Based on content of character...I’d say he has more content to his character than the other candidates, and therefore is more trustworthy to do what he says he’ll do.
Good job. We’ve got a conservative actually beating Romney straight up in primaries and caucuses. Let’s see if we can tear him apart! Bravo. Good for you.
What A Big Government Conservative Looks Like
NEA
Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.
Bankruptcy
Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Defense and Foreign Policy
Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.
Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.
Voted for the START II Treaty.
Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.
Voted to ban anti-personnel landmines.
Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.
Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same pay raises as uniformed military.
Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyrannical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.
Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea.
Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.
Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.
Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program.
Nominations
Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture).
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge.
Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN.
Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge.
Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit.
Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge.
Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge.
Voted for James Brady to be District Judge.
Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act.
Voted against repeal of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages.
Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor.
Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding.
Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Voted for Job Corps funding.
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization.
Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.
Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here.
Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.
Voted to exempt IRS union representatives from criminal ethics laws.
Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.
Guns
Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.
Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device.
Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18.
Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools.
Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.
Reform
Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.
Voted twice for a Congressional pay raise.
Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapists, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.
Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.
Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.
Voted for a McCain amendment to require state and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.
Immigration
Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators.
Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens.
Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to the earnings of their sponsors.
Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border patrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.
Taxes
Voted against a flat tax.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.
Voted twice for internet taxes.
Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.
Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.
Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.
Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.
Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.
Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.
Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.
Welfare
Voted against food stamp reform.
Voted against Medicaid reform.
Voted against TANF reform.
Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion.
Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.
Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.
Waste
Sponsored an amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million.
Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA).
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion.
Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.
Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million.
Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL).
Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry.
Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation.
Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.
Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%.
Voted against transferring $20 million from AmeriCorps to veterans.
Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.
Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.
Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.
Spending and Entitlements
Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies a new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.
Health Care
Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.
Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.
Voted against allowing consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.
Education
Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing.
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.
Energy
Voted to allow the President to designate certain sites as interim nuclear waste storage sites in the event that he determines that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site for a permanent waste repository. Those sites are as follows: the nuclear waste site in Hanford, Washington; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Barnwell County, South Carolina; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
Voted to make fuel price gouging a Federal crime.
With that said, Santorum is still more conservative on fiscal issues than Romney is, especially in light with Romney’s term as MA governor. Romney was a spender and a big porker, and increased MA’s budget every year that he was in power with no veto attempts.
For the past two days I’ve received almost a dozen Romney calls going negative on Rick Santorum. They are VERY annoying. (Illinois)
Here’s the thing ... I TRUST Santorum. I don’t trust Newt or Mittens AT ALL. I wouldn’t trust those two with a bubble pipe. They have no integrity.
And, because I trust Santorum, he’s my guy.
Santorum 2012
pick pick pick....we are letting the MSM control us! Think about that!
Blasphemy!!!
The answer: every Republican running is a darn sight more conservative than Barack Obama.
Degrees of conservatism are simply not important this year. A can of spam is an improvement over our current Occupant.
The Power Line blog endorsed Romney claimung he has a solid conservative record and while Santorum does have a bad record, how does this blog wash away the fact Romney opposed Reagan calling himself an independent, in his 94 run against Kennedy he ran to the left of Kennedy on “gay rights,” then there’s his planned parenthood questionarre, his” editorial on the flat tax calling it a tax break for fatcats, Romney even created an entire agency to combat global warming, his judicial nominees are activists that rule in favor of boys wearing fingernail polish n skirts to school, amd let’s not forget Romneycare, which funds abortions.
santorum.... the bushes 4th term... no thanks
This article has a glaring factual error; Dole’s lifetime rating is an 82, which is less than Santorum’s 88.
With the exception of Sununu all the above were representing solid red states. I can just about guarantee that if any of the above had been elected from Pennsylvania, their respective ACU ratings would have been lower than Rick's.
I don't recall anybody calling Fred Thompson a liberal back in 2008, but his lifetime ACU rating is lower than Santorum's.
How nitpicky of you.
/s
I'm not surprised that Dole was more conservative. I still remember him on the House floor, fighting Hillary Care - He said that it was not the governments job to do good, it was to prevent harm. Taken out of context, one might worry about the "prevent harm" bit, but he was right on.
Shocker: Bob Dole wasn’t in the Senate in 2006, and therefore could not POSSIBLY have had a better 2006 lifetime ACU record. Oddly, Jindraker made two other errors, first in saying there were 50 Republican senators, when there were 55, and second in saying Jim Jeffords switched “around that time”, he switched 5 years earlier in 2001 (which is also when there were 50 republicans).
As Powerline has now corrected, it was Elizabeth Dole, not Bob Dole, in the ratings.
Anyway, correcting for 55 republicans, and also not comparing Santorum to himself (yes, they did that, Santorum was one of the 4 that was within the margin of error with himself), the numbers for Santorum are: 24 worse, 27 better, 3 the same (54 total).
Newt Gingrich’s lifetime ACU Rating when he resigned in 1998 was a 90. (Note: this is a rounded number, I couldn’t find the more “accurate” decimal version for the 1998 results).
Of the 55 senators in 2006, 24 were more conservative than Gingrich. That includes Graham, Trent Lott, and Kay Baily Hutchinson. And Burns, Enzi, and Talent.
Or using the “about the same” criteria, Gingrich was 27 worse, 6 the same, 21 better. He’s tied with Orrin Hatch.
So if this shows Santorum isn’t conservative, it also shows Gingrich wasn’t even “conservative” when he resigned, BEFORE he took several decidedly moderate positions that aren’t covered by ACU ratings since he wasn’t in congress.
I am not saying Gingrich isn’t sufficiently conservative — I am pointing out that, by the criteria being advanced here, if Santorum isn’t conservative, neither is Gingrich.
In truth, a lifetime rating within a couple of points really isn’t a distinction worth a difference. Both men had to make many votes, some of which supported leadership rather than conservatism.
BTW, you do know that Hindraker published this to help Romney, and that the only reason he didn’t do the comparison I did with Gingrich is that he believes Gingrich is no longer in the race.
Perhaps a more instructive way to look at Santorum’s Lifetime ACU rating of 88.1%(House+Senate) is to observe each of the rated Senate years that make up the average. It becomes glaringly obvious that Santorum was becoming increasingly more conservative as the years went by, and was far more conservative as a Senator representing the entire state than he had been as a Republican Congressman representing the heavily Democratic 18th District. He nonetheless compiled a 78.5% ACU average for his 4 years in the House.
It should also be noted that his Lifetime Senate ACU average is 92.1%.
His 12 Senate ACU ratings year-by-year:
‘95-—83%
‘96-—95%
‘97-—84%
‘98-—84%
‘99-—88%
‘00-—100%
‘01-—100%
‘02-—95%
‘03-—90%
‘04-—96%
‘05-—92%
‘06-—96%
If you take an average of the 6 years in his last Senate term, his ACU rating is an impressive 94.8%
Soutce: http://conservative.org/legislative-ratings/
He has shown a steady trend of becoming more conservative as he has matured from the 32 year-old House freshman of 1991 to the Presidential candidate of today.
For Santorum supporters, it’s fair to say that the trend is their friend!
Hardly a shock, more like a mistake.
Bob Dole has a lifetime ACU rating of 82%, well below Santorum. Graham and Santorum roughly the same, at 88.9 and 88.1 respectively. Of course, it could be argued that an 88.1 in Pennsylvania vs. a 88.9 in South Carolina shows Santorum to be a braver and bolder conservative than Graham has the guts to be. :)