The Six Most Powerful RINOs

In The United States Senate, December 3, 2015  

John McCain 41% Conservative Review Scorecard

There is no debate that Senator John McCain is a war hero. Born in Panama Canal Zone on August 29, 1936, McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy and the National War College. During the Vietnam War he served as a U.S. Navy pilot and was a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1967-1973. During that time he was tortured, and after being released he received numerous awards, including the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

John McCain was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, served for two terms, and in 1986 he was elected to Barry Goldwater’s seat in the Senate. Senator McCain is currently serving his fifth term.

For the past 15 years, McCain has notably moved away from the Republican Party platform and seems to take pride in the nickname of “maverick.” As a member of the far-left Republican Main Street Partnership, he embodies the group’s unstated mission statement of destroying conservatives within the Republican Party.

His influence is significant as he is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Indian Affairs committees.

So what has he done to earn the ire of conservative Republicans?

According to the Conservative Review:

• McCain is the lead author of the bill to regulate modern campaign finances (McCain-Feingold), a move that was universally condemned by conservatives as unconstitutional and tendentious to incumbent politicians.
• He has also been the leading voice within the Republican Party for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
• He opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and is widely blamed for watering down the cuts and forcing sunset provisions that have caused some of the tax rates to expire.
• As a member of the Commerce Committee, McCain pushed for global warming and cap-and-trade style regulations on energy output, in addition to opposing some proposals to drill for oil.
• He has also been more open to federal mandates and regulations on private industry and weak on certain liberty issues.
• His advocacy of limiting campaign contributions and regulating tobacco shows a penchant for using robust federal powers and big government to limit freedom.

McCain has always taken the lead on foreign policy and as a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, he has pushed for very interventionist foreign policies, including supporting all insurgency movements attempting to displace dictators in foreign countries.

Not only has McCain been weak on tax and regulatory issues, he has been a vote for Democrats on many other key issues, while helping to strategize and secure votes for them against conservatives. Ultimately, it is clear that McCain is no conservative and even jokes that his “real” constituency is the press core.

Mitch McConnell 52% Conservative Review Scorecard

Senator Mitch McConnell has been involved in politics since the 1960s; He has served in various political positions and elected offices since college. McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1984, and was elected to his sixth term in 2014. From 2003-2007 he served as the Republican Whip. He has been the Republican Leader of the Senate since 2007. After the 2014 election, McConnell was selected as Senate Majority Leader. In addition to his leadership role, he sits on the Appropriations, Agriculture, and Rules and Administration Committees.

According to the Conservative Review:

“As GOP leader of the U.S. Senate, assessing McConnell’s conservative record goes much deeper than analyzing his votes, as he plays an outsized role in shaping Republican priorities and positions. While attempting to tack right over the last couple of years on style and substance, analyzing the long arc of McConnell’s career finds the shift is not grounded in conviction, but is rather an opportunist capitalizing on the resurgence of the conservative movement. McConnell is the consummate D.C. insider and calculated politician who rarely lets conviction get in the way of a “good” political move.

While quietly voting with conservatives throughout his career on issues related to life, guns (although he has taken a number of bad votes), and most tax issues, McConnell has failed to lead for conservatives on most critical issues during his time in leadership. In the few instances where he has publicly or privately spearheaded an initiative, it was for some of the most unpopular causes with conservatives, such as the Wall Street bailout, fiscal cliff tax increases, and debt ceiling increases.”

McConnell occasionally votes conservatively, but he has never used his leadership position to lead the Republicans against questionable policies, such as amnesty for illegal aliens, the war in Syria, and large spending bills. The only time McConnell has significantly led a conservative fight was in the battle against McCain-Feingold and other efforts to limit free speech. He has been active recently in fighting against the Obama administration’s war against coal, but only because it impacts his home state of Kentucky.

Senator McConnell’s career peaked after becoming Senate Majority Leader in January of 2015. As a result, it has become difficult for him to stay out of the center of attention on key issues. He has consistently faltered as the Republican leader in the Senate as he has to choose between aligning with the conservative base or satisfying his K Street donors and lobbyists. Unfortunately, he regularly chooses the latter.

