Early Review of Primary Mistake

And speaking of books, the American Spectator has an early review of Steve Laffey's forthcoming book on the 2006 Rhode Island Senate campaign, Primary Mistake: How the Washington Republican Establishment Lost Everything in 2006 (and Sabotaged My Senatorial Campaign)…

A good portion of Primary Mistake is devoted to Laffey coming to terms with why, as an American citizen who met the constitutional requirements to serve in the Senate, people kept telling him he couldn't run. He recalls getting similar treatment when he first decided to run for mayor of Cranston: The party establishment told him he couldn't run because they already had a candidate…In the end, Laffey's story is really about the frequently ignored difference between the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Political parties are about winning elections and wielding power. Ideological movements are about ideas and values. Confuse the two and you wind up with something like the Chafee-Laffey primary contest.

Senate ‘06 Footnote: FEC Says Matt Brown Did Nothing Illegal

From Kate Bramson of the Projo’s 7-to-7 blog…

The Federal Election Commission says that the Democratic Party in three states did not break federal campaign contribution laws when they gave money to Rhode Island U.S. Senate candidate Matt Brown last year.

The Democratic Party in Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts funneled a total of $25,000 to Brown, who was then Rhode Island’s Secretary of State, in December 2005. He was seeking the Democratic Senate nomination.

The non-scandal (and Brown’s non-reaction to it) effectively ended former Secretary of State Brown’s U.S. Senate campaign.

Cynics will be tempted to say that this proves that campaign finance laws work exactly as intended by making political fundraising rules too onerous to be survived by candidates who are not incumbents or challengers hand-picked by party leadership.

Chafee/Bolton/Republican Party Footnote

For those still unconvinced that the national Republicans were as clueless as they seemed in this past election cycle, one convincing piece of evidence comes from syndicated columnist Robert Novak. Unbelievably, the White House was surprised by Senator Lincoln Chafee’s intransigence on confirming John Bolton as United Nations Ambassador...

The fecklessness at the White House in managing Bolton's nomination is exemplified by the feeling there to the end that Chafee could be brought along. Having poured money into Chafee's Rhode Island Republican primary campaign against a conservative challenger, Bush in private is furious over betrayal by the maverick Republican. Chafee's fellow GOP senators believe that if he were re-elected, he would have permitted Bolton's name to go to the Senate floor. Quirky to the end, Chafee says the Democratic election victory is reason to block Bolton.

Bleeding the (Blue)blood out of the New England GOP

First, the New York Times focuses the soft-filter lense on the now dwindling ranks of GOP moderates in New England and :

It was a species as endemic to New England as craggy seascapes and creamy clam chowder: the moderate Yankee Republican.

Dignified in demeanor, independent in ideology and frequently blue in blood, they were politicians in the mold of Roosevelt and Rockefeller: socially tolerant, environmentally enthusiastic, people who liked government to keep its wallet close to its vest and its hands out of social issues like abortion and, in recent years, same-sex marriage...

Then they let the moderates explain that they're the real conservatives:

Walter Peterson, a former New Hampshire governor and lifelong Republican, this year became the co-chairman of Republicans for John Lynch, the incumbent Democratic governor.

“What the people want is basically to feel like the candidates of a political party are working for the people, not just following some niche issues,” Mr. Peterson said. “The old traditional Republican Party was conservative on small government, efficient government; believed in supporting people to give them a chance at life but not having people on the dole; wanted a balanced budget; and on social issues they were moderate, tolerant, live and let live. They didn’t dislike somebody from other religious viewpoints.”

He continued, “That was the old-fashioned conservative, but the word conservative today has been bastardized.”

I'm afraid that Mr. Peterson is the one "bastardizing" the meaning of the word. His apparent complaint that today's conservatives "dislike [people] from other religious viewpoints” stands out as the primary difference in his functional description of "what it means to be a Republican" and that of most contemporary conservatives. Together with the linkage of "live and let live" with "moderate" and "tolerant"--such a neat little trick--the comment reveals that the real axe he and other moderates have to grind is that they look down their blue-veined noses at people who actually have a religious viewpoint. In short, live and let live unless you're a right wing, religious nut. Very tolerant of them.

