Slideshow: Where Have All the RINOs Gone?

An endangered breed (1 of 14)

Where have all the RINOs gone? Not long ago, the GOP contained a number of recognizably liberal politicians, often identified as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). But they've been hounded out of the party by movement conservatives, who have campaigned relentlessly against what they consider ideological apostasy. Click through today's TNR slideshow to see the last few members of this vanishing species.

Dede Scozzafava (2 of 14)

Scozzafava, the liberal Republican who ran for Congress in New York's 23^rd district, has been the most recent RINO to fall. A supporter of abortion and gay marriage, she attracted a third-party challenge from the Conservative Party's Doug Hoffman--who then received a nod (or was it a wink?) from Sarah Palin. Much of the GOP piled on, forcing Scozzafava to drop out and endorse her Democratic opponent.

Charlie Crist (3 of 14)

Florida Governor Charlie Crist may be next. A supporter of Obama's stimulus package and an avowed environmentalist, Crist plans to run for Senate in 2010. But he'll have to win the primary first, and his conservative challenger, Marco Rubio, is explicitly comparing him to Dede Scozzafava.

Lincoln Chafee (4 of 14)

One iconic RINO was Senator Lincoln Chafee, the heir to an old-school New England Republican dynasty who supported gay rights, voted against the Iraq War, and received an endorsement from the Sierra Club. In 2006, he was bruised by a right-wing primary challenge and lost his reelection bid to Sheldon Whitehouse. He's now running for Rhode Island governor as an independent.

John McCain (5 of 14)

John McCain may have been the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee, but before that, he was shockingly liberal. During the 2000 campaign against George W. Bush, he blasted Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance," attacked Bush's economic plan by saying "I'm not giving tax cuts for the rich," and declared that "certainly in the short term or even in the long term I would not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade." Conservative distrust of McCain lingered all the way to the 2008 Republican convention, when he nominated Sarah Palin as a sop to the GOP base.

Jim Jeffords (6 of 14)

Jim Jeffords of Vermont's Senate seat had been continuously Republican since 1895. He broke that streak in 2001, when he quit the party to become a left-leaning independent, throwing control of the Senate to the GOP. National Review dubbed Jeffords a “historical footnote” and lamented that “true believers can do little more than hope that Jeffords suffers when he looks in the mirror and ponders the pain he has inflicted on his once fellow Republicans.”

Amo Houghton (7 of 14)

New York Congressman Amo Houghton may have represented one of the richest districts in the nation, but he voted against repealing the estate tax. He also founded a caucus of GOP moderates, broke with his party on the Iraq War, supported abortion rights, and refused to vote for impeachment. He decided not to seek reelection in 2006.

Chris Shays (8 of 14)

Chris Shays of Connecticut was the last Republican congressman from New England. He broke with his party to support gay rights and an increase of the minimum wage, but ultimately couldn't survive the cross-pressures from conservative activists and liberal voters. Even a last-minute repudiation of the McCain-Palin ticket failed to prevent his defeat in 2008.

Jim Leach (9 of 14)

Republican Jim Leach represented Iowa’s 2nd district for 30 years, from 1977-2007. He lost the backing of socially conservative groups during the 2006 election after refusing to distribute anti-gay direct mail--and subsequently lost the race. In 2008, Leach endorsed Barack Obama, and he now chairs the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Arlen Specter (10 of 14)

Senator Arlen Specter has long been reviled by conservatives. Human Events magazine once listed him as their #3 RINO, explaining that he "warned Bush not to nominate judges who might overturn Roe v. Wade, voted for reducing tax cuts and supported Democrats on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, HMO and overtime regulation." This year, Specter decided he didn't even want to be a Republican in name.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (11 of 14)

Schwarzenegger was never a convincing conservative. He had plenty of Hollywood friends, liberal social mores, and he married a Kennedy. But at least right-wingers could console themselves with his libertarianism. Now, even that is gone. In the eyes of National Review, the man who starred in Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" video series has "pandered to government-employee unions and opened the spending spigots, to taxpayers’ ongoing horror."

Olympia Snowe (12 of 14)

Olympia Snowe is one of the last "Rockefeller Republicans" on the national stage, and she has so far escaped retribution from her conservative colleagues. But that could all change: Snowe has already been criticized by potential 2012 nominee Tim Pawlenty for supporting health care reform, and she's earned the ire of right-wing bloggers, who wanted to mail her bags of rock salt so that she would "melt."

Colin Powell (13 of 14)

Once considered a possible GOP presidential nominee, Secretary of State Colin Powell ended up becoming a foil for many of George W. Bush's foreign policy initiatives. After resigning in 2004, he criticized the Iraq war and announced his intention to vote for Barack Obama. As Dick Cheney explained on Face the Nation, “I thought he had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.”

Related links: RINOs (14 of 14)

Click here to read Michael Crowley on the Club for Growth's campaign to purge moderate Republicans from the party.

Click here to read Jason Zengerle on Chris Shays's doomed re-election bid.

Click here to read Jonathan Chait on the shockingly liberal political positions that John McCain took during the 2000 election.