Senators Scott Brown of Massachusetts
and Olympia Snowe of Maine are being targeted for ouster for
supporting
repeal of the military's ban on gay and bisexual troops serving
openly.
The Republicans are among the five
senators accused on Monday of being too liberal by conservative group
the Tea Party Nation. Senators Dick Lugar of Indiana, Orrin Hatch of
Utah and Bob Corker of Tennessee also made the list.
The group's founder, Judson Phillips,
blasted Snowe and Brown for crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats
on “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” and other issues, and accused the five
senators of being Republicans In Name Only, or RINOs. The group
called Brown “the biggest disappointment of the last year.”
A second conservative group, the
Greater Boston Tea Party, is also openly talking about an early
retirement for Brown.
“There's enough of an underground
movement in the Tea Party movement as seeing him as not being
conservative enough,” Christen Varley, the group's president, told
the Boston Globe. “There probably will be multiple people
who attempt to run against him [in 2012].”
Other Republicans who voted for repeal
include Senators George Voinovich of Ohio, Mark Kirk of Illinois,
Susan Collins of Maine, John Ensign of Nevada, Richard Burr of North
Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.