Picking up the theme of GOP internal conflict and running with it, Marc Ambinder writes about how the conservative GOP candidate was pushed out in Colorado, in favor of former Congressman Scott McInnis. Ambinder insists that McInnis is a “moderate” Republican, and is confused why the GOP would want to push an “archetypical” conservative out for the squishier McInnis.

Maybe this says more about the modern GOP than anything, but let's turn to Keith Poole's Optimal Classification algorithm, which orders all members of a given Congress from most liberal to most conservative, based on their entire voting record. In McInnis' last Congress (the 107th), which I've linked, McInnis is the 76th most conservative member of the House, setting him to the right of members like JC Watts, Mark Edward Souder (Newt Gingrich cancelled a fundraiser for him in the 104th Congress because Souder wanted to keep the government shut down), Saxby Chambliss and Richard Burr. He's to the right of Eric Cantor, Roy Blunt, and John Boehner. He's sandwiched between Minnesota's Mark Kennedy and Kansas' Jerry Moran. None of these members scream “squishy.”

Unfortunately we only have OC scores going back to the 107th Congress, but if we look at DW-NOMINATE Common Space scores, which compare the voting records of all Congressmen and Senators in the country's history, we see that, on a left to right continuum with 44,865 entries, McInnis is number 36,375 (I'm oversimplifying here).

So while McInnis may once have been pro-choice (which would interestingly have put him to Ritter's left), I think the hyper-salience of the abortion issue among the GOP base is seeping into conventional wisdom regarding McInnis' voting record. His voting record was solidly conservative; he's no Charlie Crist, much less a Dede Scozzafava.