{"id":10583,"date":"2017-07-27T18:59:14","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T23:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=10583"},"modified":"2017-07-27T18:59:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T23:59:14","slug":"looking-back-on-the-big-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/07\/27\/looking-back-on-the-big-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back On The Big Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Washingtonian <\/b><\/i>Elaina Plott covers <\/a>the post-political career of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R), who was unexpectedly beaten by a primary challenger who alleged that Cantor was soft on the ACA <\/b><\/i>– typical RINO<\/b><\/i>-speak. How has Cantor, now in the private sector, changed since then?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far easier to cop to political gamesmanship when out of office. But Cantor says if he could do it over again, he wouldn\u2019t have bought into this \u201cexpectation . . . that says if it\u2019s not everything, then it can\u2019t be conservative.\u201d He pauses. \u201cThat\u2019s a perspective I\u2019ve gained.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Yet here\u2019s the other shocker: despite all that, Cantor\u2019s read of how party leadership is navigating the current landscape is nothing short of sanguine.<\/p>\n

While he won\u2019t go so far as to say Trump\u2019s presidency has been a \u201cdisaster,\u201d as Boehner recently put it, Cantor admits he\u2019s less than charmed by the state of the West Wing: \u201cThe lack of humility right now in the system is striking to me. I\u2019m worried about Trump\u2019s rhetoric. . . . If things keep going like they are now without any real progress, it\u2019s a problem for electoral victories for our party.\u201d<\/p>\n

But strikingly, he won\u2019t criticize House speaker Paul Ryan or others for not demanding a new course. Cantor does say that, were he speaker, he would \u201canswer the questions I\u2019m asked,\u201d a subtle dig at Ryan\u2019s penchant for evading Trump-related questions from the podium. But that\u2019s as pointed as he\u2019ll get.<\/p>\n

Why not demand more from leadership? For one thing, Cantor is convinced that the party\u2019s current state\u2014the fury roiling the base and the White House alike\u2014is an aberration. He calls the moment an \u201canger detour,\u201d which sounds less like a label for a larger GOP identity crisis and more like an inconvenient square in Candy Land.<\/p>\n

His position, however, reflects that of many in the establishment\u2014that a pro-immigration, pro-market strain of conservatism, the one Cantor championed at the end of his tenure, is still the future of the party. It\u2019s why he helped raise funds for Jeb Bush\u2019s presidential campaign even after his own primary defeat was seen by many to be the first sign of a populist wave to come. It\u2019s why Cantor continues to believe that President Trump, his policies, and the discontent that wrought them are mere hiccups and that at some point they\u2019ll all cycle out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very captivating to a lot of people right now because of the extremes of the language, of the Twitter, of the activity, and it\u2019s just . . . it\u2019s really a lot about showmanship,\u201d he says. \u201cIt could end up to all be a lot of steam that, in the end, the implementation will be a lot more consistent with what I think the party\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I find it striking that his primary worry is not about where his party is going, demographically and philosophically, but about electoral victories, and, implicitly, that’s how to measure the success of\u00a0 your party. I would call that the necessary but not sufficient<\/em> part of the political equation – are you winning, AND …. where it’s a big AND.<\/p>\n

On the other side of that AND is the more important part of the equation, in my opinion – are your goals for which you strive for victory good or bad for the country. Properly aligned, the party and the country should prosper together.<\/p>\n

And, honestly, every time the GOP<\/strong><\/em> has been in control, we’ve seen economic disaster. I’m simply hoping that the incompetency at the top, and the basic stasis in Congress, will result in only minimal damage. Unfortunately, the judiciary may be burdened with incompetent ideologues for decades to come.<\/p>\n

This is the price we pay for “change in Washington.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Washingtonian Elaina Plott covers the post-political career of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R), who was unexpectedly beaten by a primary challenger who alleged that Cantor was soft on the ACA – typical RINO-speak. How has Cantor, now in the private sector, changed since then? It\u2019s far easier \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10584,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583\/revisions\/10584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}