Cantor not ready to give up Reagan nostalgia

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) seemed to reject Monday a suggestion by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) that Republicans move past their nostalgia for President Ronald Reagan.

“I don’t think it’s giving up Ronald Reagan,” Cantor said on CNN Monday morning when asked if the GOP needed to move past Reagan. “I think the brilliance of Ronald Reagan’s leadership was his ability to identify the challenges that really were impacting people’s lives back in the day that he was elected in 1980.”

“So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant,” Bush said over the weekend at Republican town hall meetings in Virginia. “I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause.”

Cantor likened the challenges facing Republicans today to the challenges facing the GOP during the Reagan administration.

“We’ve got a similar challenge today — we’re 25 years later,” he said. “The same issues that may have resonated then may not be the issues that are resonating today, but it is the principles around which Ronald Reagan formed his solutions that are still alive and well.”