Rep. Eric Cantor cancels Penn visit ahead of ‘Occupy’ protest

Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, canceled a visit to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business today ahead of a planned protest by Occupy Philadelphia.

Cantor, of Virginia, was expected to talk about income disparity in the country, but canceled the visit when his team found out the event would be open to the public, reports said.

Occupy Philadelphia was scheduled to march from City Hall with Temple University students who had walked out.

The University of Pennsylvania released a statement, which read in part “The University community was looking forward to hearing Majority Leader Cantor’s comments on important public issues, and we hope there will be another opportunity for him to speak on campus. The Wharton speaker series is typically open to the general public, and that is how the event with Majority Leader Cantor was billed. We very much regret if there was any misunderstanding with the Majority Leader’s office on the staging of his presentation.”

Democrats are using the incident to call out Republicans on issues affecting the middle class.

“It shows that Eric Cantor is afraid to face the public with his policies because he knows that Republicans are wrong on the middle class,” said Mark Nicastre, a spokesman with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “Republican policies, driven by the Tea Party, have favored corporate special interests over the middle class – from the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it to Republican opposition to investments in middle class families.

Eric Cantor is afraid to face the public because he knows he has the wrong policies for the middle class.”