The establishment might coalesce around Rep. John Boehner or Rep. Roy Blunt. Or, if they want to appear to excise the demon of K-Street, the "safe" outside choice among insiders might well be Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).
Excuse me? To get rid of the stink of the lobbying scandals now gripping the GOP, the answer would be Eric Cantor? This guy?
Lawmakers and their staffs took golfing trips that Abramoff arranged?and sometimes paid for?to Scotland and the Northern Mariana Islands. Abramoff?s now defunct restaurant Signatures was host to more than 60 fund raisers for members of Congress and often neglected to send a bill. At the lobbyist?s delicatessen Stacks, Abramoff even named a sandwich after Congressman Eric Cantor at a $500-a-plate fund raiser in January 2003. (Cantor later asked the deli to switch his namesake sandwich from tuna to roast beef on challah, ?a deli special that exudes Jewish power,? wrote the Jewish newspaper the Forward.) (via Time)
The man had a sandwich named after him at Jack Abramoff's deli! As Hotline itself noted the same day it declared Cantor a "safe" choice: "Rep. Eric Cantor will return $10K in Abramoff and Abramoff-related donations. " If this is the best the GOP can do to distance themselves from the Abramoff/DeLay scandal, they're in more trouble than I thought.