House Republican Whip Eric Cantor ’s monster first-quarter campaign finance report is no more remarkable for its impressive bottom line — $963,900 — than for what it says about his exploding share of Republican fundraising clout.

While the fifth-term Virginian more than doubled his take from the comparable first quarter of the last non-election year — 2007 — the other six members of the House Republican leadership combined to produce $25,900 less in the first three months of 2009 than they had two years earlier. Together, those six raised $1,031,100 for the first quarter of 2009 — only $67,200 more than Cantor.

Cantor saw the largest increase in receipts from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2009 of any House member or candidate, according to CQ MoneyLine.

Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, raised $326,700, or about one-third of what Cantor, the party’s second in command in the House, collected.

Boehner’s political action committee, Freedom Project, outraised Cantor’s ERIC PAC, though — $415,700 to $315,000 for the quarter — and his camp notes that he has been a prolific party fundraiser, helping amass more than $3 million this year for candidates and party organizations.

Cantor always has been a talented fundraiser, but he is quickly becoming a dominant force at a time when the other leaders of a powerless Republican minority (and even some majority Democratic leaders) are struggling to scrape together money.

Democratic power, the recession and donor fatigue in the months after a presidential election all contribute to a tough fundraising climate in Washington, according to Republicans.

Dan Morgan, a veteran fundraiser who founded Morgan, Meredith and Associates in the Washington suburbs, said that donors who seek to influence the government like to give at least a little bit of money to the minority side — even if most of their contributions go to the majority.

Cantor, who is in his first term as whip and his fourth term on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, is well-positioned to help advance or thwart an agenda.

“If they are going to support a Republican it’s going to be a guy like Eric Cantor ,” Morgan said.

In addition to his in-House rise from freshman back-bencher, to appointed chief deputy whip, to elected whip in the span of less than a decade, Cantor registered a small blip on the national political radar after being mentioned as a dark horse possibility for the Republican vice presidential nomination.

He also has increased his visibility on the cable news talk show circuit, and has spent some of his campaign booty on lessons from the speech coaches at Podium Master.

Democrats have taken notice of Cantor’s surging clout, using every opportunity to paint him as a villain or a fool. Hari Sevugan, a Democratic National Committee spokesman, added a postscript to his e-mail messages mocking Cantor for a recent comment about Democrats “overreacting” to the current economic crisis.