As a practical, pragmatic and political matter, the various New England GOPs need to have a much bigger tent than their counterparts in, say, the south. Yet, they also have to recognize that the conservatives who are (seemingly) at the lower, rank-and-file level of the party are tired of being ignored. We're smart enough to realize that compromises have to be made. Maybe it's time that the bluebloods realize that, too.

Finally, the Times offers Senator Chafee as Exhibit "A":

I’m caught between the state party, which I’m very comfortable in, and the national party, which I’m not,” said Mr. Chafee, adding that he was considering the merits of “sticking it out and hoping the pendulum swings back.”

Sheesh, Senator. "Sticking it out"? Could he be any more complacent? If he really wants to hold elective office again, he has to be proactive, seize the bull by the horns and start working now. A good place to start would be to put his time and money where his rhetoric is and help build the RI GOP. Don't start waiting. Start doing. (And remember to be tolerant and open-minded, K?)

110th Senate Committee Assignments for Senators Reed and Whitehouse

According to John E. Mulligan on the Projo's Political Scene blog, committee assignments have been determined for the 110th Congress.

Senator-elect Sheldon Whitehouse has received seats on...

• Environment and Public Works
• Judiciary
• Select Committee on Intelligence
• Budget

Two quick thoughts: 1) With the appointment to the Judiciary Committee, it looks like some of the spotlight will continue to be on Rhode Island during Supreme Court nominations. 2) If there is any hope that Senator-elect Whitehouse will not govern as the complete hard-lefty that he campaigned as, it will initially come through his work on the Intelligence Committee.

Senator Jack Reed's committee assignments are...

• Appropriations
• Armed Services
• Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
• Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Senator Chafee: The Gift That Keeps on Giving, Again & Again

Here we go again...

After the post entitled Senator Chafee: The Gift That Keeps on Giving, most of us thought the psychodramas would die down. Silly us.

With a H/T to Jim in the comments section of the earlier post, comes the Investor Business Daily editorial Lincoln's Assassination.

Then there was Holding to the Center, Losing My Seat , a Chafee editorial in the NYTimes.

Patrick Casey said it best: "In the end, Rhode Islanders preferred a real registered Democrat over one who just pretended to be one."

Goose, Meet Gander

From yesterday's Meet the Press interview transcript with Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut...

MR. RUSSERT: Jim Jeffords of Vermont crossed over and joined the Democrats.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: And they gave -- they gave him his committee chairmanship.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: You're, you're not ruling that out at some future time?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I'm not ruling it out, but I hope I don?t get to that point?

Earlier in the interview, Senator Lieberman did reject the idea of any immediate switch to the Republican party...

MR. RUSSERT: You will caucus with the Democrats?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I will caucus with the Democrats. I said that to my constituents throughout. I'm going to caucus with the Democrats both because it's good for my constituents in Connecticut, because I retained my seniority, I become a committee chair, but also I want to continue to work to bring the party back to its historic traditions of, of strength on national security, foreign policy and innovation, and progress in domestic policy -- the, the Harry Truman/John F. Kennedy Democrat that, that I was raised to be.

Senator Lieberman is now the independent maverick swing vote on the Senate's Homeland Security, Armed Services, Environment and Public Works and Small Business committees.

Senator Chafee: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

I previously wrote about the policy reasons behind my decision not to vote for either Chafee or Whitehouse in this week's U.S. Senate race.

Then there was the word that Chafee might not stay a Republican after all.

Now comes the re-affirmation that Chafee will indeed continue to block the nomination of John Bolton:

Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse on Tuesday, told reporters in Rhode Island that he would continue opposing Bolton. That would likely deny Republicans the votes needed to move Bolton's nomination from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the full Senate.

"The American people have spoken out against the president's agenda on a
number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy," Chafee
said. "And at this late stage in my term, I'm not going to endorse
something the American people have spoke out against."...

And how much did the Republican establishment spend on this Senator? For what end?

