Eric Cantor thinks America has him all wrong.
The Virginia Republican has been portrayed as an insensitive, combative conservative who wants to withhold disaster relief from the storm stricken and protect Wall Street from the ?mobs? who occupy it.
Continue ReadingHe?s rubbed legions of liberals ? and some conservatives ? the wrong way. Cantor?s negatives are up, and his public appearances have drawn hundreds of protesters. Unions have stepped up activity in his congressional district.
So now Cantor is trying to rehab his public image. The No. 2 House Republican wants to show he?s a serious lawmaker who?s curious about policy and has been unfairly vilified by the left while trying to find common ground with Democrats.
Cantor is allowing CBS News?s ?60 Minutes? cameras into his life, filming his three children and wife to show that he?s not the hard-line ideologue that has become the object of Democratic caricature. He?s invited the ?60 Minutes? cameras to spend Thanksgiving with his family; Leslie Stahl is slated to be the reporter on the piece.
In an effort to humanize him, Cantor?s staff has started an online video series called ?Snapshot of the Leader,? which depicts Cantor?s daily routine in short bits. The first installment had him talking about the ?American dream? and ?trying to promote achievement and success for everyone.? There will be a dozen of these rolled out on Cantor?s website.
The campaign to recast Cantor?s image may also be a tacit acknowledgment of one of his biggest weaknesses: the likability factor. Cantor, 48, has risen to the top of the GOP hierarchy at a fast and furious pace. He?s known for his acute policy acumen, political sensibility and aggressive fundraising. But Democrats ? including President Barack Obama ? have succeeded in building him up as the embodiment of unreasonable GOP opposition.
He?s working on that.
?I just think the whole picture of anybody ? and me, in this circumstance ? is just not out there,? Cantor said in an interview with POLITICO. ?From what the president has decided to do, as well as the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], unions [and] advocacy groups on the left [that have been] coming into my district repeatedly, I just think it?s clear that they want to go promote the sort of description of me that I don?t think is necessarily accurate. It?s all about the contentiousness in Washington and sort of painting me with that; it?s just not what I?m about.?
Cantor planned a speech at the University of Pennsylvania to talk about a favorite progressive topic ? income inequality. His speech included hundreds of words about his immigrant grandmother, who came to the United States from Eastern Europe and lived above her late husband?s supermarket in Richmond, Va., after being widowed at age 30.
But the event was canceled when the Service Employees International Union and the Occupy Philadelphia protest movement threatened to fill the 300-person audience. That won?t stop Cantor ? he has upcoming speeches planned at Northwestern University and Rice University. Of the cancellation at Penn, Cantor said there was ?no sense? in giving a speech about ?trying to pull people together? to an audience of ?100 percent professional protesters.? Penn, Cantor said, would not eject anyone from the venue.
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