{"id":2977,"date":"2004-11-09T09:24:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-09T14:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2977.html"},"modified":"2004-11-09T09:24:00","modified_gmt":"2004-11-09T14:24:00","slug":"chafee-reasserts-commitment-to-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/chafee-reasserts-commitment-to-gop\/","title":{"rendered":"Chafee reasserts commitment to GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) was sounding as if he was all but through with the Republican Party. He ruled out<\/a> support for Bush in the campaign, he couldn’t think of<\/a> a single area of agreement with the Bush administration, he admitted that he went to bed at night wondering<\/a> how he could remain a Republican, and when asked recently if he’d consider a party switch, he said, “I’m not ruling it out<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

That was when the Senate was split 51-49 and John Kerry appeared poised to replace Bush in the White House. Now Chafee has “reassessed” his conscience and made it crystal clear: he’s sticking with the party<\/a> with which he disagrees.<\/p>\n

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee said yesterday that he will remain in the Republican fold and “work hard to regain the support” of Republicans upset over his Election Day comments on his vote against President Bush and his consideration of a party switch.<\/p>\n

Chafee said he would also reach out to Mr. Bush “at the proper time,” adding, “I wouldn’t blame him if he were angry at me.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Yesterday the senator said, “I think it’s really important to Rhode Island that I caucus with the Republicans,” since the voters gave Mr. Bush a second term and bolstered the GOP’s majorities in the House and the Senate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bummer. Chafee practically had one foot out the door…right up until Republicans went +4 on Election Day.
\n
\nThe only good news is Chafee’s new-found commitment to his party isn’t exactly permanent.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he would now rule out leaving his party, Chafee said, “Yes, at this stage, that is my intention.” He explained that he is reluctant to pledge to remain a Republican “forever.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s take that as a “maybe.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, Chafee may find it easy to speak in broad generalities now, before Bush and the rest of the congressional GOP decide to start acting on their gay-bashing, Social Security-killing, and regressive-tax-cut passing agenda. If Dems make gains in ’06 and promise to let Chafee keep the seniority he’s built up, would Chafee’s “intentions” change? We’ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) was sounding as if he was all but through with the Republican Party. He ruled out support for Bush in the campaign, he couldn’t think of a single area of agreement with the Bush administration, he admitted that he went to bed at night wondering how he could remain a Republican, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}