The Chosen Republican
CRABTREE, SUSAN J.
The Chosen Republican Richmond’s Eric Cantor joins the House GOP leadership. BY SUSAN J. CRABTREE AT FIRST GLANCE, Eric Cantor’s life story resembles the biographies of scores of other suburban...
...In his first year in Congress, he quickly won the support of influential Jewish GOP activists with deep pockets, including Fred Zeidman, a venture capitalist from Houston who Bush appointed chairman of the U.S...
...9/11, that awful, awful tragedy that occurred because of a terrorist attack was really the catalyst," he said...
...He was a key Virginia supporter for the 1984 Reagan-Bush campaign, and Eric was working precincts before he could vote...
...Cantor says any foothold Republicans have gained in wooing the Jewish vote is largely due to George W. Bush, and argues that the president's strong support for Israel already has opened the door for Jews to flock to the Grand Old Party...
...But I think when it comes to Israel, all that gets set aside...
...House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, an uncompromising critic of Yasser Arafat, says Cantor is the first person he turns to on questions involving Israel...
...He began his political career in the state legislature fighting to protect tobacco companies and return budget surpluses to taxpayers...
...In his brief tenure in Washington, Cantor has built a reputation as a smooth political operator, a workhorse, and an articulate, energetic spokesman for the cause...
...Although in the 2000 presidential election Al Gore took almost 80 percent of the Jewish vote, a recent poll shows that 37 percent approve of Bush's performance so far as president and 43 percent approve of the way Bush is handling Israel and the Middle East...
...Cantor's easy charm and commitment to the issues helped drive Jewish voters to the polls to vote for him...
...The Cantors volunteer their time to the Richmond-area Jewish community, which he estimates to be 12,000 to 14,000 strong, but barely 2 percent of the old Confederate capital's overall population...
...I wrote him a check...
...out in that direction...
...Holocaust Museum...
...I really do...
...As the only member of the House leadership—Republican or Democrat—who's Jewish, it gives him substantial credibility to help reach Susan J. Crabtree is a reporter at Roll Call, where she covers the House Republican leadership...
...He won by fewer than 300 votes...
...Life as one of the only Jews in a high school class of 100 could be awkward...
...Howard Kohr, the executive director of AIPAC, has called Cantor "a true leader when it comes to the Middle East...
...The Jewish community in America realized that there is a common enemy out there, and it is not Republicans...
...Just weeks ago, he addressed a group of AIPAC activists in West Palm Beach, Florida, a bastion of Jewish Democrats...
...Born and raised in the South, he attended a private Christian high school, and earned his law degree before returning home to work in the family business...
...I will just make do . . . to me religion is a very private thing," he said...
...Now Republicans hope he can transfer that to the national stage...
...Republican insiders were quick to call his selection a stroke of genius...
...The Democrat party has always been a little more effective in communicating to the Jewish community," he said...
...He is one of those people who have the unusual and uncommon ability to disagree with people without becoming disagreeable," Bliley said...
...The relationship would pay off down the road, when Bliley's formidable resources and political machinery were widely credited with giving Cantor the edge in his razor-thin primary victory during his first campaign for Congress in 2000...
...But he would rather go hungry than ask for special arrangements...
...I have come along in life to be a little more open about [my faith]," Cantor said...
...Matt Brooks, the chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, where Cantor is a board member, said the Virginia Republican is "uniquely capable of selling the Republican agenda to Jewish voters...
...He's worked hard around the country to try to build bridges and support among the Jewish community and he did that very effectively," Blunt says...
...Cantor's family chose to send him to Collegiate, a prestigious, nonde-nominational private school where there were daily chapel services...
...The message of trying to be there to provide government services and the government's helping hand...
...After earning his masters' in real estate at Columbia University in New York, where he met his wife, Diana, he became more vocal and active...
...When his classmates bowed their heads to pray, he bowed too, but refrained from full participation in the prayers...
...His grandmother ran Cantor's Grocery and, for a time, she and her two sons lived above the store...
...His family stoked his faith by sending him to Hebrew school three times a week...
...I was very private about it and never really talked about it...
...But growing up in the good ol' boy South with a Baptist or Episcopal church on every other street corner, he learned to be reticent in his faith...
...His efforts have not been lost on leaders of the Jewish political community...
...Two months ago Majority Whip Roy Blunt stunned colleagues by tapping Cantor to be his chief deputy, the same post Dennis Hastert held before becoming Speaker four years ago...
...During college, Eric interned in Bliley's congressional office and served as his driver and, years later, as his campaign manager...
...It will be a tough task but Cantor refuses to be daunted...
...I really liked him the first day I met him," Zeidman said of Cantor...
...Cantor joins the Republican leadership at a time when the party is straining to translate its ardently pro-israel message into votes and financial support from Jews, a group Democrats have dominated at the ballot box for generations...
...He always told me, the bottom line, the proof is in the pudding, just do the work," Cantor recalls...
...Later, when he had more free time, his father dedicated it to the Richmond Republican political community, winning several local GOP offices...
...BY SUSAN J. CRABTREE AT FIRST GLANCE, Eric Cantor’s life story resembles the biographies of scores of other suburban Republicans in Congress...
...His grandfather followed, but died when Cantor's father was just two years old...
...Cantor is on the board of and helped secure state funding for the Virginia Holocaust Museum and over the years has participated in the annual campaign to raise millions for the local Jewish Federation...
...Cantor's father went to law school, eventually starting a business developing real estate and shopping centers...
...On Crossfire, he serves up pro-Israel sound bites opposite the likes of James Zogby of the Arab American Institute...
...He was barely installed in office before he began traveling the country, reaching out to such powerful national Jewish groups as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs...
...And there's no denying that his faith and passionate stands in defense of israel have played a major role in his rapid ascent over just two years in Washington...
...Cantor also keeps kosher, a fact that makes it difficult to swing by a Capitol Hill reception for a quick bite...
...But I think it's a totally new day, though...
...It's no secret that the mainstream Jewish community in this country is Democrat," Cantor said in an interview shortly after that trip...
...His message is music to Republican leaders' ears...
...This attitude, Cantor says, made his father a natural Republican and forms the foundation of his own conservative philosophy...
...And members of the Jewish community "have a different domestic agenda often than most conservative Republicans do...
...It was a comfortable existence, but Eric remembers the long hours his dad put in...
...He's even a Rotarian...
...Like so many Jewish immigrants to the United States, Cantor's grandparents on his father's side left Eastern Europe to make a home in New York City...
...Cantor's easy southern manner and ability to articulate complex foreign policy matters succinctly have also made him a regular on the national television talk circuit...
...But there's a critical difference: Cantor, 39, is the only Jewish Republican serving in the House...
...Along the way, the Cantor family grew close to such prominent Virginia Republicans as Tom Bliley, who served as mayor of Richmond and went on to become a prominent elder statesman in Congress...
...An unflinching fiscal conservative, the Virginia Republican is pro-life, supports the Second Amendment, and backs voluntary prayer in school...
...His great uncle was the first to relocate to Richmond for an opportunity to work in the restaurant fixture business...
...As an adult, Cantor has never been shy about voicing his support for Israel, even though the issue was a mild undercurrent in his first primary battle against Virginia state senator Steve Martin, the son of a country preacher...
Vol. 8 • January 2003 • No. 19
