DownWithTyranny!: No, It's Not Likely Jack Kingston (R-GA) Will Switch Parties

Rep. Kingston (R-GA) is the one on the right

It would be a very alternative universe, indeed, if Georgia Republican Congressman Jack Kingston were ever looked at as anything other than a hard-right conservative-- except of course if you compare him to other Georgia Republicans. I'm not sure how fine-tuned ProgressivePunch is in measuring how conservative right-wing voting records are but there are the records of the 14 Georgia Congressmen based on their lifetime votes on crucial roll calls. It goes from most liberal to most conservative:

• John Lewis- 94.92
• Hank Johnson- 84.74
• David Scott- 68.47
• Sanford Bishop- 58.71
• John Barrow- 35.93
• Paul Broun- 9.23
• Tom Graves- 6.99
• Rob Woodall- 6.79
• Dog Collins- 4.76
• Jack Kingston- 3.95
• Austin Scott- 3.80
• Phil Gingrey- 3.19
• Tom Price- 2.62
• Lynn Westmoreland- 2.27

First a brief note: John Bircher Paul Broun is so extreme that he often votes against Boehner because the Republican positions are "too liberal" for him. That explains his relatively "progressive" score, although it would be more accurate to say that he's is the most right wing and most extreme member of the Georgia delegation and in contention as the most right wing member of the House. A better way of judging Kingston on the issues is to keep in mind that since being elected in 1992 he has zero scores categories like Corporate Subsidies, Family Planning, Health Care, Justice, Union Rights, Pension Protections, Occupational Safety, Air Pollution, Clean Water, the Iraq War, Nuclear Energy, Renewable Energy, Wilderness Conservation, Humane Treatment of Animals… You get the picture. That's a long career of zeroes. When it comes to being an anti-Choice fanatic, count on Jack. The Affordable Care Act? He voted against it and voted to wreck it all 46 times it came up. He voted against raising the debut ceiling, against extending the payroll tax cut, and for every crackpot version of the Paul Ryan budget. And yet, the headline at RedState yesterday was Jack Kingston Has Surrendered On Obamacare.

Coming to terms with Obamacare is nothing new for Kingston. At the beginning of the year, he said “I don’t want to go in there saying, ‘By golly, there’s a new sheriff in town.’” “Obamacare has been the law of the land, and it is getting implemented. We have to work in that context.”

The scary thing is that Kingston is the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on healthcare. What is ever scarier is that he wants to be the next U.S. Senator from Georgia. We all know that the Senate has a way of turning those who are conservatives into statists. See Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) for a vivid example. If Kingston is starting out his campaign with a mindset of surrender on Obamacare, it is clear he will never move this seat one inch to the right from Senator Saxby Chambliss. And that is an extremely low bar to cross.

Here's the Monday morning radio interview that is freaking out the lunatics at RedState:

The Hill reported that Kingston mentioned the “Small Business Fairness in ObamaCare Act" that he introduced, which would exempt some small businesses from the mandate to provide insurance to their employees under ObamaCare.

"And there’s some criticism, 'Well, are you helping improve this law when you make that change? And should we be doing that?'" Kingston said of pushback to his bill.

"A lot of conservatives say, 'Nah, let’s just step back and let this thing fall to pieces on its own.' But I don’t think that’s always the responsible thing to do," he added.

"I think we need to be looking for things that improve healthcare overall for all of us. And if there is something in ObamaCare, we need to know about it."

…While he had some criticism for the law-- he said he believes the demand on Medicaid could overcrowd the system-- he also expressed hope that Democrats would bring to the hearing some good feedback they've received on ObamaCare.

"If you get a lot of letters that say, 'Hey, back off, it works. I have a special needs child and here's why its been good for me,' we want to listen to that," he said.