The trickiest two-step in Washington as the debt-ceiling deadline looms is the one that House Republican Leader Eric Cantor has been called on to perform. Even more than his boss, John Boehner, Cantor answers to two masters whose interests have diverged: Wall Street and the Tea Party.
Until the past few days, Cantor has tilted toward the Teasters, at least when in public. Walking out on Joe Biden’s negotiations with congressional leaders, challenging President Obama during his meetings with those leaders, and taking a harder line than Boehner on any proposed compromises, Cantor had consistently positioned himself as the leader of the new, more radical generation of GOP legislators, the Gingrich to Boehner’s Bob Michael.
In September, 2009 Atlantic Monthly named 
