There are times when scorecards can be less than factual even though the numbers seem accurate.
The National Journal had a listing of RINO’s in the House of Representatives. They included Ron Paul and Roscoe Bartlett. The rather dated list was topped by Christopher Shays and included the defeated Wayne Gilchrest. How is it that Paul and Bartlett got the RINO label?
The methodology of ranking seemed to be based on the lack of support for the (Bush) Administration position. Paul can go off on neo-isolationist jags at time but Bartlett is a very thoughtful Conservative. He opposed the ‘Party Position’ only when the particular measure did not meet constitutional muster or seems to be pure pork. Bush was sometimes off base and thoughtful conservatives did not always vote along the party line.
With the “banker bailout”, most Republicans in the House did not see a need to prop up poorly managed companies. Those (nominal) Republicans getting six-and seven figure contributions from bankers with tin cups were eager supporters of the bailout scheme. Former Representative Shays got $1,419,000 from banking interests and it seemed money well spent. He is gone and the top surviving RINO in the House got a measly $700 grand from his banker buddies.
Sometimes simplistic ratings are rather hollow unless there are a lot of footnotes to define how the scores were gathered.
If something tries to label Ron Paul as a RINO, said labeler does not know what a conservative actually is. Maybe they are drawing a distinction between Republicans and conservatives? If there is a fundamental one, I am loyal to conservatism before Republicanism, so see ya GOP.
Ron Paul, as you mentioned, has some faults, but he is far more genuinely conservative than most of Congress.