Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) has decided to run for the open seat of retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R), the Washington Post reported Friday. Over a decade-plus in Washington, the self-described “pro-life OB-GYN” has become famous for amassing on of the most extreme voting records in Congress and a long series of gaffes.

Over six terms in Congress, Gingrey has:

1. Defended former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)’s infamous rape comments. Though Akin’s 2012 suggestion that victims of “legitimate rape” were unlikely to become pregnant drew virtually universal criticism, Gingrey boldly took the opposite position. Contradicting medical science, Gingrey said last month that Akin was “partially right,” as “all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.”

2. Opposed President Obama’s stimulus — then claimed credit for it. Gingrey voted against the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, calling it a “non-stimulus stimulus plan” for spending “money that we do not have.” Despite his objection to the “trillion dollar debt” bill, he boasted of obtaining a $625,000 stimulus grant for Cedartown, Georgia’s Streetscape project. Gingrey’s hypocrisy was on full display when he personally presented a giant over-sized check to city officials for the “shovel-ready” project.

3. Denounced minority outreach — by Democratic campaigns. Though political candidates of both parties have long organized “Minority Group for Candidate” outreach efforts, Gingrey denounced the practice as “worse than sad.” Asked on a right-wing radio show about the African-Americans for Obama, he complained: “To use that and to go out and try to create divisiveness or one race against the other, it’s not just that, it’s one gender against the other, male versus female. I’m sick of all that and I think the American people are too.” He and his office said nothing when Mitt Romney launched Latino (Juntos Con Romney), women (Women for Mitt), and even African Americans (Black Leadership Council). More amazingly, his own 2008 campaign had a “Women for Gingrey” outreach group.

4. Pushed for wasteful military spending the Department of Defense doesn’t even want. Despite claims that he is “committed to finding ways to reduce” government programs that are “bloated” and “riddled with waste,” Gingrey demanded additional funding for the Marietta, Georgia-built F-22 stealth fighter. His claims that his effort wasn’t “just for the sake of home-cooking, but also for the sake of the country,” were contradicted by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and bipartisan Congressional leaders, who agreed there was “no military requirement” for more F-22s. Gingrey’s financial disclosures indicated that he owned stock in the company that makes the planes.

5. Compared Democratic clean energy legislation to the North Korean and Iranian governments. When the House Democratic leadership proposed a rule for a clean energy bill that did not allow minority amendments, Gingrey ranted: “Americans are watching as from Iran to North Korea, the forces of darkness are attempting to silence the forces of democracy and freedom. The irony is on this day, the Democratic process and the nation’s economic freedom are under threat not by some rogue state, but in this very chamber in which we stand.”

6. Dismissed pre-existing medical conditions as nothing more than hang-nails. When a 2011 report by the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that up to 129 million Americans have some sort of pre-existing medical condition that could subject them to discrimination by insurance companies, Gingrey was incredulous. Though the report included people with a history of heart disease, cancer, asthma, high blood pressure, arthritis, and the like, he opined: “One hundred and twenty nine million people with pre-existing conditions! They would all have to have hang nails and fever blisters to have pre-existing conditions and if you believe those statistics, I’ve got a beach to sell you in Pennsylvania.”

7. After criticizing sexist radio host Rush Limbaugh for irresponsibly ginning up controversy, quickly begged for forgiveness.. In 2009, Gingrey accurately noted that Limbaugh and other conservative media personalities can “stand back and throw bricks” instead of offering “real leadership.” A day later, Gingrey went on Limbaugh’s show to offer a “very sincere” apology for his criticisms. “I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments,” he explained, “I regret those stupid comments.”

8. Blamed wounded Walter Reed veterans for the deplorable conditions at the hospital. After a 2007 Washington Post investigation revealed that many soldiers were recuperating from war wounds in moldy rooms infested by rats and cockroaches, Gingrey laregly dismissed the problem. He said at a House Armed Service Committee hearing: “It’s not a five-star hotel, make no mistake about it, but it’s not a flophouse. It’s not a dump. It’s not a dive. It needs some work, no question about it. I’m not making excuses, of course. And when I read the Washington Post report I was glad to know that those cockroaches were belly up. It suggested to me that at least someone was spraying for them, Mr. Chairman. And, of course, if you leave food around in a motel room or a dorm room at a college, you’re going to get some mice show up at some point in time.”

9. Demagogued Obamacare. Gingrey didn’t just oppose the Affordable Care Act — attacked it and spread misinformation about it. Though it was clearly constitutional, Gingrey called the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding it’s constitutionality “one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history.” He called the law’s long-term care provisions “Dracula,” in need of “a stake through its heart.” Worst, he spread the false claim that the Independent Payment Advisory Board created by the health care law would drive a “wedge between physicians and their patients,” would be able to “operate in secret,” and could “accept unlimited donations of services or even property from lobbyists,” including “cash, meals, cars, vacations and even homes.”

