So you’re surprised that the career ACU rating of someone who (i) served in the House for four years representing a heavily Dem district and served in the Senate for 12 years representing a slightly Dem-leaning state while always in a filibuster-susceptible majority (so GOP Senators often had to hold their noses and vote for imperfect bills) is a teensy bit lower than the career ACU rating of a House member from an overwhelmingly conservative district who served 16 years in the minority (with a huge Dem majority with no need to compromise) and then voted only sparingly when he got to the majority because, by tradition, the Speaker almost never votes? Well, I’m just surprised that their career ACU ratings are as close as they are.
You should compare Santorum’s vote ratings (not just from ACU, but from other conservative groups as well as from liberal groups) to those of other Senators serving alongside and see whether you still think his voting record wasn’t very conservative. Rick Santorum is not a perfect presidential candidate—no one is—but being insufficiently conservative is not one of his flaws.
What you are saying is that Santorum is more conservative than how he performed for his liberal constituency.
That is precisely what Romney supporters say about him. “Well he was governor of Massachusetts...there was only so much he could do”
I actually like Santorum and think his time could come but likely not this go around but I'm not going to parse it out.
He has flaws like everyone of them. Supporting Spinchter was a big one.
They all make practical decisions.
and by the way...speaking of weird voting....the House Speaker often does not vote, in fact he is bound not to unless he allows the pro tempore he has to appoint for this to take his seat first which is infrequent
so by your logic a Speaker's voting record is just as compromised by procedure as a Senator's is by his more liberal than he constituents desires
it's a veritable briar patch ain't it?