And yes, he was constantly compared to and confused with Steve King of Iowa, the latter being someone who truly IS staunchly conservative.
Puke. Chaffetz is a Romneybot too? I guess it sort of makes sense since he's from Utah, but still. Chaffetz is a textbook example of a candidate who was marketed as the "true conservative" in a primary and turned out to be WORSE than his predecessor. He ran against a 95% conservative incumbent (Chris Cannon) whose achilles heel was being terrible on illegal immigration. Now Chaffetz has ended up just as bad as Cannon immigration (he's "evolved" to be pro-amnesty) and he's to the LEFT of him on other issues.
Looking back in hindsight, I don't think Chaffetz was always solidly conservative and was somehow corrupted by the "GOPE" when he got to Washington. He was a loyal Jon Huntsman Republican, who saw an opening to get a prized federal seat in Congress if he could run to the right of his opponent, so he simply invented a "principled conservative fighter" persona out of thin air and played it to a tee on the campaign trail. "Dr. Milton Wolf" tried the same stunt in Kansas (bought himself a gun for the first time in his life and started going to church so he could reinvent himself as a "lifetime NRA member and fervent born-again Christian") but the fake persona failed to work in the latter case.
Just like with Marine Le Pen, be loud on a few hot button issues and a lot of people will ignore your larger record.