Possible Casualties Of The GOP Purity Test

A handful of conservative Republican National Committee members are circulating a resolution that would block RNC funding from candidates who agree with fewer than eight of 10 principles, and Hotline OnCall's Reid Wilson notes that this would nix party cash for some top GOP Senate candidates in 2010: namely, Reps. Mike Castle (R-DE) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and, Crist's camp might say, conservative star Marco Rubio, for his records on immigration and cap & trade.

The list of mandatory tenets includes opposition to President Obama's health care reform effort, cap & trade, "government funding of abortion," and gun control.

It could also preclude RNC funding for the GOP's two most moderate senators--Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, neither of whom are up for reelection in 2010--particularly depending on how they vote on abortion amendments to the Democratic health care bill during the amendment process, as language that's less restrictive than Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) pro-life-favored House amendment is likely to come up. The language favored by pro-choicers, which they agreed to in the House, is considered by some pro-lifers to constitute government funding of abortions, since it would allow federal subsidies to be used to pay premiums on health care plans that cover abortions, despite an accounting firewall that would prevent the federal money from actually paying for any abortions.

Both Snowe and Collins voted for the stimulus, and both get a 93 percent scores from Planned Parenthood on pro-choice votes. Snowe generally supports cap & trade, is a co-chair of the International Climate Change Task Force, voted for cloture on the McCain/Kennedy immigration overhaul in 2007, and gets a career D- from NumbersUSA on "amnesties" for illegal immigrants. Collins, meanwhile, also supports cap & trade in a general sense and gets a career D from NumbersUSA on "amnesties," though she consistently voted against the McCain/Kennedy bill.