Where’s Eric Cantor?

Okay, kiddos. Now that the 2007 elections are behind us and while the Democrats prepare to consummate their takeover of the Virginia senate, the ramp-up to 2008 begins. We’ve got a couple candidates lining up to take their shot at Eric Cantor, but before they announce and before the primary/caucus season begins, it’s time to try to find out where Eric really is.

And it’s entirely possible that right now Eric Cantor is hiring lawyers. Or more lawyers.

Remember a guy named Jack Abramoff? Sure you do, he was The Great Republican Corrupter, taking down several key members of Congress and doing his part in taking down the entire Republican majority. Culture of corruption, all that.

But remaining oddly unscathed in the Abramoff mess was Eric Cantor. I say “oddly” because he was a major player in the House that Jack built, receiving $9,000 in personal donations from Jack and his wife, receiving around $31,000 from Abramoff’s clients, and the real smoking gun, signing the infamous letter on behalf of the Coushatta Indian tribe’s casino interests (remember that the 7th district and Virginia entirely has NO Indian casinos) during the same period when he was bombarded with $4,500 in campaign contributions from Abramoff and his clients. Ouch.

But that all went away. There were new scandals to report on (”wide stance”), new congressional malfeasances (anyone in Alaska), and numerous Democratic cave-ins to cover.  Good times.

Today comes news that the Abramoff saga isn’t quite over yet.   Apparently Florida rep. Tom Feeney has dished out over $90,000 (partly from his campaign cash, natch) to FTI Consulting, in order to help him in his participation with the investigations into Abramoff’s influence.  Nice, hunh?

So will this get to Cantor?  He skirted the edges of the scandal before, and maybe the fact that he didn’t actually golf with Abramoff will help him out.  But hopefully the full scope of Cantor’s corruption at the hands of Abramoff will finally see the light of day.