This didn't stop the guy from turning RINO overnite and increasingly flirting with his 'RAT party roots once public opinion turned against the war in Iraq.
Which of course, leads to the question why a guy from a family of career liberal Democrats who happily supported the Dems back when they controlled NC politics would have been so "conservative" himself when he first ran for office in his own right. Seeing how North Carolina's political landscape changed, the phrase "political opportunist" comes to mind.
Yet you think a guy who ran to the LEFT of Chris John just a few years ago can be trusted to be "with us" across-the-board now that he tossed an "R" next to his name?
Walter Jones jumped the shark on the Iraq issue, but so have others who appeared to be conservative and who have always been Republican. Back when he was a Democrat, Jones was a pro-military Democrat (as was his father), so his apostasy on Iraq is certainly not due to his returning to his “Democrat roots.”
I believe that Kennedy ran to John’s left on a couple of issues but to his right on others. In any event, Chris John is by no means a liberal-—his voting record in the House was quite a bit more conservative than that of John Breaux or, IIRC, just as conservative as Billy Tauzin’s before his switch to the GOP.
John N. Kennedy is not a perfect conservative, and I don’t think we can count on him to support free trade or maybe even supply-side economics. But he’ll be a solidly conservative Senator on social issues, and overall will probably be no less conservative than, say, Richard Shelby of Alabama.