10. Flipped on increasing tax revenues in 67 seconds. When asked by ThinkProgress in December about a possible deal that let tax cuts for the wealthy expire, Gingrey was initially open to the idea: “I hate to make a commitment on anything.” He didn’t want to rule anything out before consulting with constituents in his district. But when reminded that he had signed Grover Norquist’s ironclad oath never raise taxes, Gingrey abruptly shifted his position and agreed to abide by it, confessing: “I don’t take that pledge lightly, so I won’t say that I don’t feel bound by it.” In 2010, he liked his commitment to low taxes for the rich to “God’s covenant with Moses.”

In 2010, Gingrey acknowledged that he did not think the Republican Party would “ever be as big a tent organization as the Democratic Party.” Now, he will have to hope the Georgia GOP primary will be a small enough tent to embrace his right-of-right views and record.

Massachusetts State Rep. Dan Winslow (R), who announced last week that he will seek the Republican nomination for Secretary of State John Kerry’s now-vacant U.S. Senate seat, was general legal counsel to Mitt Romney (R) during his time as governor. And while he claims “Massachusetts Republicans are a different kind of breed from the national Republicans,” Winslow’s record is one of a Romney-style national Republican: more interested in fighting for the wealthiest one percent than advancing policies that help the rest of the country.

Perhaps because of successful state services like Romneycare, Winslow does not think Massachusetts is a capitalist state. Though a 2012 CNBC study showed Massachusetts is the state with the highest access to capital in the country, at a 2012 campaign rally, he told Republican activists, “People ask us our plans for jobs, we’ve got this amazing idea, it’s a new concept in Massachusetts: we call it capitalism. We ought to try it sometime.”

To that end, Winslow has supported:

• Tax cuts for yacht-buyers. Winslow is chief sponsor of HD1965, a bill to repeal the sales tax on the sale of boats built or rebuilt in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Among the potential beneficiaries of this tax cut: the members of the Pamet Harbor Yacht & Tennis Club, on whose board of directors Winslow recently served.
• Radical transportation cuts that could drastically increase motor vehicle deaths. In an effort to save money, Winslow proposed HD 1751, a bill to “prohibit mandates on cities and towns by the Department of Transportation to construct or reconstruct public ways which exceed local speed limits.” He reasoning: state law regulations often “require roadway design speeds that are faster than the posted speeds on the roads.” This, he argues, “results in a huge waste of money since construction costs increase as design speeds increase.” While he claims this change would “result in millions of dollars of savings,” he highway safety experts note it would more likely result in more deaths. Engineer David L. Harkey, director of the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina, told ThinkProgress that speed limits are intentionally set lower than the “design speed,” often by 5 to 10 mph, to “provide a safety factor for the roadway.” Shaun Kildare, research director for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, agreed, nothing that a road’s design speed is the fastest a driver can safely drive under ideal conditions. If Winslow’s idea of limiting design speeds to the legal speed limit, Kildare told ThinkProgress, “everyone that speeds is going to be going off the road.” He notes that that would mean more death for those speeding even slightly — but also passengers in their cars and non-speeders in nearby cars. In a state like Massachusetts which is often hit by winter weather, having the speed limit at the “design speed” would be especially problematic.
• Stopping government’s handouts of “free stuff.” Much like his former boss Romney, who lamented that he lost the 2012 election because President Obama gave “big gifts” to minority voters, Winslow thinks the government wastes too much money on giving out “free stuff.” In a 2010 position paper, he proposed a crackdown on “‘poor’ people in the underground economy” who under-report income and cheat on their state tax payments, so they won’t have access to “all that free stuff that Massachusetts hands out (and taxpayers pay for) each year.”
• Massive budget cuts that would further hurt local governments. Winslow thinks massive cuts are the solution to economic downturns — and that cutting state spending won’t hurt local governments. He wrote on his campaign website: “State spending is out of control. Instead of tightening its fiscal belt like all families have done, our state government has hiked taxes, depleted the stabilization fund, and shifted hardships to towns by cutting local aid. I will propose to cut taxes by cutting state spending. We can stop waste and fraud, create cost-effective reforms, and encourage entrepreneurial government. The worst thing to do in a recession is to increase tax burdens.”
• Union-busting laws. Winslow has proposed Wisconsin-style legislation to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights. The president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO told the Boston Globe in 2011 that Winslow was labor’s biggest foe in the legislature. The paper reported, “Winslow filed a bill to remove all but wages, hours, and working conditions from the bargaining table for public employees. [The AFL-CIO's Robert J.] Haynes noted Winslow’s close ties with Romney and called him the face of the national Republican Party in Massachusetts, bent on replicating the measure in Wisconsin that stripped public employee unions of collective bargaining rights.” He believes no one would want to go into public service, claiming the “vast majority of Americans don’t go through school hoping that they can become an agency worker.” And he wants to make significant cuts to public workers’ pensions and benefits.
• No revenue increases, ever. Winslow promised “never to support an increase in tax burden while I serve as your State Representative.” A similar pledge proved an albatross to then-Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Romney last year, as opponents successfully hammered them for their short-sighted oaths to Grover Norquist.

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