Posted on 08/07/2006 1:22:25 PM PDT by presidio9
It is hard to imagine two politicians less similar than Steve Laffey and the man whose job he’s trying to take, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Laffey and Chafee both carry the Republican label. The similarity ends there.
Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, R.I., and the challenger in the Sept. 12 Republican primary, is a hyperkinetic, fast-talking son of the working class.
“My father was a tool maker, he never went to college. I’m the only Laffey in the history of Laffeys who ever went to college,” he said. He graduated from Bowdoin College and Harvard Business School, before launching a career which led to serving as president of the Morgan Keegan investment firm in Memphis.
“I grew up with no money. I watched my dad lose his job in the 1970s when foreign imports were taking jobs away,” Laffey said.
Growing up in Cranston, when the family would run short of money, his mother, a nurse who worked the late shift, would feed the kids on mayonnaise and ketchup sandwiches on day-old white bread.
Laffey is a Reagan-loving populist, but also idolizes Bobby Kennedy for his combativeness –- he cites the moment he saw film footage of Kennedy interrogating Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa before a Senate investigating committee.
Last Saturday Laffey went out for a hot day of sprinting from one house to another along Flint Corn Road and Dorothy Avenue in suburban Portsmouth, R.I.
Laffey’s fired-up advance team included pals such as Eddie Curran, his former junior high school classmate. “He’s knocked on 30,000 doors,” Laffey said.
Also fanning out to drum up support for Laffey were his wife Kelly and four of his five children.
Laffey tends towards the fleshy and after 20 minutes of campaigning, his shirt was drenched in sweat.
If perspiration were
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Great minds, and all that. ;-)
I use Ronald Reagan to define modern Conservativism. He hated abortion and intensified the drug war more than any other president. He was not a libertarian.
But Reagan used Goldwater to define modern conservatism, so I just go straight to the source.
Rhode Island is 60% Catholic - they should know better!
Oddly enough Rhode Island has one pro-life Democrat congressman. One out of two.
So I don't think Laffey's pro-life stance is a deal breaker but it's also one of the states Kerry did best in.
It's very odd.
What can you say about a state that has elected Patrick Kennedy?
Oh I could get banned if I expressed my thoughts on that honestly.
So on the eve of the last moderate democrat Joe Lieberman being kicked out of the party, MSNBC decides to run this? What a joke.
I have to wonder about the states that brought us the "puritans" - now they have given us the KENNEDYS!
I still do.
Mr Curry apparently never heard of Bob Corker the pseudo conservative just nominated in Tennessee. Corker wears the label of Chaffee Republican
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