Lindsey Graham 47% Conservative Review Scorecard

Another military veteran, Senator Lindsey Graham has served in both the Air Force and Air National Guard, and served as an officer in the JAG Corps. He still serves in the Air Force Reserves.

His political career began with one term in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1993-1995. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995, and served as a Congressman until 2002, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Graham was elected to a third term as Senator in 2014. He currently serves on the Appropriations, Armed Services, Budget, and Judiciary committees.

Much like his colleague, John McCain, he not only votes with Democrats on a number of key issues, he openly opposes conservatives on these policies while working with the Left. This tendency has recently been most notable on issues of immigration, global warming legislation, and certain aspects of foreign policy.

Unlike his close liberal ally, John McCain, however, Graham is also weak on trade and agriculture subsidies.

Graham was seen as a fairly conservative politician at the start of his career. That has changed, however, since he entered the Senate. For example, the Senator has voted for all of the bailouts, supports federal involvement in financial services and housing, and has even suggested that the federal government should take over banks. In addition to all this, he has voiced support to raise taxes to balance the budget.

Senator Graham seems to like taxes and is one of the lead supporters of the Internet sales tax proposal. Serving on the Judiciary Committee, Graham has helped push many liberal judges through the judicial nomination process, including two Obama Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Graham has also worked with Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer to constantly bring up immigration legislation. He has also been one of the strongest advocates for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Graham has become one of the most influential and vocal members on foreign policy while serving as a member of the Armed Services Committee. However, he has clashed with conservatives by supporting military missions to support various Islamist insurgencies. And although he has been a vocal opponent of enhanced interrogations methods, he has also been the most vocal member of either party to express a willingness to clamp down on civil liberties as the price for national security.

A brighter side of Senator Graham’s career is in his work of oversight as a member of Judiciary. He has aggressively challenged Senate Democrats to investigate the Benghazi scandal and has been an outspoken critic of Obama’s treatment of Israel. He has also been a consistent conservative vote on most social issues.

Orin Hatch 48% Conservative Review Scorecard

Unfortunately, his policy of confirming almost every liberal judge pretty much cancels out the benefits of those votes.

The only elected office Orrin Hatch has ever held is his seat in the U.S. Senator, which he won in 1977. However, he has been active in politics for over 35 years and, prior to political life, he was a lawyer.

Ironically, Senator Hatch ran his first campaign in Utah by claiming that his opponent had been in Washington too long and had lost touch with his constituents.

Over 35 years later he has appeared to have suffered the same fate. Recognized as a well-practiced career politician, Senator Hatch’s voting record has shifted away from the right over the years and he has become a solidly centrist/left leaning “establishment” Republican, and especially leaning to the left on social issues

It wasn’t always that way. He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a conservative “culture warrior.” It seems that Senator Hatch quickly learned his way around Washington and began to engage in complex deal-making instead of advancing a conservative agenda. For example, he voted for the creation of the Department of Education and has advocated federal intervention in education while on the HELP Committee. What else?

While on the HELP committee, he supported the expansion of federal intervention into healthcare by sponsoring the first bill mandating the purchase of health insurance. Senator Hatch was also behind the SCHIP entitlement. At its creation in 1997, SCHIP was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Lyndon Johnson established Medicaid in 1965.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Hatch has done little to oppose the liberal nominees of the Obama administration. On the Finance Committee, Hatch has a long record of supporting tax pork for green energy and has been a passionate supporter of earmarks, especially those that benefit his state.

When it comes to illegal immigration, he has been one of the strongest voices for amnesty, having served as the critical vote for the Gang of 8 amnesty bill both in committee and on the Senate floor. Senator Hatch was also an early supporter of the DREAM Act and for agriculture jobs bills. These legislative actions have become the basis of the current Democrat immigration agenda.

Although Utah is traditionally a conservative state, Senator Hatch has been anything but on social issues. How so? For one, he was a strong supporter for the bills granting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. In addition, he supported special unions for same-sex relationships for many years and has argued that Republicans should not fight for traditional marriage.