John Podhoretz, writing over at The Corner, writes about a New York Times article on the U.N. ambassador position:

Who has made it impossible for John Bolton to be confirmed by the Senate? Lincoln Chafee. Who has recently said he may not remain a Republican notwithstanding the millions upon millions of dollars spent by the Republican party to retain his seat? Lincoln Chafee. Who, therefore, in the delusional estimation of a New York Times reporter, might be John Bolton's replacement at the U.N.? Lincoln Chafee! "Names that have been floated both inside and outside the administration," writes reporter Helene Cooper in a risible piece today, "include Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq; Philip D. Zelikow, the State Department counselor; Paula Dobriansky, under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs; and even Mr. Chafee."

Left-wing editorializing masquerading as a news article - yet another example of the high standards at the NY Times.

Isn't it interesting how the definition of compromise post-election has been defined by the Left as capitulation on matters of principle?

One of the reason some of us are pleased that the Democrats now control the Congress is that they are now heavily accountable for American public policies in the next two years going into the 2008 elections. We will now get to see what they are really made up of. Simplistic knee-jerk negative reactions to President Bush will no longer cut it.

What Were We Just Saying About Lincoln Chafee and the RIGOP?

Following shortly on Andrew's recent post, What a Friend of the Editor of The New Republic Heard During a Rally in Rhode Island, comes Thanks for All That Cash, Liddy, But... over at The Corner, with a link to this Boston Globe article:

Two days after losing a bid for a second term in an election seen as a referendum on President Bush and the Republican Party, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he'd remain a Republican...

When asked if his comments meant he thought he might not belong in the Republican Party, he replied: "That's fair."

You don't think this might lead some people to say "I told you so," do you?

In the meantime, Patrick Casey writes about Chafee and the RIGOP inThe Post Election Canonization of Linc Chafee over at Sixers:

Glad to see that the Republican Party spent its money wisely in Rhode Island. The 53%-47% loss suffered by Senator Lincoln Chafee yesterday was well deserved by a party that had forsaken ideas and good government for a quest for raw power. There was not a single issue discussed seriously in this year�s Chafee-Whitehouse match-up other than who hated Bush and his policies more. In the end, Rhode Islanders preferred a real registered Democrat over one who just pretended to be one.

By putting forth a candidate like Steve Laffey, Republicans could have guaranteed a race in Rhode Island where issues like the economy could have been discussed. The fact that we currently have a great economy, and the way we got to it, was lost to Rhode Islanders this election cycle. The fact that our goal in Iraq and the Middle East is noble, and the fact that in wartime sometimes mistakes are made and things take longer than we would like, was lost in the battle between who was more anti-war and anti-Bush � Chafee or Whitehouse. Talking about these things in the Senate race would have given us the opportunity for those ideas to have trickled down to other candidates � and blunted the effect of the "I hate Bush � No, I hate him more" mantra from both parties a little bit.

The pseudo-Republican/No Ideas Party that we have here in Rhode Island was destroyed last night, hopefully...

Rhode Islanders had no real choices this election cycle. It was, from the Senate down to the individual State Representative seats, a series of races between Democrats and Republicans whose party platform is to pretend to be nicer than the real Democrats. Disgraceful.

But not as disgraceful than this morning's love letter to Chafee by 'reporter' John E. Mulligan, A citizen-senator to the end, where the sycophantic author actually compared Chafee to the Founding Fathers approvingly.

At least in the national Republican Party you have a considerable base of officeholders and ideas that you can build on. In Rhode Island we have to start from scratch.

The RIGOP does have to be rebuilt from scratch as they are the single most inept political party I have ever seen in my lifetime.

Numbers from the Senate Race...

US Senate: (84.1% of precints reporting)

Lincoln Chafee	145,125	46.7%
Sheldon Whitehouse	165,482	53.3%

To catch up, Chafee needs to win�

• 65.8% of the remaining vote, if 375,000 people voted.
• 61.4% of the remaining vote, if 400,000 people voted.
• 58.9% of the remaining vote, if 425,000 people voted.

