The Myth of Cantor’s Vetting
A source close to the McCain campaign is telling me that the story that Eric Cantor — the “rising star” of the GOP — came anywhere near to being John McCain’s running mate in 2008 is bunk:
“The notion that Eric Cantor was somehow a high profile candidate for vice president is a complete and total joke,” a source close the top former leadership of the McCain campaign told me. ” He was never on the short list. Never vetted. But if you read the press today you would believe that Eric Cantor ever so close to being vice president. This was created by Cantor’s PR people. He’s got a ton of them.”
Cantor’s shameless self promotion is the source of bitter jokes among McCain veterans. “They just laugh about it,” says the source, who has long been a close observer of Cantor’s career. “When Cantor’s asked about it, he won’t comment directly about the vetting. He just hints and struts. It’s very revealing. Its’ the old politics: You get ahead by courting the spotlight without doing anything necessarily different or interesting. There’s nothing there.”