Posted by Rick Pearson at 10:30 p.m.
U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House GOP whip, said today Republicans are poised to make strong gains in this year’s mid-term elections but they must find ways to combat a “very cynical electorate” unhappy with Democratic control of Congress today and transgressions that cost Republicans their majority in 2006.
Cantor, who met with the Tribune’s editorial board along with west suburban GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, maintained Republicans have straightened themselves out after losing a congressional majority. But, he said, voters are primarily interested in which party will do more to improve the economy and “get people back to work.”
“We as Republicans looking toward the November election are…presenting ourselves, I would say a counterbalance, if you will, to one-party rule that seems to be unfettered in Washington,” the five-term congressman said.
But Cantor said Republicans also have learned from their mistakes.
“Underlying all of this is a very cynical electorate because they feel that they’ve been duped by the current majority and they have memories now of what went on when we were fired,” Cantor said, citing the overspending and corruption problems under the GOP as well as “the lack of ability to execute perhaps in the way the public felt needed to be with the war, Katrina.”
Cantor said the “first and foremost priority right now is jobs in the minds of the public” and the “most compelling argument” that incumbent Republicans and GOP challengers to Democrats will try to make to voters is that an unpopular “Washington has grown too much.”