It's over.

Exit Poll Rumors Trickling Out Showing Whitehouse With The Lead

I jumped the gun just a bit with my previous post. Both The New Republic and National Review Online have obtained a first round of exit polls results�

• New Republic source 1, Whitehouse 55.4%, Chafee 44.6%
• New Republic source 2 and probably National Review source 1, Whitehouse 53%, Chafee 46%

Ryan Lizza of TNR, commenting on the overall picture from multiple states, comments �they seem too pro-Dem to be true�.

What a Friend of the Editor of The New Republic Heard During a Rally in Rhode Island

As is conveyed in the title of this post, what follows is hearsay, but hearsay that comes from Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, who stands to lose a good deal of professional credibility if it is discovered that he is just making things up about a candidate in a close race on the night before an election. Here is what Mr. Foer posted to �The Plank�, TNR's group blog�

LINC BATS HIS EYELASHES:

I have a friend in Rhode Island--a Democrat torn between his affections for Lincoln Chafee and his desire to make Harry Reid majority leader. Over the weekend, my friend attended a Chafee event and cornered the senator. Now, my friend doesn't have a personal relationship with Chafee, but he put the question bluntly to him: Why should I stick with you in a race with so many national implications? Chafee pulled my friend aside, lowered his voice, and told him that he might not be a Republican for much longer.

This is just one report. Take it for whatever its worth.

--Franklin Foer

If I have missed some statement by Senator Chafee during this campaign where he has pledged not to leave the Republican party, please post a reference in the comments or send me an e-mail and I will place it in the main body of this post right away.

UPDATE:

Senator Chafee was pretty clear in an interview with ABC�s George Stephanopoulos earlier this year�

George Stephanopoulos: �Are you committed, though, to voting for a Republican for majority leader, to voting for Republican committee chairmen?�

Senator Lincoln Chafee: �Yes, running as a Republican, I�m not going to have it both ways. I�m running as a Republican and that�s the party I�ll support.�

So it comes down to this...

Don is going to "No Vote" and Justin is going to hold his nose and color in the Whitehouse arrow. I admire them for their ideological courage and consistency and for their honest explanations of why they're doing what they're doing.

Immediately after the primary, I was resigned toward the "pragmatic" solution of holding my own nose and voting for Chafee.

I'm as idealistic as the next conservative, but also recognize that there is a time for idealism and a time for pragmatism. For two years, I've attempted to rebut the pragmatic reasons for supporting Senator Chafee in the primary--he's more electable and he can vouchsafe a GOP controlled (and thus more conservative) U.S. Senate--by offering arguments rooted in conservative beliefs.

For me, the primary is the best time to argue over the ideas that should undergird a political party and in this primary I tried to convince Rhode Island Republicans the value of maintaining conservative ideals against practical politics. In the end, I was unsuccessful. It was a spirited debate, but ideas lost and pragmatism won. It's disappointing, but now pragmatism will simply have to be enough.

That last "will" should have been a "may." Two months later, and I'm not so sure. Yes, it's a sad commentary on the choices, but how does a conservative weigh short term objectives versus hoped-for long term goals? After all, if Whitehouse does win, what are the chances he'll ever be voted out in incumbent-loving li'l Rhody?

Or does it really just come down to punishing one whom you feel has served you poorly (Chafee) by either not voting for him (a swing of the electoral hammer) or the exponential act of voting for his opponent (a swing of the electoral sledgehammer)?

So what am I going to do? For the first time in my voting life, I actually don't know who I'm voting for before election day. It could be a long night.

The Rhode Island U.S. Senate Race: Advocating for Change by Staying on the Sidelines

This is a post I began writing on September 12, right after the primary vote had been counted. Not wanting to write anything rash after a hotly contested election, I chose to reflect on its contents for several months - expanding my thoughts as new events added more perspective.