Overall, Hatch has been to the left of his constituents in Utah and is someone to watch in his new role as Chairman of the Finance Committee. Given that this will be his last term and he will not face the primary voters again, his policy leanings may become unpredictable.

Roy Blunt  43% Conservative Review Scorecard

Senator from Missouri, Roy Blunt, has been active in politics for over 40 years, and has served in an elected office almost continuously since 1972. Outside of political life, he was a teacher and college president and served as county clerk of Greene County, Missouri from 1972 to 1984 before moving to state politics. He was Secretary of State of Missouri from 1985 to 1993, before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1997.

Blunt was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2011 and currently sits on the Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and the Rules and Administration Committee. He was formerly the Republican Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the Majority Leader for a brief time. He was also elected to Senate Republican leadership as Republican Vice Chair for the 113th Congress.

Blunt was described in a November 2010 Wall Street Journal article: “He was the right-hand man to former Majority Leader Tom DeLay and in his own right a powerful dispenser of patronage and influence… He was an effective whip. To others, he epitomizes the transactional K Street politician who uses the prerogatives of office to protect incumbents—hence the nickname ‘Mr. Earmark.’”

During the Bush administration, Blunt oversaw some of the big government expansions under the GOP in the House. He led the efforts to pass Medicare expansion and the bailouts. And he even voted for Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” disaster of a program.

While he has been fairly steadfast on social issues, his record on most fiscal issues had been dismal.

For example:

• As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he has consistently voted with the bipartisan group of senators approving higher spending levels.
• As the lead Republican on the Surface Transportation Subcommittee, he has opposed devolving transportation to the states.
• As the lead Republican on the Agriculture Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, he has strongly supported agriculture subsidies, green energy subsidies, and earmarks.

As a compliant and obedient “establishment” member of the Republican leadership, he has stuck to the leadership line, and opposed conservative efforts to fight debt ceiling increases and to stop funding for ObamaCare. Despite a token-vote to repeal ObamaCare, he generally opposes the conservative effort to defund ObamaCare when that support is desperately needed.

As a former teacher and college president, Blunt has been frustratingly weak on school choice throughout his tenure in the House and Senate.

Overall, Blunt is a reliable vote and even a strong voice on pro-life causes, but outside of that issue he rarely leads on conservative fights and is usually on the opposite side of conservatives on fiscal issues.

Thad Cochran 33% Conservative Review Scorecard

Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi has spent over 40 years in Washington. His first stint was in the House of Representatives from 1973 to 1978. After being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978 he has been a long-standing member of both the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees. He currently serves as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and sits on the Rules & Administration Committee. Before he was elected to Congress, Thad Cochran served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

Although a Republican, Cochran has always worked closely with Democrats to expand federal government and to increase spending. In Washington he is regarded as a big-time pork barrel spender; so much so that he has often been referred to as the “King of Pork.”

Cochran does not take stands for the issues that make up the very core of the conservative movement. This has been evident in his willingness to consistently vote to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his unwillingness to support conservatives against Obamacare, and in voting for amnesty for illegal aliens.

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran has consistently opposed welfare reform and has dissented from conservatives on tax cuts. He even attacked his conservative primary challenger, Chris McDaniel, for supporting an essentially foundational GOP fiscal agenda.

Cochran has been disappointingly liberal on issues such as guns, abortion, and immigration. This is coming from a Senator from a socially conservative state like Mississippi. Cochran has betrayed conservative voters on many social issues, such as his support for embryonic stem cell research and as well as taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

Despite being a military veteran, Cochran has consistently supported treaties that weaken U.S. standing in the world, and he has opposed efforts to hold the U.N. and Iran accountable.

Over the course of more than 40 years in Washington, Senator Cochran has cast numerous liberal votes and has led liberal initiatives on fiscal, social, and national security issues. Despite four decades as a Republican Senator in Washington, Thad Cochran has failed to provide conservative leadership on almost every conservative issue.

And Now… Here Are The Most Liberal RINOs In The United States Senate

http://conservativeamerica-online.com/the-six-most-powerful-rinos-in-the-united-states-senate-roy-blunt-5-of-6/