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Who is the real RINO?
By JOE SCARBOROUGH | 11/28/11 2:52 PM EST
The insult du jour for Republican candidates this election cycle is being labeled a RINO, a Republican in Name Only. Unfortunately, the insult has been so overused lately it's been rendered meaningless. The insult is even emptier because it is so detached from actual statements, campaign promises and voting records.
A candidate like Newt Gingrich can get away with supporting the biggest socialist scheme in American government over the past 30 years because he says nasty things about the press and calls Barack Obama a Marxist. Jon Huntsman, on the other hand, can have a stellar conservative record as Utah's governor, be anti-abortion and adored by the NRA. But if he refuses to spit out angry screeds against Obama, he's dismissed as a RINO, the facts be damned.
So as a public service to POLITICO readers, I, your humble conservative servant, have put together a "Who is the Real RINO?" test. based on voting records, candidate quotes and facts! (Shocking, I know.)
Good luck!
1. Who said, "I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose. I am not going to change pro-choice laws in any way"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
2. Who bragged about being a moderate with this comment, "There is a new synthesis evolving with the classic moderate wing of the party, where as a former Rockefeller state chairman, I've spent most of my life"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
3. Who starred in a 2007 global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi that was sponsored by Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
4. Who once famously said, "I don't line up with the NRA"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
5. Who was paid $312,000 by ethanol interests and then said ethanol is good for national security and for the economy?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
6. Which candidate bragged about not being a Republican during the Reagan presidency and promised that if elected he would not "return to Reagan-Bush policies"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
7. Which candidate told Planned Parenthood that he supported state funding of abortion?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
8. Which candidate has consistently supported the type of individual mandates for health insurance that conservatives are trying to overturn through court challenges to Obamacare? (Trick question: Two of three are correct answers.)
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
9. Which candidate went on NBC's "Meet the Press" and called Paul Ryan's Medicare plan "radical" and "right-wing social engineering"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
10. Which candidate is the only GOP presidential contender to come out in full support of the Ryan plan?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
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11. Which candidate bragged to CNN that he's "the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
12. Which candidate told Planned Parenthood that he supported the "substance" of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
13. Which candidate said of the Medicare prescription drug plan that was the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society, "Every conservative member of Congress should vote for this Medicare bill. Obstructionist conservatives can always find reasons to vote no"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
14. Which candidate attacked Steve Largent, Tom Coburn and other conservatives as "the Perfectionist Caucus," while giving his last speech as speaker in support of Dick Gephardt and Dave Obey's colossal Omnibus Bill of 1998?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
15. Which candidate was ranked by Cato Institute in 2008 one of the most fiscally conservative governors in America?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
16. Which candidate was cited by the Pew Center for running the "best-managed" state, hailed by Forbes magazine as the "most fiscally fit" and ranked first in the country for job creation?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
17. Whose economic plan does The Wall Street Journal consider the most impressive and conservative of the Republican presidential field?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
18. The American Conservative wrote this about which GOP candidate, "For the past two decades a 'moderate' Republican was one who didn't generally side with his party on three issues: taxes, guns and abortion. [This candidate's] record on those isn't just to the right of the moderates. It is to the right of most conservatives"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
19. Which candidate was praised in a Club for Growth report for reforming health care with "no individual mandate, no employer mandate and no provision for a massive expansion of subsidized care unlike Obamacare or Romney's plan"?
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
20. Who are the real RINOs here? (Feel free to circle two.)
A. Mitt Romney
B. Newt Gingrich
C. Jon Huntsman
Answers: 1) A; 2) B; 3) B; 4) A; 5) B; 6) A; 7) A; 8) A and B; 9) B; 10) C; 11) B; 12) A; 13) B; 14) B; 15) C; 16) C; 17) C; 18) C; 19) C; 20) you decide.
A guest columnist for POLITICO, Joe Scarborough hosts "Morning Joe" on MSNBC and represented Florida's 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69231_Page2.html#ixzz1f2hPNmAA
