of the Shenandoah Valley.
Early life, education and career
Cantor was born in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from the Collegiate School in 1981, earned a baccalaureate at George Washington University (where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappafraternity) in 1985 and a juris doctor degree from William & Mary Law School in 1988, and received a master of science degree from Columbia University in 1989.
As a freshman at George Washington University in 1981, Cantor worked as an intern for House Republican Tom Bliley of Virginia and was Bliley’s driver in the 1982 campaign.[4]
Cantor worked for over a decade with his family’s small business doing legal work and real estate development.
Virginia House of Delegates
Cantor served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1992–January 1, 2001. At various times he was a member of committees on Science and Technology, Corporation Insurance and Banking, General Laws, Courts of Justice, (co-chairman) Claims. Cantor announced on March 14, 2000 that he would seek the seat in the United States House of Representatives that was being vacated by Tom Bliley. Cantor had chaired Bliley’s reelection campaigns for the previous six years, and immediately gained the support of Bliley’s political organization, as well as Bliley’s endorsement later in the primary.
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee assignments
During his first term, Cantor was Chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. He has also served on the House Financial Services Committee and on theHouse International Relations Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.
Party leadership
In 2002, Roy Blunt appointed him Chief Deputy Republican Whip, the highest appointed position in the Republican caucus. He had been in Congress for only two years at the time.
On November 19, 2008, Cantor was unanimously elected Republican Whip for the 111th Congress, after serving under his predecessor, Roy Blunt, as deputy whip for six years. Blunt had decided not to seek reelection to the post after Republican losses in the previous two elections. Cantor is the first member of either party from Virginia to hold the position of Party Whip. As Whip, Cantor is charged with coordinating the votes and messages of Republican House members.[8][9] Cantor will become Majority Leader once the 112th Congress takes office on January 3, 2011.
Cantor is a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Republican National Committee.
Cantor is one of the Republican Party’s top fundraisers, having raised over $30 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). He is also one of the three founding members of the GOP Young Guns Program. In the fall of 2010, Cantor wrote a New York Times bestselling book, “Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders,” with the other two founding members of Young Guns. They describe the vision outlined in the book as “a clear agenda based on common sense for the common good.”
Campaign office incident
After the passage of the health care reform bill in March 2010, Cantor reported that somebody had shot a bullet through a window of his campaign office in Richmond, Virginia. A spokesman for the Richmond Police later stated that the bullet was not intentionally fired at Cantor’s office, saying that it was instead random gunfire, as there were no signs outside the office identifying the office as being Cantor’s. A preliminary investigation indicated that the bullet was fired into the air and hit the office window going down. The bullet landed within a foot of the window. Cantor responded to this by saying that Democratic leaders in the House should stop “dangerously fanning the flames” by blaming Republicans for threats against House Democrats who voted for the health care legislation.
Cantor also reported that he had received threatening e-mails related to the passage of the bill, but he declined to hand over copies of the e-mails, saying that doing so would encourage similar activity.
Political positions
Israel
Cantor is currently the only Jewish Republican in the United States Congress. He supports strong United States-Israel relations. He cosponsored legislation to cut off all U.S. taxpayer aid to the Palestinian Authority and another bill calling for an end to taxpayer aid to the Palestinians until they stop unauthorized excavations on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Responding to a claim by the State Department that the United States provides no direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, Cantor claimed that United States sends about US$75 million in aid annually to the Palestinian Authority, which is administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Cantor has also claimed that Congress approved a three-year package of US$400 million in aid for the Palestinian Authority in 2000. He has also introduced legislation to end aid to Palestinians.
In May 2008, Cantor said that the relationship America has with Israel is “a constant reminder of the greatness of America”, and following Barack Obama‘s election as President in November 2008, Cantor stated that a “stronger U.S.-Israel relationship” remains a top priority for him and that he would be “very outspoken” if Obama “did anything to undermine those ties.”
Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, Cantor met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just before Netanyahu was to meet with US Secretary of state Hilary Clinton. He had said to the PM “I’m with you, not my president,” asserting his allegiance to Israel. Clinton was expected to reaffirm the American commitment to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and opposition to Israeli settlement expansion. According to Cantor’s office, he “stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration” and “made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States.” Cantor was criticized for engaging in foreign policy; one basis for the criticism was that in 2007, after Nancy Pelosi met with the President of Syria, Cantor himself had raised the possibility “that her recent diplomatic overtures ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American ‘without authority of the United States’ to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States.”
Social issues
Cantor opposes public funding of embryonic stem cell research and opposes elective abortion. He is rated 100% by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and 0% by NARAL Pro-Choice America, indicating a pro-life voting record. He is also opposed to same-sex marriage, voting to Constitutionally define marriage as between a male and a female in 2006. In November 2007 he voted against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. He also supports makingflag burning illegal. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rated him 19% in 2006, indicating an anti-affirmative action voting record. He is opposed to Gun Control, voting to ban product misuse lawsuits on gun manufacturers in 2005, and to ban gun registration and trigger-lock laws in the District of Columbia. He has a rating of “A” from the National Rifle Association (NRA). On Nov. 2, 2010, Cantor told Wolf Blitzer of CNN that he would try to trim the federal deficit by reducing welfare.
Economy, budgeting, and trade
Cantor is a supporter of free trade, voting to promote trade with Peru, Chile, Singapore, and Australia. He also voted for the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). He voted against raising the minimum wage to US$ 7.25 in 2007. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest federation of trade unions in the United States, rates Cantor 0%, indicating an anti-Union voting record.
On September 29, 2009 Cantor blamed Pelosi for what he felt was the failure of the $700 billion economic bailout bill. He noted that 94 Democrats voted against the measure, as well as 133 Republicans. He referred to Pelosi’s proposal to appoint a Car czar to run the U.S. Automobile Industry Bailout as “an unneeded ‘bureaucratic’ imposition on private business”.
The following February, Cantor led Republicans in the House of Representatives in voting against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and was a prominent spokesman in voicing the many issues he and his fellow Republicans had with the legislation. Cantor voted in favor of a 90% marginal tax rate increase on taxpayer financed bonuses, despite receiving campaign contributions from TARP recipient Citigroup.
Other foreign affairs
In an article he wrote for the National Review in 2007, he condemned Nancy Pelosi‘s diplomatic visit to Syria, and her subsequent meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, whom he referred to as a “dictator and terror-sponsor”; saying that if “Speaker Pelosi’s diplomatic foray into Syria weren’t so harmful to U.S. interests in the Middle East, it would have been laughable”. He went on to further his point:
“In one fell swoop, the Speaker legitimized and emboldened a ruthless thug whose unyielding support for terrorism has bogged down our attempts to bring stability and peace to the region at every step of the way. The excursion, condemned by most major newspapers, undoubtedly won Pelosi plaudits from her reflexively anti-Bush liberal base.”
Political campaigns
Cantor currently represents Virginia’s 7th congressional district, which stretches from the western end of Richmond, through its suburbs, and northward to Page, Rappahannock and Culpepper counties. It also includes the towns ofMechanicsville and Laurel. The district trends Republican, electing three members of the party in a row to Congress since 1971, and voting for Republican candidates in the past three Presidential elections.
2000
Cantor was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, filling the seat from which Tom Bliley was retiring. He defeated the Democratic nominee, by nearly 100,000 votes. During his first term, he was one of only two Jewish Republicans in the House of Representatives, the other being Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, who had been the only Jewish Republican since the departure of S. William Green in 1992. Gilman retired in 2002 and Cantor has been the only Jewish Republican since.
Personal life
Cantor met his wife, Diana Marcy Fine, on a blind date; they were married in 1989. They have three children named Evan, Jenna, and Michael. Mrs. Cantor’s mother, Barbara Fine, lives and manages the cooking and shopping in the Cantor household, which is kosher.
Mrs. Cantor is a lawyer and certified public accountant. She founded, and from 1996 until 2008 was executive director of, the Virginia College Savings Plan (an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia.) She was also chairman of the board of the College Savings Plans Network. Mrs. Cantor is a Managing Director in a division of Emigrant Bank, a subsidiary of New York Private Bank & Trust Corp. As of October 2009, his daughter, Jenna, served as the president of the Virginia Council of BBYO.
