Eric C's Farewell Tour

Not Clapton. Cantor.

The House Republican caucus' token non-Christian and former leader is quitting his House seat early.  He's decided that he would be ineffective as a lame-duck congressman, and he's right, of course.  The House session schedule he himself advanced earlier this year has made him and the whole House of Representatives ineffective.

But he still wants Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe to hold a special election to fill for the rest of the term the Richmond-based seat he's giving up.

That's what his people call "chutzpah."

Now that Eric Cantor is gone, that makes Nancy Pelosi the most irrelevant member of the House leadership. Or maybe it's Speaker Boehner, since he can't do anything the Tea Party doesn't want him to do. 

So, Cantor is making the rounds, saying goodbye to everyone in Congress, but he'll back.  He'll become  a lobbyist. And the fact that he's quitting the House early means he'll be back sooner rather than later.  

And thanks to gerrymandering and a Tea Party that has had as many successes as Occupy Wall Street has had failures, the Republican majority he led is in Washington to stay. 

Cantor is gone, but the melody lingers on.