Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [121]
The next RINO to go was Governor Charlie Crist in a Florida Senate race. Crist is a pro-gun, anti-abortion, and anti-gay marriage Republican governor who had approval ratings in the high sixties as he entered the primary, and GOP leaders enthusiastically endorsed him. But Crist backed Obama’s economic-stimulus plan and even went so far as to give Obama a hug—in public. For this treachery and a list of other violations of true conservatism, the right backed his challenger, Marco Rubio.79 With Tea Party leaders endorsing Rubio and the omnipresent Club for Growth bankrolling him, Rubio surged ahead in the polls. Crist did the math and pulled out of the primary to run as an independent.
Crist is arguably a moderate Republican, at least by 2010 standards, but Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) is a genuine conservative by any standard. He has received top lifetime performance ratings from the NRA, National Right to Life, the Family Research Council, the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.80 But Bennett committed two grievous errors. One, he voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to bail out teetering banks—along with thirty-three other Republican senators, not to mention President Bush who signed the bill and a crowd of economists who endorsed it. Two, Bennett cosponsored the Healthy Americans Act, a 2007 bipartisan health bill that was less comprehensive than the Democrats’ 2010 health bill but still required individuals to purchase health insurance. As a result, the Tea Parties despised him, the Club for Growth attacked him, his opponents labeled him “Bailout Bob,” and the Utah Republican Party denied him the nomination.81
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) also voted for TARP. Worse, he voted to rebuke Representative Joe Wilson after he shouted, “You lie!” during Obama’s State of the Union address. And worst of all, he told constituents at a rally to turn off the television when Glenn Beck came on. “You know why?” Inglis insisted. “He’s trading on fear. You know what? Here’s what I think. If you trade on fear, what you’re doing is, you’re not leading. You’re just following fearful people.” Inglis lost the Republican primary runoff by 71 percent to 29 percent.82
During the Scozzafava-Hoffman race, Rush Limbaugh predicted that in 2010 “conservatives are gonna finally get rid of RINOs. The American people have had enough.”83 But on the contrary, 2010 has already shown that the RINOs will never become extinct; they will simply be redefined. The Rockefeller Republicans that Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguerie attacked in the 1970s were genuine liberals—pro-choice, pro- gun control, pro-affirmative action, pro-welfare liberals. But the Rockefeller Republicans are long gone, and the ranks of the once dominant moderates have been decimated; yet the right wing is still hunting RINOs and the Tea Parties are now ousting conservatives for not being conservative enough.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) disagrees with the notion that right-wing heretic hunters have shrunk the Republican “big tent.” He explained, “We’re seeing across the country right now that the biggest tent of all is the tent of freedom.”84 It’s hard to argue with the man. After all, who doesn’t love freedom? Well, except for Obama, Pelosi, ACORN, Van Jones, and all those other Marxists, of course. But