Cantor promises more aggressive GOP

Newly minted House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) promised Tuesday that a retooled and more aggressive GOP will be better prepared for the 2010 election cycle than it was for 2008.

Cantor said Republicans can “expect” that the party will be more active in recruiting and financially backing candidates in tough races. “I think it’s very important that we put this new face on and put it into action, and put our money where our mouth is,” he said during an appearance on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.

But Cantor added that if the party wants to perform better in 2010 it “can’t keep doing things the same way.”

“We’ve got to start obviously making some inroads into some of these seats that have been taken from us on the political front, but at the same time, we do that through the promotion of ideas based on our common sense conservative principles,” he said, promising “we’re not going to defend corrupt behavior, we’re not going to be the party that points fingers without making sure we’re honest with ourselves.”

One of the changes the party needs to make, Cantor said, is to better utilize new media to build its brand and connect with voters.

“The Internet provides extraordinary potential for us to reach out to like-minded people that want to get involved,” he said. “It allows us an avenue to access the younger voters of this country who frankly really haven’t heard from us over the last several years, and that’s very exciting to me, because that’s our future. And I believe that’s how our ideas are going to be taken and put to work this century.”

The Republican whip also laid out three principles that the party must adhere to in order to rehabilitate its image with voters.

“One, we have to stop defending the type of spending that we’ve always criticized the other side for engaging in. No. 2, we need to stop defending unethical conduct on either side of the aisle, and that includes our own. And third, we’ve got to go about trying to regain the credibility as adherents to the core principles that this country was based on and our party’s based on,” he said.