I said throughout the primary that they were BOTH RINOs and socially liberal, it's just that Linda McMahon wasn't AS far left as uber-RINO Chris Shays. I'm not surprised she'd come out in favor of repealing DOMA in the general election, since the mainstream media would gush over her "courage" for that.
Then again, I fell for Bob Dold's (not to be confused with Bob Dole) claims in 2010 that he was "middle of the road" on abortion and "against taxpayer funding of it". I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt since he was a first time candidate. I should have known better. We now know for certain that the phrase "socially moderate" is IL-10th District RINO speak for "I will slavishly do Planned Parenthood's bidding on every bill". I don't know what they put in the water up there, because in the other 434 congressional districts, heck probably even in liberal New England, voting like Barbara Boxer on abortion doesn't make you "socially moderate", it makes you to the left of Hillary.
I live in Rep. Walsh’s district, and, in the new map, I’ll live in Rep. Dold’s district. I agree that he’s too liberal. I hope that a conservative, who has political experience, will run, in the 10th Dist., in 2014. State Rep. Jo Ann Osmond or Lake Co. Sheriff Mark Curran would be a good candidate.
I just got mapped into Dold’s district from Schakowsky’s, the new line being just 4 houses down from me. I know Dold is a RINO, but I will be voting for him over that evil slug Brad Schneider. After 10 years behind enemy lines in Schakowsky’s gulag, I’d vote for anyone with an “R” after their name.
If Bob Dold promised that he was “pro-choice” on abortion but opposed taxpayer funding, then his voting record actually has come pretty close to what a “moderate” would claim were his promises. If you go here and click on “Votes,” you can see the 10 votes related to right-to-life issues (as selected by the National Right to Life Committee) cast by Dole since he got to Congress: http://nrlc.capwiz.com/bio/id/11608.
Dold cast 5 votes in which he voted with the NRLC, and all 5 were related to public financing of abortion: Dold has voted to repeal Obamacare on 2 occasions, voted to block funding for Obamacare another time, voted for the Protect Life Act that sought to prevent the use of public funds for abortion under Obamacare, and voted for the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. No Democrat that could be elected in the IL-10 would have voted for any of these pro-life bills.
However, Dold voted against the NRLC the 2 times that he voted against cutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood (Dold and a handful of other “moderate” Republicans voted against it because
“Planned Parenthood does other things too,” ignoring the fact that money is fungible and that PP gets most of its revenue from its abortion business), when he voted against a stronger conscience-protection clause in a bill to provide funding for training doctors in “teaching health centers” (”moderates” thought that the feds shouldn’t provide protection to doctors and staffers who are opposed to abortion but wish to work at hospitals that perform abortions), when he voted against the ban on “sex-discrimination” abortions (which was an abortion ban, not a funding bill), and when he voted against the bill to ban abortion in DC after 20 weeks of fertilization (also an abortion ban, not a funding bill).
Dold clearly is one of the 6 most pro-abortion Republicans in the House, along with Hanna of NY, Biggert of IL, Bass of NH, Bono of CA and Dent of PA. It should be noted, however, that Hanna, Bono and Dent represent GOP-leaning districts, where a pro-life Republican could win without any problem. Dold, Bass and now Biggert are in Democrat-leaning CDs in which it would be far more difficult for a social conservative to be elected. Dold, in fact, sits in the most heavily Democrat CD represented by a Republican in the House, and it became even more liberal for 2012.
Dold is a RINO, but he votes with us half the time, and he sits in a district that, as redrwawn for 2012, will not countenance a conservative or even a moderate-to-conservative: it gave President Bush a lower percentage in 2004 than any district that has been held by any House Republican since 2007, other than Cao’s fluke win in LA-02. Prior to the 2011 Democrat gerrymander, one could argue—and, indeed, I argued here on FR—that the IL-10 wasn’t so heavily Democrat that it couldn’t elect a moderate-to-conservative Republican. Had the IL-10 stayed the same, and Dold’s voting record been what it has been, I would have supported a moderate-to-conservative challenger in the GOP primary to replace Dold. (In fact, I had supported Arie Friedman in the 2010 primary, although when it became a horserace between Dold and Coulson I rooted for the less liberal Dold.) But given the districts drawn by the Democrats, the IL-10 will elect either Dold (who will vote with us half the time) or a Democrat who will vote with us maybe 5% of the time. I think that IL-10 conservatives should hold their noses and vote for Dold.
As for McMahon, did she say that she wanted to repeal all of DOMA, or only the portion of DOMA that provides that the federal government will not recognize any marriages that are not between one man and one woman (even if legal in the state in question)? The federal-non-recognition clause is the most controversial one, as it would mean that a federal employee in, say, Connecticut would get different treatment than a private or state employee. (Mind you, I would rather have the states go back to recognizing only real marriages instead of those sham same-sex unions, but apparently voters in CT have been brainwashed by the gay mafia and support civil unions or whatnot.) So I would not be shocked to hear that the RINOish McMahon would support repeal of the federal non-recognition clause in DOMA.
It would be outrageous, though, if McMahon were in favor of repealing all of DOMA, including the popular clause that protects states from having to recognize same-sex marriages from other states (basically, it is an insurance policy to ward against rogue judges that may want to use the Full Faith and Credit Clause to impose same-sex marriage on every state just because one state has it).