Posted on 09/08/2006 7:11:37 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Few incumbents have been as besieged in this year’s campaign season as moderate Rhode Island Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record), who faces a threatening challenge from conservative Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey in the Sept. 12 primary.
And the final days of that contest have been as rough on Chafee as what came before: He has found himself obliged to disavow some of his own side’s hard-hitting negative ads aimed at Laffey, and facing criticism from Laffey and allied conservatives concerning his indecision over whether to support Senate confirmation of John R. Bolton, President Bush’s confrontational appointee as ambassador to the United Nations.
Chafee is a scion of one of New England’s top political families: His Senate predecessor was his father, John Chafee, a centrist Republican who held the seat from 1977 until his death in 1999.
But whereas the elder Chafee generally was able to maintain support across factions in the state’s Republican Party factions, Lincoln Chafee spawned a backlash in his bid for a second full term by building a record as the least conservative of the current 55 Republican senators and by standing out as a party maverick.
Laffey and his supporters — which include the national anti-tax organization Club for Growth — contend that Chafee is too liberal for a Republican voting base that is small in strongly Democratic-leaning Rhode Island but nonetheless has a conservative orientation.
But Chafee and most establishment Republican strategists contend that Laffey is too far right to win a Rhode Island general election, and that his nomination in the primary would virtually hand the seat to the Democrats and their near-certain nominee, former state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse — a potential blow to the Republicans’ efforts to stave off a six-seat Democratic net gain and maintain their Senate majority.
That is certainly the position taken by the national GOP’s Senate campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which has taken a distinctly pragmatic approach to this race. The committee is charged with protecting the Republican majority, and its leaders have sided strongly with Chafee’s contention that he is the only “electable” Republican in the contest.
The NRSC has made a substantial investment in ads that laud the incumbent and attack challenger Laffey. The NRSC also has helped Chafee with fundraising and on-the-ground organization for voter mobilization, as well as $133,000 in coordinated expenditures.
The committee has done so even though Chafee has taken some ostentatious positions against Bush and the Republican congressional leadership.
He voted in 2002 against authorizing the use of military force in Iraq and since has consistently opposed the war there. He favors gay rights and abortion rights. As a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and chairman of its Fisheries, Wildlife and Water subcommittee, he often sides with the views of environmentalists. He voted against the confirmation of Bush Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.; and — in an action viewed by many home-state Republicans as a major slap in the face — he publicly stated in 2004 that he did not vote to re-elect Bush, instead writing in the name of the president’s father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Conservatives argue that Chafee is a RINO — a label promoted by the Club for Growth that stands for Republican in Name Only — and that his stances are so iconoclastic that it would make little difference whether Chafee or Whitehouse would win in November.
And, Laffey’s campaign said, the mayor has every intention of winning in November, despite polls showing him trailing well behind Whitehouse in trial matchups while Chafee and the Democrat are in a near dead heat. “People who say that underestimate Steve Laffey,” campaign spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik told CQPolitics.com.
Meanwhile, polling on the primary and analysts on the ground indicate the race remains too close to call for either Republican.
“It’s an old-fashioned race where no one really knows what’s going to happen,” said Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University. “Flip a coin and make a pick,” he later added.
The Chafee-Laffey race is just the latest chapter in the infighting between the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican Party. But overwhelmingly Democratic Rhode Island would seem an unusual venue for such a battle, West told CQPolitics.com.
“Generally, Republicans don’t have primaries because they have difficulty coming up with even one candidate,” he said.
It also is part of the reason moderates argue Chafee is the only Republican who could hold the seat in this state, where Republicans account for only one out of 10 registered voters. The majority of the state’s voters — 54 percent — do not affiliate themselves with either of the parties, while 35 percent of registered voters in Rhode Island say they are Democrats. But that swing vote most of the time breaks for Democratic candidates: 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry did nearly as well here as in his neighboring home state of Massachusetts, taking Rhode Island with 59 percent and a 20-percentage point lead over Bush.
Conventional wisdom holds that Laffey’s strength will be among the state’s Republican voters while Chafee leads among the independents, who are allowed to vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday. The higher the turnout, the argument goes, the better the results for Chafee.
Some 13,000 voters previously identified as Democrats changed their registration to unaffiliated in the first six months of the year, which could indicate an intention to vote in the GOP primary. Peter Kerwin, director of communications for the Rhode Island Secretary of State, said the number could be attributed at least in part to an update of the state’s registration rolls, but it remains significantly higher than the number of voters who altered their registration in any other direction.
