Chafee, having dumped GOP, flirts with Obama
During his political career, Lincoln Chafee was perhaps the plainest example of what some GOPers contemptuously refer to as a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. Since losing his Senate seat in heavily Democratic Rhode Island in 2006, he's more than confirmed that moniker.
Last summer he left the GOP, re-registering as an unaffiliated voter in his home state. Now, he may be on the verge of burning whatever rickety bridge connects him to his former party.
Chafee, the Providence Journal recently reported, is on the cusp of casting a ballot for Barack Obama in Rhode Island's March 4 Democratic presidential primary.
Chafee was the sole Republican senator to vote against the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war, which would naturally tilt him toward Obama (who, in case your haven't heard, opposed that measure from his then-perch as a state senator in Illinois).
As the Journal article makes clear, Chafee views ...
the position taken on the Iraq resolution a political litmus test (meaning that there's no point in Hillary Clinton trying to woo him). Says the story:
In his upcoming book, Against the Tide [due April 1 from St. Martin’s Press], Chafee excoriates congressional Democrats who voted in 2002 to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
He writes: "Being wrong about sending Americans to kill and be killed, maim and be maimed, is not like making a punctuation mistake in a highway bill." Some leading Democrats "argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.''
He'll get no argument there from the Obama camp.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Will Democrats once again nominate a "I voted for it before I turned against it" candidate? Vote against political expediency. Vote against ambitious opportunism. Vote for Obama.
Posted by: Mike Davidson | February 11, 2008 at 06:27 PM
Chafee's always been a traditional Republican. It's the people like Cheney and Rove who are the RINOs - get rid of them!
Posted by: Tom J | February 11, 2008 at 07:18 PM
Obama should contact Chafe for an indorsment. That will help in Rhode Island
Posted by: King T | February 12, 2008 at 04:16 AM