Chafee drops Bush

October 4, 2004 12:48 PM

Dissent is patriotic. "I'm a pro-choice, antiwar, antideficit Republican," says Senator Linc Chafee (R-RI). But his party affiliation is not stronger than the deep ideological gulf between the conservative and moderate wings of the GOP. Today, Sen. Chafee announced that he will not support George Bush's bid for re-election nor vote for him in November. Already there are rumbles of a party defection that might quash hopes for a GOP hold on the U.S. Senate. Remember this guy? "I understand the feelings that he has," Mr. Jeffords said. "I'm going to be talking to him, so I'm not going to say any more. I probably shouldn't have even told you that."
posted by PrinceValium (21 comments total)

To me, this really points to the problem of loyalty to a political party, a specific religion, diet fad, etc. It shifts the onus from one's own critical thinking skills to accepting the party line. Hmmm, what's that called again?
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:55 PM on October 4, 2004

There's a whole bunch of Rep. congresspeople that should really switch--their party moved away from their moderate views long ago.
posted by amberglow at 1:12 PM on October 4, 2004

Lincoln (Chaffee)- this was your (grand)father's Republican party.

Take that Oldsmobile!

Preemptive strike: No this is not just like zig zag Zell.
posted by nofundy at 1:15 PM on October 4, 2004

Calling Michael Castle, Calling Michael Castle. The center is on the line for you.....
posted by mmahaffie at 1:18 PM on October 4, 2004

It would be really interesting if we could see a third party come out of this. I know, pipe dream, but consider: All the 3rd party attempts since the Republican Party was formed were created by outsiders. What if you created one with insiders?

To overstretch a metaphor, the solution is so super-saturated right now, that it's time for something to precipitate out. I can't tell you how many people I know who're afraid to back a Republican (or a Democrat) because of the (mis-)use they fear their vote would be put to by the Party.
posted by lodurr at 1:29 PM on October 4, 2004

And dems who should move to the green party, Amber.
posted by prodigalsun at 1:30 PM on October 4, 2004

Let's see a Christian Conservative Party which would suck the life out of the current GOP.
posted by caddis at 1:33 PM on October 4, 2004

the Bull Moose party?
posted by kenko at 1:50 PM on October 4, 2004

Unfortunately, the Green party is as of now too fractured and limited--in its scope and power. It'll have to prove it can field successful candidates at the national level (in Congress) before any current Senator or Rep. would switch.
posted by amberglow at 1:55 PM on October 4, 2004

It'll have to prove it can field successful candidates at the national level (in Congress) before any current Senator or Rep. would switch.

In other words, they have to be "electable", like that Kerry guy. No sense in voting your conscience when you're trying to win all the time. (I'm not disagreeing with you, BTW, but you've shown how short-sighted politics is with that statement. Independent candidates have to be home-grown, since Democrats and Republicans have already locked in their electable status; political monopolies are fun)

their party moved away from their moderate views long ago.

Isn't that an oxymoron of sorts? Because moderates are in the middle of the two parties by definition. So if the Republicans are moving further "right", then wouldn't it be true that moderates are also moving that way? Otherwise, if you look at the spectrum, and one side is moving right, wouldn't the people who are standing still (moderates) be considered more "left"? But Democrats aren't being elected in record number, despite the Republicans moving to the "right".
posted by BlueTrain at 2:21 PM on October 4, 2004

No sitting Democratic or Republican congressperson would switch to a party without a track record. At most, they'd go independent.

Moderates aren't in the middle of the 2 parties by definition. Republican success has come not by being moderate, but by veering right, and lying to moderate voters (compassionate conservatism, a uniter not a divider, no nation-building, etc). Democratic success under Clinton, on the other hand, actually came from moderation, i believe.

Moderate Republicans (Rockefeller or Lindsay Republicans, in my mind) have lost any say in their party's decisions. They don't get or hold important committee positions, or act as party leaders (like DeLay, Hastert, Frist, etc), and at most can only sometimes act as weak brakes on some of the more egregious things tried by the right. And we've seen many of them vote with Democrats these past few years. They know they've been marginalized, and it remains to Chafee, and Snow, etc, on whether they want to sit there as folks shut out, or move to the Dems where they'd be welcomed, and respected, and more importantly, listened to.
posted by amberglow at 2:38 PM on October 4, 2004

Hope is a wonderful thing. I'll hope that people like Chafee, Jeffords, and maybe the New England Republicans, can come together in their common interest and prove -- through mutual support -- that it's possible to buck the system.

It would have to come from someplace like northern New England (Rhode Island?! always thoght of them as conservative...), I would think, where they're accustomed to not taking orders (in part, yeh, maybe, because they don't have much anyone ever wanted to take from them). But if they proved they could do it, others might join. All the moderates sick of being called "RINO" and betting submarined from the right. Folks who couldn't go Reform because of the stench of Ross Perot, or couldn't go Green because it's ... well, it's Green. (When I was growing up, "Green" was synonymous with "Commie".)

