Eric Cantor would be a big asset in Virginia and Florida and he would appeal to many though not all conservatives with his voting record. He would also highlight concerns about Obama’s foreign policy and attract a large number of Jewish Democrats to cross party lines.
In 2008, when Eric Cantor’s name was floated as a potential runningmate for John McCain, I supported the notion, since I thought he would provide better balance to the ticket than some of the other names that were mentioned (such as Mitt Romney). And I still believe that Eric Cantor would make a fine VP candidate—for a Protestant presidential candidate, not for a Mormon who is getting no support from Evangelicals. Even with the prevalence of philo-Semiticism among Evangelical Protestants, I don’t think Romney should pick a Jewish (or other non-Protestant) runningmate.
Nothing gets a Dem voting block to cross lines.
McDonell would be a much better choice- at least he could guarantee Virginia.
I imagine he would appeal nationwide.
Too bad there isn’t a “Dick Cheney” hardcore type to help him out.
I like Cantor, I don’t think he’s national candidate potential. However Jewish voters won’t vote for Romney because he has a Jewish VP. Need to stress other issues, like the economy.
For VP....I would prefer either Allen West or Marco Rubio!
I disagree. Although I was never too keen on Cantor (too much establishment beltway mentality), I think he'd make an acceptable running mate and his voting record is fairly conservative. However, I don't think he'd make a dent into the Jewish vote at all.
It's similar to how Republicans continue to delude ourselves into thinking we'll win over more black votes when we run a black candidate. Even when a black Republican wins office, it's not thanks to black voters since they give 80% of their votes to the RAT candidate and will vote for a white RAT over a "fellow" black who has an "R" next to his name. The media kept pushing the idea that Jesse Jackson Jr. was "vulnerable" and would lose black voters. Nuh uh, never gonna happen. Instead, he won the 2010 general election by over 80% against a black Republican (and that's including white suburbs in the mix!) and then won the 2012 RAT primary by over 70% against a white Democrat, in a district that is now 2/3rd suburban and while he lost both Will. AND Kankakee county (but won over 90% of the vote in the black part of his district in Crook County).
It works the same way with Jewish votes. You can run all the pro-Israel Jewish Republicans you want, and they'll still overwhelmingly vote for the RAT candidate screaming "Free Palestine!" Some Republicans saw the results in NY-9 where a conservative Republican won huge with Jewish voters and thought that would translate nationally. The problem is that he won huge with ORTHODOX Jews, and they make up over 40% of Jewish voters in NY-9 (he still lost Conservative and Reform Jews). Nationally, Orthodox Jews are only 10% or so of the Jewish population. The fact we might sway some of them to vote Republican doesn't mean we'll make inroads into the "Jewish vote" as a whole, anyone that it means the Democrats will win big in the south overall because they do well in Maryland. Conservative, Reform, and secular Jews will still give 3/4ths or more of their votes to the RATs.
There was some poll out just this month that showed despite Obama's anti-Jewish record, only 30% of Jewish voters say they prefer a Republican over him in November, and over 60% say they're strongly committed to Obama (can't find the FR link, but here's the poll: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/03/us-usa-campign-jews-idUSBRE8320MH20120403 ) Obama won over 78% of the Jewish vote last time, and even though he was much more popular back then, it pales in comparison to what FDR, Clinton, and others got. Even when Walter Mondale LOST to Reagan in a 49-state landslide DEFEAT, he STILL got over 67% of the Jewish vote! Given that kind of data (I doubt Obama is going to lose 49 states), I think the GOP could resurrect Moses himself to be Romney's running mate and there would be a good chance Obama doesn't get under 70% of the Jewish vote. That segment of the population is completely wedded to the RAT party, no matter how much Republicans hope otherwise from election to election.