Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks at commencement exercises for The University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., on Monday, Dec. 15, 2014. (AP Photo)
The Club for Growth released its list of Congress' best government-drowners on Monday, a list topped by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) in the House and featuring Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) at the bottom -- of which position each man is almost certainly proud. But with 2016 looming (lol, but seriously), we figured it was about time that someone gathered up the report cards issued by various groups and provided each possible Republican contender with an overall score. A grade-point average, if you will.
And so we did. We took lifetime ratings, where available, from Club for Growth, Heritage Action, and the National Rifle Association. And then we added the ratings from the decidedly less conservative (name notwithstanding) League of Conservation Voters, for which the lower the score, the better. Then we converted the scores to letter grades, and then we calculated the GPA. Now, remember: Most of these organizations only rate Congress, since Congress has a consistent benchmark of voting to judge. Everyone else got an incomplete.
Anyway. Without further etc. etc.: Presenting the best (conservative) students in your Class of 2016.
Head of the Class
Rand Paul (Ky.)
| GPA | NRA | Heritage | CfG | LCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | A (q) (2010) | A (93) | A+ (98) | A- (91) |
Your top student? Sen. Rand Paul.
A few quick words of explanation. The A (q) means that the NRA gave him a qualified A, since he hadn't yet taken any votes against which he'd be measured. The number in parentheses is the year of the NRA evaluation; in all other cases it's the numeric score which we converted to a letter. The LCV score is calculated by subtracting each candidate's actual rating (in the case of Paul, 9 percent) from 100.
Ted Cruz (Texas)
| GPA | NRA | Heritage | CfG | LCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.9 | A+ (2010) | A (95) | A (96) | B+ (89) |
Cruz's A+ in NRA couldn't offset the B+ he earned by being a huge softie on the environment (11 percent rating!).
The average kids
Marco Rubio (Fla.)
| GPA | NRA | Heritage | CfG | LCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.4 | B+ (2010) | B- (82) | A (93) | A- (91) |
Rick Santorum (Penn.)
| GPA | NRA | Heritage | CfG | LCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.3 | A+ (2006) | n/a | C (73) | A- (91) |
Rubio and Santorum earned solid grades, nothing fancy. Note: Santorum hasn't been in Congress for nearly a decade, and the Heritage ratings don't go back that far.
Shop class
Bobby Jindal (La.)
| GPA | NRA | Heritage | CfG | LCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.8 | A+ (2007) | n/a | F (59) | A (94) |
Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
| GPA | NRA | Heritage | CfG | LCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.3 | A- (2014) | F (47) | C (74) | B+ (89) |
Both Jindal and Graham got Fs on their report cards, which, we assume, meant being grounded for a reasonable period of time. Lindsey was also banned from using email.
Incomplete
As we mentioned, not every likely 2016 contender got a full report card. (Ben Carson didn't get any grades at all.) But each was rated by the NRA, so we've included those ratings (and the year it was issued) below.
| Jeb Bush | A+ (2002) |
| Mike Huckabee | A+ (2002) |
| Rick Perry | A+ (2010) |
| Scott Walker | A+ (2014) |
| Carly Fiorina | A (q) (2010) |
| John Kasich | A- (2014) |
| Chris Christie | C (2013) |
| George Pataki | F (2002) |
So consider this your 2016 Republican field Meta Report Card. May it inform your voting next year. Will you pick the try-hard guys with the A averages? Or drop-out contender George Pataki? The important thing is that you remember that this GPA calculation is not much less silly than the report cards on which it is based.
Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He is based in New York City.
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