Cantor Eric - Young guns : a new generation of conservative leaders

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cantor, Eric.
Young guns : a new generation of conservative leaders / by Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy. Threshold editions.
p. cm.
1. ConservativesUnited States. 2. ConservatismUnited States. 3. United StatesPolitics and government1989 I. Ryan, Paul. II. McCarthy, Kevin. III. Title.
JC573.2.U6C36 2010
320.520973dc22 2010018512

ISBN 978-1-4516-0734-5
ISBN 978-1-4516-0735-2 (ebook)

Table of Contents

Foreword

When they came together in 2007, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy didnt seem to be a natural fit. They were young, conservative Republican members of the House of Representatives, but elected at different times, from distant regions of the country, and their political skills were anything but similar. Yet having joined forces as leaders of Young Guns, they now represent the Republican future in Congress.

Cantor was elected from Richmond and its suburbs in Virginia in 2000 and two years later was already on the leadership track. Hed been spotted by then House Republican whip Roy Blunt and chosen as chief deputy whip. In 1998 at age twenty-eight, Ryan won a House seat from the southern tier of Wisconsin. By 2004, hed emerged as the congressman who knew more about the federal budget, taxes, entitlements, and health care than anyone else in Washington and understood the need for radical measures to reform them. McCarthy was elected in 2006 from an agricultural and oil-producing district in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Even before he arrived on Capitol Hill, he had campaigned for many of his Republican colleagues and was familiar with most of the others. In 2008, Cantor tapped McCarthy as his chief deputy whip.

What prompted Cantor, Ryan, and McCarthy to come together was a story in The Weekly Standard (with separate profiles on each of them). They appeared on the cover in a photo taken on a Capitol balcony overlooking the Mall. They were all smiles. They knew each other as members of the embattled Republican caucus that had lost control of the House in the disastrous 2006 mid-term election. But they hadnt realized their individual skills were remarkably complementary: Cantor the leader, Ryan the thinker, McCarthy the strategist. Some of us at The Weekly Standard had noticed this. Thus the cover story.

In a sense, their alliance and the creation of Young Guns was a revolt against the older, established Republican leaders in the House. The party establishment was dedicated to protecting incumbents at all cost. With money, manpower, and advice, Young Guns supports challengers, many in races that otherwise might be ignored by the national party. Young Guns is partial to young, reform-minded Republicans. It is eager to erase the image of congressional Republicans as big spenders preoccupied with assuring their own reelection. In short, Cantor, Ryan, and McCarthy would like to fill the ranks of House Republicans with members, like themselves, committed to policies and legislation infused with the principles of limited government, free markets, and individual freedom. Young Guns is not for me-too Republicans, those comfortable with a scaled-back version of the Democratic agenda.

Cantor had followed the advice of his predecessor from the Richmond district and political mentor, Tom Bliley. Stay off the Commerce Committee or youll be written off as tobaccos man in Washington, Bliley told him. It would be a liability if he sought a spot in the House leadership. Instead, with a law degree and a background in his familys real estate management firm, Cantor angled to be on the tax-writing (or tax cutting) Ways and Means Committee. So when Blunt called him in 2002, he expected to be offered a seat on Ways and Means. But Blunt had noticed his leadership attributes: energetic, respected by colleagues, his conservatism tempered by a streak of caution. And Blunt and his aides werent shy about touting Cantors performance as deputy whip.

In his dozen years in Congress, Ryan has managed to avoid being tied down by whatever is the issue of the day. This is perhaps the hardest thing for a member of Congress to do, especially an ambitious backbencher. But Ryans models when he first came to Washington as a staffer were Jack Kemp and Bill BennettRepublican thinkers. He worked for Kemp and Bennett and later for Sen. Sam Brownback (when I met him), thinking all the time about everything that Washington touches. Now hes the most influential Republican thinker in Congress. His magnum opus is called A Roadmap for Americas Future. Its a sweeping plan to reform the way Washington works.

I met McCarthy in 2004 when he was the Republican leader in the lower house of the California legislature. At a Washington dinner just before President Bushs second inauguration, my friend Jim Brulte introduced McCarthy as the California Republican with the greatest future. Brulte, then Republican leader in the state Senate, was right. Besides being Cantors top deputy, McCarthy is an expert on how to win House races. He dropped by my office several months after the Republican debacle in 2006. Hed just been elected to his first term. He was already working on a strategy for political recovery. In 2010, he led the effort to recruit electable Republican House candidates. McCarthys favorites? Candidates fresh to politics and bursting with enthusiasm about reforming Washington.

The future of Young Guns and its three honchos is unquestionably bright. Im convinced Eric Cantor will be speaker or majority leader the next time Republicans control the House. When that happens, Paul Ryan will be chairman of the House Budget Committee and will be in line to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The first order of business as chairman of House Ways and Means will be fundamental tax and entitlement reform. The second order of business will be more reform. As for McCarthy, hell be right behind Cantor in the leadership, either as majority leader or whipand someday, if Cantor steps aside, even House Speaker. All the while, hell be fixated on how to win more elections, more often. In short, Young Guns is not only here to stay, but to succeed.