It's good that Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., is a glass half full kind of guy. But a recent interview he gave to ABC News suggests that if Cantor were looking at an empty glass that had just shattered on the floor, he'd still swear up and down that it looked full to him.
Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, handicapped his party's prospects in the 2010 mid-term elections, telling ABC, "I really believe we've got a shot at taking back this House because you see what's gone on here with the unfettered ability of this administration and Nancy Pelosi to run this Congress .... I do believe they are setting up an environment for us to make a very convincing case that this country needs a check and balance on this unbridled power."
That might very well be true, and it could certainly lead to the Republicans picking up some Democratic seats. And hey, it's politics, and anything can happen between now and November of 2010. But the idea that the GOP can win the 40 seats it would need to retake the House seems very far-fetched right now. Republicans won more than that in the landslide of 1994, sure, but that was a different time, and, among other advantages the Republicans of 1994 have over their present-day counterparts, they didn't have the specter of George W. Bush hanging over them.
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