House Majority Leader Eric Cantor took to the stage at the 2011 Voter Values Summit in Washington to do a little fear-mongering about the growing Occupy Wall Street protests.
“If you read the newspapers today, I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country,” he said.
Cantor appeared try and connect the protests to the cries of “class warfare” Republicans are lobbing at President Obama’s jobs bill and his Buffett Rule. He attacked Nancy Peolsi for praising the protests yesterday.
“Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans,” Cantor said.
Seeding concern about the relatively undefined protest movement spreading across the county is a growing movement among the right. Tea Party types are turning the past criticisms of their movement on Occupy Wall Street. Meanwhile Republican presidential candidates are casting it as some kind of revolt by the poor.
For their part, Democrats are not sure what to do.
Republicans seem to have found their footing on Occupy Wall Street however, and Cantor exemplified it well today.
This post has been updated.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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