In congressional campaigns across the country, GOP candidates are running ads tying the Democratic incumbent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One such candidate is Jim Renacci, who made headlines most recently when he told an African-American constituent that he wants to “get our federal government out of the way” on civil rights.

ThinkProgress caught up with Renacci, who is running against Rep. John Boccieri (D-OH) in Ohio’s 16th congressional district, at a town hall in North Canton this week. Renacci repeatedly levied the charge that Boccieri has voted with Pelosi 94 percent of the time. Therefore, since Renacci made a point that independence from one’s party leader was prized in the district, we asked him to give us one or two issues where he would break with a Speaker John Boehner.

Renacci could not name even a single issue where he would show independence from the Republican Party. Right after chastising Boccieri for voting “lock-step” with Speaker Pelosi, Renacci dismissed how his voting record would compare to a Speaker Boehner, declaring “it isn’t voting with John Boehner, it’s voting ‘no’ for the constituents of the 16th district.”

TP: I guess one question that voters might have is if you’ve criticized Mr. Boccieri for voting with Nancy Pelosi 94 percent of the time, can you name an issue or two where you would break with John Boehner if he were to become Speaker?

RENACCI: Well, I think those issues will come forward in the future, but what I would always say in the past is that I would vote ‘no’ on a lot of these bills because they deserved a ‘no’ vote. It isn’t voting with John Boehner, it’s voting ‘no’ for the constituents of the 16th district.

TP: I believe the gentleman right here had mentioned a middle-of-the-road approach that’s best for legislating from this country. Are there any examples that you can give us of areas that you might break with your party, areas where you would show independence from your party?

RENACCI: If our party, if the Republican Party, does things that do not allow jobs to be created, if they do things that do not represent the 16th district, I would break vote with those. We need to worry about jobs and the economy. But at this point in time, I think the Democratic Party is doing that and that’s why there are so many ‘no’ votes.

Watch the exchange here:

During a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition convention today, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) explained that as a recruitment officer for the NRCC, the Republican campaign committee in charge of electing House Republicans, he picked candidates that would stand with the caucus in unified campaigns to slash government, starting with health care.

If Republicans take back the House, Westmoreland said, they would use their new majority to force a budget battle akin to the fight staged by former Speaker Newt Gingrich with President Clinton and shut down the federal government. Westmoreland cautioned that he was fully aware that such a move would close down hospitals for veterans and shut down National Parks. But, Westmoreland argued that taking down the government is worth “the pain” because health reform and government programs are like a “gangrene” that “need to be cleaned out”:

WESTMORELAND: If we hold the line, if we get those courageous men and women to be part of our majority. If we say look, the American people we’re listening to the American people, this is what we’re going to do. If government shuts down, we want you with us. We want you with us. We gotta have you because later on you all will call us and say look I didn’t get my check. Daddy can’t go to the VA. You know, the National Parks are closed. We need to be sure that you are with us because let me tell you this, all Americans need to understand. We need to understand this and I hope you can help share this analogy with people. Just as when you talk about what is going to possibly happen, you know I was unfortunate to cut myself with a chainsaw. I don’t know how many of you have cut yourself with a chainsaw. Chainsaw is not the cleanest instrument if you’re going to cut yourself. [...] He said this is going to sting a little bit and it hurt like crazy. But you know what, if he didn’t clean out that wound, it would have never healed. I would have got gangrene. I would have died from it. And what has happened with this country, we have put bandaids on things that need to be cleaned out. It’s going to take some pain for us to do the things that we need to do to right the ship.

Listen here:

Gingrich, who spoke after Westmoreland, has repeatedly advised that the GOP should follow through with a plan to shut down the American government.

Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) attended a ribbon-cutting event for the Health West clinic in Aberdeen, Idaho. Crapo praised the clinic, which will specialize in assisting low-income patients in rural areas, saying, “What is happening right here in Aberdeen today is one of the core pieces of the solution that we need in America today.” What Crapo did not mention in his praise for Health West is that most of its funding came from the stimulus package that he opposed:

During a brief speech at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Sen. Crapo said the clinic is essential in providing efficient high-quality services in a rural community. He said the facility helps address two disturbing trends in U.S. health care — skyrocketing cost of services and limited access to quality care.

“What is happening right here in Aberdeen today is one of the core pieces of the solution that we need in America today,” Crapo said. [...] Stephen Weeg, executive director for Health West in Southeast Idaho, said the clinic hopes to partner with the larger medical hospitals to bring in specialists once a month. Green light for the clinic did not come until stimulus money was made available.

Weeg said stimulus money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided $500,000 of the $660,000 project. Additional money came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. About $74,000 was raised locally, with about $35,000 left to raise.

At the time of the passage of the stimulus bill, Crapo called it “an avalanche of special funding, much of which is unrelated to stimulating our economy as a whole.” It now appears that the senator realizes, at least implicitly, that it has provided funding to important projects like the West Health center that he calls “one of the core pieces of the solution that we need in America today.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared on Fox News today to bash President Obama’s recent proposal to help small businesses and jump start the economy. Dubbing it “TARP III,” Steele said Obama’s plan wouldn’t work because it focuses on extending credit lines to small business, which Steele claimed “they don’t need”:

STEELE: What we have right now is more of the same, you have the president proposing a small business bill, which is nothing more than TARP III or mini-TARP, in which basically, you’re going to put money into financial institutions on the assumption that small businesses are going to go and take out credit loans, or credit lines — they don’t need that.

Watch it:

Steele’s dismissal of the need to extend credit lines to small businesses is curious, considering that he touted the very idea as a key Republican proposal just last week on Sean Hannity’s Fox show:

STEELE: Republican leadership on the Hill has offered time and time again and will continue to do so until they take the majority in November when they can actually begin to act and put into place these policies that empower small businesses by creating — helping them create jobs by opening up capital and credit markets.

And on September 1st, Steele questioned Democratic efforts to help small businesses precisely because he claimed they didn’t extend enough credit to those firms. “[L]ook at the bill,” Steele told pundit Roland Martin on his podcast, “does it do for small businesses what small businesses need to have done? How much credit and capital is it made accessible to them?”

In fact, Steele has repeatedly expounded on the need to extend credit to small businesses. For example, in June on CNBC, countering the notion that Republicans haven’t presented any ideas, Steele said, “We talked about freeing up the capital markets and credit markets to allow small business to access that capital and credit so they can invest.”

Last year, on ABC’s This Week, Steele attacked the administration for not doing the very thing he is attacking them for doing today:

STEELE: And I didn’t hear anything from [White House economic advisor Larry] Summers that assured me or reassured me that this administration gets it when it comes to how you create wealth in this nation. It is not by spending dollars on programs that you can put in a separate bill and deal with later on, instead its focusing on, you know, tax credits and relief for small-business owners, incentives for people to get back into the credit markets.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports that Steele spokesman Doug Heye later clarified his boss’ comment, explaining that “Steele was referring to small businesses not needing the bill overall, and wasn’t focused specifically on the lines of credit.” He also cited a study saying that consumer confidence is more important than credit lines for small businesses.