WHICH REPUBLICANS SOLD OUT?

With the new Republican power in Washington, it is doubly important to keep a close eye on the doings of GOP Senators and Congressmen to spot those who are straying from orthodoxy, seduced by power and the insider clubiness that characterizes Washington.

In the Lame Duck session, we want to draw attention to six Republican U.S. Senators who voted with the Democrats on a key issue. We should all bear their apostasy in mind and, in particular, make them mindful of the possibility of primary challenges to their re-nomination.

Two Senators, in particular, deserve to have primary challengers take them on in 2012 — Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Mississippi’s Thad Cochran. Both men voted for the START treaty which conceded a permanent edge in nuclear weaponry to Russia. While the Treaty provided for equal and reduced stockpiles of strategic warheads, it did nothing to address the vast piles of tactical nuclear warheads held by the Russians. The Russians have 10,000 of these battlefield nuclear weapons piled up in the stockpile while we have only a few hundred.

In addition, START’s preamble blocks the U.S. from developing missile defenses, now especially important in light of North Korea’s and Iran’s expanding capacities.

Both Corker and Cochran face re-election in 2012. They should both be challenged for the nomination by men who put our need for national security above appeasing the Russians. Having suppressed democracy, wiped out free speech, taken over all the media, nationalized their oil and energy industry, invaded Georgia, enabled the Iranian nuclear program, and tried to establish a natural gas monopoly in Europe, what else does Putin need to do before Corker and Cochran realize that appeasement won’t work?

Bob Corker’s vote for START probably stems from the insider-old boy network on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on which he sits. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who also voted for START, sits alongside him on the Republican minority on the committee. Led by Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the panel, all three voted for START. Unfortunately, Isakson is not up for re-election until 2016. When he does come up for re-election, we hope that the citizens of Georgia’s Republican Party hold him to account.

Lamar Alexander, also of Tennessee, backed START and faces re-election in 2014.

In a previous column, we called attention to the defections of Republican Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Mike Crapo of Idaho from the ranks of fiscal conservatives. Both Coburn and Crapo voted for the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Commission which recommended cutting the deductions for home mortgages and charitable contributions by two-thirds for most taxpayers and urged the enactment of almost $1 trillion in new taxes.

Coburn and Crapo only announced their intention to endorse the Commission report after they had been re-elected on November 2, 2010. Now they are safe in their seats until 2016. But we hope to be still writing columns by then and will remind the voters of those two conservative states how ill-served they were by their Republican senators.

So who sold out?

Thad Cochran, Mississippi
Bob Corker, Tennessee
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Tom Coburn, Oklahoma
Lamar Alexander, Tennessee
Johnny Isakson, Georgia

Let’s remember.

Please let them hear from you by phone and/or fax. Their information is below.

Thad Cocheran, Mississippi

Washington Office
United States Senate
113 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2402
202-224-5054 / 202-224-5054

Jackson Office
190 East Capitol St.
Suite 550
Jackson, Mississippi 39201
601-965-4459 / 601-965-4459

Bob Corker, Tennessee

Washington, D.C.
United States Senate
Dirksen Senate Office Building
SD-185
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-3344 / 202-224-3344
Fax: 202-228-0566

Memphis
100 Peabody Place, Suite 1125
Memphis, TN 38103
Main: 901-683-1910 / 901-683-1910
Fax: 901-575-3528

Mike Crapo, Idaho

Washington, DC
239 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-6142
Fax: (202) 228-1375

Idaho State Office
251 East Front Street
Suite 205
Boise, ID 83702
Phone: (208) 334-1776
Fax: (208) 334-9044

Tom Coburn, Oklahoma

Washington D.C.:
172 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008

Tulsa:
1800 South Baltimore
Suite 800
Tulsa, OK 74119
Main: 918-581-7651
Fax: 918-581-7195

Oklahoma City:
100 North Broadway
Suite 1820
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Main: 405-231-4941
Fax: 405-231-5051

Lamar Alexander, Tennessee

Washington Office
455 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944 / (202) 224-4944
Fax: (202) 228-3398
TTY: (202) 224-1546

Memphis Office
Clifford Davis-Odell Horton Federal Building
167 North Main Street, #1068
Memphis, TN 38103
Phone: (901) 544-4224 / (901) 544-4224
Fax: (901) 544-4227

Johnny Isakson, Georgia

United States Senate
120 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-3643 / (202) 224-3643
Fax: (202) 228-0724

One Overton Park, Suite 970
3625 Cumberland Blvd
Atlanta, GA 30339
Tel: (770) 661-0999 / (770) 661-0999
Fax: (770) 661-0768