Chafee’s brand of Republicanism

September 13, 2006

I’ve always wanted to understand why, exactly, Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee stays in the Republican Party. By most reasonable definitions, he’s a fairly liberal senator. He not only refused to endorse Bush, he didn’t vote for him and considered supporting a censure resolution against him. He’s openly speculated about switching parties more times than I can count and he represents a very “blue” state that would probably reward him if he did finally give up on the GOP.

So why stay with a party that clearly is in a different place. Fortunately, Chafee explained his approach yesterday, after managing to stave off a tough primary challenge.

[Chafee] acknowledged being asked often: “Why are you a Republican?” And he repeated his definition of Republicanism, including fiscal discipline, environmental protection, individual liberty, aversion to foreign entanglements and “a willingness to use the tools of government to help the poor and the vulnerable.”

There was no indication he was kidding.

Now, I understand that Chafee is part of a Republican family tradition. I can even understand a certain sense of loyalty to the party after it spent over $1 million to help him survive the primary. But look at his criteria again: fiscal discipline, environmental protection, individual liberty, aversion to foreign entanglements and “a willingness to use the tools of government to help the poor and the vulnerable.” That’s his definition of Republicanism.

The more I think about it, Chafee isn’t in the wrong party; he’s on the wrong planet.

So I wonder what his definition of the Democratic Party is ??

  • Well they are fond of mentioning that Lincoln (Abraham nor Chaffee) was a Republican. They fail to mention that the position of the Repuiblican party in the 1860’s was nothing like it is now but still. As long as he votes right I don’t care if it says R or D after his name. I catually kind of like the idea of him being a burr under the saddle of the Republicans. too bad the majority picks teh committeee heads and sets the agenda cause that could be fun to watch.

  • Sounds like Chafee is describing something like T. R.’s republicanism, which has been defunct for ages. His description isn’t that far from Nixon’s republicanism, and closer to Ike’s. It just goes to show how horribly the Republican party has mutated in the past couple of decades. Heck, some of those 1950s and 1960s republicans would be considered s cell of Bolsheviks these days.

    Chafee may actually think he can influence his party from within. I think that’s a grand notion, but a futile one. But I also like him as a burr under the GOP’s side-saddle.

  • We can probably match up a Republican name or two with each of those goals. But, finding a single Republican to match up with all of them might be more of a challenge. They claim their tent is very big, but the guy holding those goals is probably getting his ass chewed in the lion cage or cleaning up the elephant shit.

  • Forty years ago there were many Chafee, or Rockefeller Republicans. I remember them well. It is tragic beyond words how this party morphed into this gang of right wing thugs.

  • Strom Thurmond spent the first part of his political life (70 B.C. – 1966 A.D.) as a Democrat . Ditto Jesse Helms and a few other “Dixiecrats”. It is the same way the definition of Conservative has been FUBARed of late.

    I don’t see a problem with him staying in the GOP. You know there are probably a lot of Republicans who wish he would go away.

  • Linc Chafee can’t move across the aisle–at least, not just yet—because there isn’t a “conservative” wing of the democratic Party. But if someone were to ask him to assume command of that new wing, and build it from the ground up, I think he might consider it….

  • Most of these qualities do not describe the “modern” Republican party. The only one that could be considered Republican would be “aversion to foreign entanglements”. If the neocons had their way, there wouldn’t be a UN. Democrats are more likely to form true alliances to get things done abroad, not coalitions of the coerced.

  • I find it interesting the national GOP folks figured out that helping Chafee win would be better for the party than watching the party lose the seat to a Dem, while the Dem Party cheered Lamont when in fact there is a very distinct possibility that Independent Joe beats him in the general election… You guys better hope that Joe is a man true to his word and continues to sway left post his re-election in November!

    For us moderates, nothing would be better than seeing both Chafee and Lieberman win their respective elections.

  • Even if Chafee votes like a D, it matters a lot that he calls himself an R, because the majority chairs committees, and therefore sets agendas (agendum?). If the Senate comes down to a tie, he will really face pressure to at least switch to an I, a la Jeffords.

    But he really needs to spend some time reflecting on his definition of R’ism and the actions of the R’s themselves. Sheesh.

  • I find it interesting the national GOP folks figured out that helping Chafee win would be better for the party than watching the party lose the seat to a Dem, while the Dem Party cheered Lamont — JRSjr (11)

    Um… It didn’t; not in the primaries. The *party* was behind Lie Joe; it was us (the unhinged fringe) who were for Lamont. The party is pro-Lamont *now*, because that’s who was elected in the primaries, by those who cared enough to go and vote.

    And no, I don’t think Lie will vote with Dems; he didn’t vote with us *where it counted* even before he got in a snit…

  • Environmental protections and helping the poor? Are you kidding? What Republican was concerned about helping the poor? Herbert Hoover? Ronald Reagan? George W. Bush? It would have been nice if the reporters actually asked a follow up question to that.

  • A friend of mine — a lifelong Democratic activist who lives in RI – told me that the Democratic Party is so corrupt in RI he wouldn’t run for dogcatcher as a D there.

    Back in the 1980s I was the fundraising director for a non-profit environmental consumer and environmental organization and our lawyer was indicted for corruption.

    Chaffee probably wants to distance himself from the Dems at home and the Reps in DC. What a place to be.

  • When Republicans were respectable, there was Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois, Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Jacob Javitz of New York–something like forty years ago.

  • I grew up in rural Connecticut in the ’80s and that was pretty much my family’s understanding of what it meant to be a Republican — with the notable exception of “a willingness to use the tools of government to help the poor and the vulnerable.” Chafee is smokin’ crack on that one. What he most likely means is support for the civil rights movement (the phrase “poor and vulnerable” being a euphemism for “minorities”).

    In other words, liberal Republicans have always believed that black workers and white workers should be equally shafted if those lazy peasants try to join a union.

    Now, I really believe in fiscal responsibility, conservation, and individual liberty. That’s why I switched parties in 1994 when it finally dawned on me that Republicans were committed to the Laffer Curve, oil companies, and the religious right. Since then, I learned the critical role of the labor movement and social security in creating and sustaining the middle class. I also learned about the growing need for universal healthcare. I have become a partisan Democrat with a convert’s zeal.

    Chafee’s ability to cling to his ridiculous delusions about the party of Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, etc., etc. is just pathetic. It’s almost as pathetic as Joe Lieberman’s delusions that he can rubber stamp the Bush administration, waffle on protecting social security, ignore the Connecticut primary results, and then still claim to be a Democrat.

    Chafee and Lieberman are the Drew Bledsoe and Kerry Collins of their parties — they were never that good, and now they’re way past their prime and hurting the cause.

  • You gotta love Lincoln Chafee’s bio in Wikipedia:

    “Born in Providence, Rhode Island [in 1953], Chafee attended Warwick public schools, Providence Country Day School and Phillips Academy. He earned a degree in Classics from Brown University in 1975, where he was captain of the wrestling team. After Brown, he attended the Montana State University horseshoeing school in Bozeman. For the next seven years he worked as a blacksmith at harness racetracks…”

    Upper class twit or muscular Christian???…you decide…lol.

  • JRS Jr. – For us moderates

    I’m moderate too, and I don’t want Lieberman to win.

    Moderates are now split on Lieberman! The center, I feel it shifting left.

    Self-labeling is fun.

    Tune in next week, when I try on libertarian, and then argue about the necessity of the Police State(and how it allows for more personal freedoms)! [In case of rainout, I will replay proclaiming myself to be a christian and then sermonize on the benefits of torture.]

    • Comments are closed.