From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_In_Name_Only
Individuals claimed to be “RINOs”
Family Research Council’s Top 10 RINOs in the House of Representatives
The Family Research Council’s list of the Top 10 RINOs in the U.S. House of Representatives (published October 12, 2005). Ranked by an analysis of 13 votes representing a cross section of conservative issues, most of them concerning gay people, abortion, or stem-cell research.
1. Rep. Christopher Shays (Connecticut)
2. Rep. Michael Castle (Delaware)
3. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (New York)
4. Rep. Mark Kirk (Illinois)
5. Rep. Jim Kolbe (Arizona) (tied for 5th)
5. Rep. Rob Simmons (Connecticut) (tied for 5th)
7. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (Maryland) (tied for 7th)
7. Rep. Jim Leach (Iowa) (tied for 7th)
9. Rep. Mary Bono (California) (tied for 9th)
9. Rep. Nancy Johnson (Connecticut) (tied for 9th)
Boehlert and Kolbe retired from Congress at the end of their terms in 2006.
Simmons, Leach and Johnson were defeated in the 2006 elections.
Gilchrest was defeated in the Republican primary in 2008 by Andrew P. Harris and Shays was defeated in the 2008 general elections.
After the general election of 2008, three of the members of Congress on this list, Castle, Kirk and Bono, remained in in the U.S. House of Representatives.
To continue: Also from the aove Wikipedia entry:
RINO accusations since 2004
Two Republican senators who have been labeled RINOs by conservatives such as the group Club for Growth and Human Events magazine are Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.
In 2004, Specter drew a conservative primary election opponent in Rep. Pat Toomey. Toomey had significant financial support from the Club for Growth while the Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania provided volunteers. While the Club for Growth opposed Specter’s role in increased federal spending, many conservatives focused on Specter’s pro-choice views on abortion. Specter was supported by the GOP establishment including President George W. Bush and Senator Rick Santorum. This support helped Specter win by a narrow 17,000-vote margin.
In 2006, Chafee received over $1 million from national Republican party officials, especially the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Chafee defeated Steve Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island. When Chafee was one of six Republican incumbents who failed to be reelected in 2006, (losing to Sheldon Whitehouse), the party indeed lost its Senate majority.
Comparisons of liberal vs. moderate Republicans
John Nichols, a correspondent for The Nation (a left-leaning political magazine) argued in a 2004 article that “Using the measures that progressives might reasonably apply to define a liberal... it is possible to point to just one [current Republican] senator, Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee, and two members of the House, New York’s Amo Houghton and Iowa’s Jim Leach... A somewhat larger circle clings to the moderate GOP mantras of a Gerald Ford or a Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but they are fading fast as a force in Congress.”
It should be noted that the three Republican congressmen whom Nichols considered liberal (Chafee, Houghton, and Leach) are out of office. Chafee and Leach were defeated in the 2006 elections, whereas Houghton did not stand for reelection in 2004.
While Delaware representative Mike Castle claims that there are 40-45 moderate Republicans in the House, Nichols remarks, “That’s actually a bit of a stretch — either of the numbers or of the definition of a ‘moderate’.”