It's possible. We can dream.

On preview: Amberglow, you're right, they won't switch to an existing party. That's why it would have to be a new party. And it would probably have to be a "stealth" party, at least at first.
posted by lodurr at 2:41 PM on October 4, 2004

This guy is such a RINO. He's not subverting anything, he's just in the wrong party.
posted by abcde at 3:16 PM on October 4, 2004

The Rev. Jerry Falwell boasted Friday that evangelical Christians, after nearly 25 years of increasing political activism, now control the Republican Party and the fate of President Bush in the November election.
posted by amberglow at 3:34 PM on October 4, 2004

Rhode Island?! always thoght of them as conservative

It's about as Ted Kennedy as you can get south of the border. (His son Patrick represents the 1st congressional district.) There's a social conservative streak, and plenty of rigid blue-collar Catholicism, but nothing more extreme than what you'd find in working class Boston. In New England, party affiliations skew toward "traditional" rather than "neo". For example, in 2000 Linc Chafee, a pro-choice Republican, beat Bob Weygand, a pro-life Democrat, in the Senate race. Given Gore's 30 point edge on the same ballot, it's pretty safe to guess that people tend to vote issues rather than straight party line.

Rhode Island is currently polling with Kerry ahead by about 20 points, a bigger margin than New York and Connecticut.
posted by PrinceValium at 3:44 PM on October 4, 2004

Chaffee was a farrier for seven years.

I found this intriguing and endearing.
posted by troutfishing at 3:54 PM on October 4, 2004

I'm almost afraid to ask this out loud--for fear of queering the deal--but has anyone seen anything anywhere that explores the possibility that the four Republicans (McCain, Lugar, Hagel, and Lindsey Graham) who came out and slammed Bush's Iraq performance on separate talk shows on Sept 19--one day before Kerry's campaign defigning Iraq speech--might actually have coordinated their appearances with the Senator's campaign? Could it be that there are double agents in the GOP, two of them (McCain and Graham) technically working for Bush's campaign?

I mean, it was just too perfect. Kerry could not have come out and used words like "incompetent" and "losing" with (relative) impunity if the Repubs hadn't used the same words the day before. They really set him up for that speech, and it seems just too perfect to be coincidence, and it was too refined a speech to have been written in one night.

Just look how much harder they made it on Scott McClellan when he tried to spin Kerry's speech.

Q:How do you respond to some Republican lawmakers, like Senator Hagel, who are starting to have some doubts about the direction of -- the way things are going there?

SM: [does not answer the question; babbles about Allawi bla bla mixed signals...bla bla ]

Q:Scott, are you saying, then, that we shouldn't send mixed signals? Are you saying, then to Senators Lugar and Hagel they shouldn't be saying what they're saying in their criticism?

MR. MCCLELLAN: -- Senator Kerry's comments today and over the course of the last year or --

Q: But what about the Republican criticism, itself, then?

MR. MCCLELLAN: [does not answer the question; babbles about Allawi]...you know, that's why I talked about mixed signals are the wrong signals[...]

Q: Well, do you think that Hagel and Lugar are sending mixed signals, McCain, when they criticize the President, talk about incompetence?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that was directed to some of the reconstruction money[....]

Q But does that come under your heading of "mixed signals"?

MR. McCLELLAN: Oh, I think Senator Kerry is the one who has sent mixed signals repeatedly over the course of his campaign.

Q: So that's "no," then?

We all know that Bush is anything but "conservative," and Kerry must have made some friends on the other side of the aisle in the last 19 years. Anyone care to speculate on other GOP pols who may be secretly rooting or working for the other guy?
posted by boo at 6:03 PM on October 4, 2004

Hmmm, what's that called again?

To be blunt, stupidity.
posted by rushmc at 9:59 PM on October 4, 2004

boo, the WSWS thought so: [Kerry] only shifted gears with his September 20 speech at New York University, where he made a limited appeal to antiwar sentiment by attacking Bush’s decision to go to war. He made this turn only after prominent Republicans—senators John McCain, Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel—publicly criticized Bush’s conduct of the war, thus signaling the approval of sections of the ruling elite to broach the issue in the election campaign.
posted by dhartung at 11:16 PM on October 4, 2004

And why not. Those four republican Senators are powerful, and less susceptible to coercion - and Lugar and McCain certainly have their own established power bases and longstanding seniority.
posted by troutfishing at 11:42 AM on October 5, 2004

I bet they still got an angry visit from Mr. DeLay.
posted by boo at 2:04 PM on October 5, 2004