**Update: A loyal FR reader just clued me in — apparently Dole is stepping down to be replaced by Nevada Senator John Ensign. A good sign as Ensign has shown his meddle – voting against the President’s medicare expansion plans. Excellent.**
Not too long ago, I posted a short rant on this site about my contempt for United States Senator 
Lincoln Chafee ("R"-Rhode Island). I put his "R" in quotes because this registered Republican votes with Democrats so often that it is disingenuous for him to be registered in the party of Ronald Reagan. He famously brags about how he didn’t cast a vote for President Bush in his last election battle with uber-liberal John Kerry. He also voted against confirming Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court.
When I wrote about him before, I was fuming because a strong Republican challenger emerged to go against Chafee in his primary (which makes sense, given his ultra-liberal record). The Republican Senatorial Committee, under the leadership of Senator Elizabeth Dole, of course backed Chafee in the primary — as part of the circular firing squad. Well, the money from Dole made the difference and Chafee emerged the winner in that battle.
Guess what? He lost the general election — probably because too many Republicans stayed home!
But that isn’t the best part — with just a couple of months left in office, Chafee today announced that he thinking about leaving the Republican Party all together. What a nice gesture, flipping a political middle finger at Liddy Dole. I guess there is some justice there.
The Republican Party needs to do some cleaning house. We have now learned that you cannot sustain a majority unless you can keep that majority on track with the policy goals of the party. Perhaps we need to start by identifying those "Republicans" that hurt more than they help, and introducing some free-market competition into their next GOP primaries. Food for thought.
Oh, and as for Chafee leaving the GOP — don’t let the door hit you on the way out, buddy.
And for good measure, shouldn’t Liddy Dole be stepping down from her RSCC post after all of these losses?
November 10th, 2006 at 12:00 am
According to Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner blog @ NRO, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman will also be stepping down. http://us.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/09/mehlman.steppingdown/
November 10th, 2006 at 12:00 am
His personal ideology completely set aside, “Linc” is a complete P.O.S. (I shouldn’t need to explain the acronym.) Despite his frequent personal attacks and slights to his party and its platform, that party poured massive resources – millions upon millions of dollars in mail and media buys, the personal power of the President in his primary, the hard work of many of his fellow GOP Senators – into trying to save him. Chafee is not only an ingrate, but an utterly undistinguished nonentity whose sole claim to power is his father’s name. If anyone deserved to have lost on Tuesday, it was him. Linc can swap the “U.S.S.” prefix for a new honorific: LOSER.
November 10th, 2006 at 12:00 am
It is too bad… his father John Chaffee was a fine
Secretary of the Navy and solid U.S. Senator. He was a
moderate liberal who never attacked his own party.
A class act.
But meanwhile… how do we get Tony Finchum back to California?
Your Golden State needs your inspiration!