Free Republic

Chafee no longer a Republican Former Repubican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who lost his seat in last year’s Democratic congressional wave, announced that he has left the Republican Party, according to the Providence Journal. “It’s not my party any more,” he said. In his seven-year tenure in the Senate, Chafee frequently split from his party on key legislation. He opposed the war in Iraq, voted with Democrats on estate tax and HMO regulation legislation and refused to support the confirmation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. In the past, Chafee had insisted that he would remain in the Republican...

Rhode Island is my second home, and since I was born and raised there, I follow the politics and happenings in the state. The name, Chafee, is a revered one there, as the Senator’s father served honorably and well in the military during World War II and as governor and senator from that state. “Lincoln Chafee's family tree includes Sen. Henry Lippitt, who served from 1911 to 1917, and Harvard University's notable legal scholar, the late Zechariah Chaffee. (The family uses several spellings of the Chafee name). His father, John, served three terms as Rhode Island governor and more than...