Moderate Lincoln Chafee Has Left The GOP Building
September 16th, 2007
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
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There’s good news today for Republican conservatives who felt former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee was nothing but a RINO (Republican In Name Only). And bad news for those who believe the Republican Party could use more consensus-oriented moderates.
Lincoln Chafee has left the GOP building. He has quit the party, the Providence Journal reports:
Lincoln D. Chafee, who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November’s election, said yesterday that he has left the party.
Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment.
“It’s not my party any more,†he said.
Chafee’s departure is another step in the waning of the strain of moderate Republicanism that was once a winning political philosophy from Rhode Island and Connecticut to the Canadian border. For the first time since the Civil War, the six New England states combined now have only one Republican U.S. House member, Connecticut’s Christopher Shays.
Chafee said he disaffiliated from the party “in June or July,†making him an unaffiliated voter. He did so quietly, and until yesterday, he said, “No one’s asked me about it.†He said he made the move because “I want my affiliation to accurately reflect my status.â€
“There’s been a gradual depravation of … the issues the party should be strong on,†and the direction of the national party, he said.
In a sense, it isn’t a surprise. When Chafee lost his race there seemed to be two underlying feelings if you watched him talk about it or read interviews with him. He seemed to have expected it and he was not bitter at all about voters deserting him. It’s as if he was saying that if he had to vote, given the direction of his party, he would have voted the same way, too.
And, as the Journal notes, he made no secret of the ways he differed from his party. He even wrote an Op-Ed piece in the newspaper right before the election detailing them:
In a Journal Op-Ed piece published on the Thursday before the election, Chafee himself laid out some of the ways he disagreed with his party, notably as one of only 23 senators and the only Republican to oppose the resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq. He went on to criticize the “permanent deficits†caused by Republican tax cuts.
Chafee referred yesterday to the broad-based, bipartisan Iraq Study Group that Congress created, a process Chafee approved of. The study group recommended a gradual pullback of American forces, and insistence that the Iraqi government take more responsibility for security. But he said that since the study group made its recommendations, which he agreed with, “no one’s paid any attention to them.â€
And he’s still critical of his party. The key question is going to be what happens in 2008
In the immediate aftermath of the 2006 Congressional elections, it was wide contended by many analysts that longtime traditional conservatives wanted to get their part back on track to traditional conservatism. The party’s already-weak moderate component was damaged by the loss of Chafee (who also took grief from and was defeated by Democrats).
So what will happen in 2008? Will traditional, Goldwater-descended conservatives want a change in direction from the Bush brand of Republicanism? And will this mean the party will welcome RINOs or exclude them?
Because if RINOs are excluded, perhaps some more of them in 2008 will leave the elephant’s party — and decide on Election Day to join the donkeys.
And there are more RINOS and donkeys put together than elephants….
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 10:30 am and is filed under Moderate Republicans, Lincoln Chafee, Republicans, Moderates, 2008 Elections, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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