Chuck Newton, spokesman for the Rhode Island Republican Party, said he was not sure what turnout would be, but that if it beat the all-time high of 44,000 voters, Chafee was likely to win.
Whatever the turnout, the race is likely to be recorded as one of the most expensive and closely watched primary elections in the state’s recent history.
Newton warned, though, there were signs of voter fatigue amid the constant barrage of automated phone calls, non-stop television ads and political mailings.
“We go from one political ad to another on commercial break, and I don’t think [restaurant chains] Applebee’s or Outback Steakhouse are getting the time they want and maybe deserve,” he told CQPolitics.com.
Outside organizations including the Club for Growth and the Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports Chafee and other GOP moderates, have thrown money into the race, sometimes with mixed results.
A new 30-second spot launched Tuesday by the Republicans Who Care Individual Fund — a “527” organization named after the section of the tax code that regulates these soft-money campaign groups — attacks Laffey on his integrity and states he was forced to leave his two previous jobs as a stockbroker in disgrace.
Republicans Who Care also launched campaign ads against conservative challenger Tim Walberg in his Aug. 8 primary contest in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. But Walberg, who also was supported by the Club for Growth, was able to oust one-term moderate Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz in the first example of the organization helping to successfully unseat an incumbent.
Laffey’s campaign dismissed the charges in the Republicans Who Care ad as untrue, and on Friday touted a report that Chafee said his negative ads about Laffey were “inappropriate” and had been prompted by his Washington handlers.
“If Mr. Chafee can be persuaded by campaign consultants to run a character assassination campaign that he himself now openly admits he does not believe in, how can Rhode Islanders trust him to make the right decisions in the Senate?” Soloveichik asked in a statement.
Kirk Walder, a spokesman for Republicans Who Care, said the organization stands behind the charges in its ad “100 percent.”
In such a toxic campaign environment, the clear beneficiary is Whitehouse, who has been able to run positive ads while Republicans “have gone thermonuclear against each other,” West said.
Whitehouse is expected to easily win a four-way primary Tuesday against anti-war candidate Carl Sheeler, Christopher F. Young and Rebeka Palmer Rockefeller.
Whitehouse, who has spent $2.6 million during the primary campaign, still had $1.8 million left in the bank as of Aug. 23, the last date for filing before the primary. Sheeler, who had launched a vigorous grass-roots campaign against Whitehouse, had $274,000 in the bank by the same date. Neither Young nor Rockefeller had filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Chafee should withdraw for the sake of the party's "unity". (ducks)
LOL! But...but...he's an (Rush's mocking voice) "an enlightened moderrrraattteee..."
If this guy is a Republican and any kind of conservative at all I'm unable to detect it. Give me a friggin break, Lincoln Chaffee. Stop corrupting the Republican party, try a little honesty for a change and join the Democratic party. We don't need another charlatan in the Republican party.
One can readily understand the NRSC's pragmatism.
However, I would argue that Chaffee is so far off the reservation he is not worth saving. Instead, they should conserve the money and invest it in the races of Senators more worth saving.
If the seat is lost to the Democrats, it is a Democrat seat anyway. And if the good mayor pulls an upset, then the Republicans have actually gained a seat.
What do they care about? Certainly not the values of the Republican party.
Talk about ducking, Rhode Island is a Massachusetts burp. It takes 30 minutes to drive across the whole state, barring traffic wrecks. Michael Gates's home in Seattle is bigger than that whole state but they have 2 senators, and the carpetbagging Patches Kennedy is one of their Reps. They are what they are....
He has a Life time ACU rating of 37...
http://www.acuratings.org/2005all.htm#RI
http://www.acuratings.org/
Chafee spit into the wind when, in the last debate with Laffey, he said he opposed the death penalty EVEN FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN. His poll numbers plummeted the next morning.
You're right that money would be better spent on candidates like Rick Santorum.
The party is better served by keeping Santorum in the Senate, even if it means sacrificing Chaffee.
But keeping Chaffee in the Senate, suffering the loss of Santorum makes no sense at all.
But I've no problem at all with throwing Chaffee overboard.
That's just incredible. It's bad enough that they're interfering in a primary and pumping up one candidate, but it's clearly over the top for them to attack a Republican who might be the nominee. What does NRSC do if Laffey wins the primary? Say "Never mind"?
I may sell my TV.
--
Is it a plasma or Trinitron? :-)
In fairness, Rhode Island has a larger population than Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. All of them have two Senators too.
This is why the NRSC gets nothing from me but the Bush Pesos. Let them buy an ad with that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.