Chafee Rising
By Liz A Mair Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It's Thursday night in Rhode Island, and the first televised debate between incumbent moderate Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, and ethics-scandal-plagued Democrat challenger Sheldon Whitehouse just finished up.
Mild-mannered, independent-minded, and definitively centrist Chafee is on the rise at the moment. He's come out swinging at Whitehouse over corruption allegations that allude to a dirty political culture within the Rhode Island Democratic Party (in which Whitehouse is deeply rooted) that makes it look like the slightly less slick, slightly more amateurish little brother of the New Jersey Democratic Party. He's up in the polls. And he's working night and day to meet and greet every single Rhode Island voter and build upon the sterling reputation that the Chafee name carries in the Ocean State.
Weeks ago, this race looked like a write-off. But now, just weeks away from election day, it's heading up to being one of the most exciting, tough-to-call contests in the country. Get all the lowdown, live from the Ocean State, here.
It's a Chafee internal. Post reports that "others" have the race within the margin of error, but I haven't seen, nor heard about, any such poll. And no public poll I know of shows Chafee even hitting 45% support. That's dismal.
And while I'm commenting, perhaps Ms. Mair could spare us the revisionism of calling Chafee a moderate and call him what he is - a liberal.
...is kidding herself.
Yep, that was a superb use of GOP money - dragging Linc the RINO across the finish line against Steve Laffey - simply, superb.
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"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, when asked by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "Are we at war, Helen?"
Chafee was the only one that could lose by this small of a margin in RI.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
- Mild-mannered, independent-minded, and definitively centrist Chafee ...
There's absolutely nothing "centrist" about Lincoln Chafee. Nothing. Apart from procedural votes, Chafee believes and votes the Democrat line.
I hope he loses.
then I hope he loses.
I am sorry, but I do not relish the idea of a 50 or 51 seat GOP Senate, where the President and the GOP majority will have to play kissyface 24/7 to Lincoln Chaffee, in order to keep him from pulling a Jeffords.
He will wave the threat to jump parties around like a grenade, threatening to pull the pin anytime it pleases him, for whatever reason. And he'll love it.
The man KNEW we wanted to get Bolton confirmed. Knew we wanted to do it in the worst way. So, AFTER the party stood behind him--the man who pointedly DID NOT vote for President Bush and DID tell any media outlet he could find about what he did--and trashed an apparently decent conservative primary opponent, Chaffee then singlehandedly torpedoes Bolton's confirmation chances.
Instead of a thin GOP majority that's forced to show obesience* to Chaffee, I'd prefer this following scenario: In his last two years in office, with a Dem majority Seante and Judiciary Committee, President Bush refuses to send up any SCOTUS nominee but strong conservatives. Let the Dem Senate reject 50 of them if they wish. Heck, nominate Robert Bork and Charles Pickering if necessary. Let Harry Reid explain to John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg why they can't retire just yet. And, in other legislative matters, the GOP contingent bottles up things and filibusters, while the President vetoes.
Lincoln Chaffee trashes the GOP as a whole while he helps it in administrative ways (e.g., organizing the Senate). As for me, good riddance to the man.
He's dissin' you and me, and I don't like it! No thanks.
* most likely a misspelled word
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
What polls?