Rick Santorum seems to have excelled at it. I've challenged Santorum supporters to post his pro-conservative voting record, and all I ever get in return is snark and childish arguments.
Michael Tanner writing in NRO online:
Santorum’s Big-Government Conservatism
"...the Tea Party and 2010 elections were largely about economic issues and the desire to limit the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government. And those issues are not Santorum’s strong suit.
There is no doubt that Santorum is deeply conservative on social issues. He is ardently anti-abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and no one takes a stronger stand against gay rights. In fact, with his comparison of gay sex to “man on dog” relationships, Santorum seldom even makes a pretense of tolerance. While that sort of rhetoric may play well in Iowa pulpits, it will be far less well received elsewhere in the nation.
At the same time, on economic and size-of-government issues, Santorum’s record is much weaker. In fact, Eric Erickson of Red State refers to Santorum as a “pro-life statist.”
When Hillary Clinton was justly excoriated by conservatives for her book It Takes A Village, which advocated greater government involvement in our lives, Rick Santorum countered with his book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, which advocated greater government involvement in our lives. Among the many government programs he supported: national service, publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, and economic-literacy programs in “every school in America” (italics in original).
Santorum’s voting record shows that he embraced George Bush–style “big-government conservatism.” For example, he supported the Medicare prescription-drug benefit and No Child Left Behind.
He never met an earmark that he didn’t like. In fact, it wasn’t just earmarks for his own state that he favored, which might be forgiven as pure electoral pragmatism, but earmarks for everyone, including the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere.” The quintessential Washington insider, he worked closely with Tom DeLay to set up the “K Street Project,” linking lobbyists with the GOP leadership.
He voted against NAFTA and has long opposed free trade. He backed higher tariffs on everything from steel to honey. He still supports an industrial policy with the government tilting the playing field toward manufacturing industries and picking winners and losers.
In fact, Santorum might be viewed as the mirror image of Ron Paul. If Ron Paul’s campaign has been based on the concept of simply having government leave us alone, Santorum rejects that entire concept. True liberty, he writes, is not “the freedom to be left alone,” but “the freedom to attend to one’s duties to God, to family, and to neighbors.” And he seems fully prepared to use the power of government to support his interpretation of those duties."
(more at the link)
Not really.
Let's see what the interest groups have to say:
The Reagan coalition consists of social, fiscal, and national security conservatives. No one disputes that he is socially conservative, so I won't bother posting what social issues groups say about him. On national defense issues, as i posted before, the Center for Security Policy gave him a rating of 94% in 03-04. Here is what some interest groups relating to fiscal issues say. AFL-CIO gave him a lifetime rating of 13%. SEIU gave him 0% in 2005. United States Chamber of Commerce in 2005 gave him 100%. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council gave him 95% in 2005 and 100% in 2004. Americans For Tax reform gave him 95% in 2005. On gun issues, I already mention that the NRA rated him as A+. On immigration issues, the Federation for American Immigration Reform gave him a rating of 93% for 2005-2006. On environmental issues, the League of Private Property voters gave him 89%, 83%, and 100% in 2006, 2005, and 2004, respectively. Republicans for Environmental Protection gave him 0 in 2005, and the American Wilderness Coalition gave him 0% in 2005.
Sounds like a pretty conservative guy to me.