THE "FAKE" CONSERVATIVES BEHIND McCAIN

No matter that the radio gasbags and the wingnut blogs say, John McCain certainly isn't part of "center-left" in the GOP if one can go by these endorsements.

McCain gets by with a little help from his Senate friends
By Jessica Holzer
Posted: 01/22/08 12:01 AM [ET]

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who endorsed McCain after dropping his own presidential bid, called McCain a “solid pro-life guy” in Iowa.


Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), another prominent abortion foe and a tough critic of pork-barrel spending, announced his support for McCain days before the South Carolina primary.

...Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) — an icon of supply-side economics — and former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) attested to McCain’s conservative bona fides in the state.

On the day of the Iowa caucuses, Kyl and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) found themselves phone-banking voters from the campaign’s Des Moines office.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) was caught in a blinding snowstorm on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula en route to an event he was headlining for McCain last week.

In 2006, Coburn and Thune got a 100% rating from The American Conservative Union and Kyl has a lifetime rating of 96.9%. Brownback's lifetime in 94.0%. Burr is the "liberal" in this group - he only has a 91.2% lifetime rating.