First, a few reminders from the past: I have expressed admiration for Mayor Laffey's personal life story but expressed doubts about his decision to run for the U.S. Senate and was highly critical of his energy and healthcare public policy positions even as I agreed with many of his other policy stances. Near the end of the Republican primary timetable, I reiterated how both candidates were a letdown and reiterated some rather blunt criticism of Mayor Laffey's policy recommendations. In other words, I am not writing this post as a highly partisan Laffey fan.

Along the way, the Republican Senate National Committee showed that its core was the preservation of its own power for the sake of power rather than the articulation of any meritorious principles. If the national and state GOP offer no principled reasons to stand with them, then they are no different than any other political party and deserve to be abandoned as I have said here.

So where are we today, one day before the election?

I have no respect for Sheldon Whitehouse. To say he has a track record of even limited accomplishments would be kind. To say that he articulates a vision in this race - other than personal animus toward President Bush - would be wildly generous. And then there is his insufferable personal style.

But I cannot vote for Lincoln Chafee and have made the decision to stay on the sidelines for the U.S. Senate race in Tuesday's vote.

There are three major policy reasons for my decision:

DOMESTIC FISCAL & TAX POLICIES

I disagree with Chafee on nearly every major fiscal and tax policy issue of importance as he frequently votes with Democrats and is part of the PAYGO crowd. The PAYGO advocates are intellectually dishonest when they refuse to acknowledge that budget deficits have never been due to a lack of tax revenues. Rather, deficits have always been a result of uncontrolled spending and PAYGO is nothing less than a trojan horse for further undisciplined spending. Chafee's fiscal and tax policies are not that dissimilar from Democrat policies.

More specifically, Chafee apparently doesn't grasp that it is incentives which drive human behavior and the validity of supply-side economics (see here and follow the links at the bottom) is directly attributable to its recognition of the importance of such incentives. If you want even more empirical data, read this excellent article by Arthur Laffer, in which he presents historical data on the effects of marginal tax cuts from the Harding-Coolidge (1920's), Kennedy (1960's) and Reagan (1980's) eras - which also turn out to be the three times of greatest economic growth in the last 100 years.

Unlike those of us who are entrepreneurs from places like Silicon Valley and have created jobs and wealth through innovation and hard work, PAYGO is a philosophy that - not surprisingly - is frequently associated with some Northeast liberal Republicans whose world view is more influenced by the personal experience of clipping coupons than having to meet a payroll.

(For more particulars on the logic problems of PAYGO, go here, here, and here.)

FOREIGN POLICY

We are at war with Islamic fascists who seek the destruction of America. Some have responded to this battle of our lifetime with clarion calls for standing tall, like Senator Santorum did here.

Yet, in this difficult time, all Chafee can offer us on foreign policy issues is contradictory and incoherent views:

After the first three Republican Senate debates, Senator Lincoln Chafee left voters with three seemingly incompatible views of foreign policy�

A flirtation with pacifism ("A bad peace is better than a good war"),

Support for isolationism ("Fear of foreign entanglements"), and

Support for American hegemony ("A world where America is the strongest country in a peaceful world").

His broader views on the Middle East are - to be kind - befuddled.

And, during a time when North Korea is exploding nuclear bombs and Iran is actively developing nuclear weapon capabilities, Chafee unilaterally derailed the nomination of U.N. ambassador John Bolton - even after Bolton had shown, by his on-the-job performance, a level of sophisticated and stalwart leadership so desperately needed.

In other words, Chafee has neither the beliefs nor the personal fortitude to give a speech like Senator Santorum did. Like many Democrats on the national stage, Chafee articulates a confused and unrooted world view at a time of danger in our nation's history.

THE PROPER ROLE FOR OUR JUDICIARY

The Republican-controlled Senate has not distinguished itself on many, many issues. In fact, the only reason to argue for why it is important for the Senate to stay Republican is so a different sort of judge will continue to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

Yet, Chafee voted against the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court and opposed other Bush-nominated judges. And that makes him no different than Rhode Island having another Democrat senator or turning control of the Senate over to the Democrats.

In this way, Chafee is aligned with left-wing fundamentalists who seek to portray the debate about judges as a struggle between left-wing and right-wing judicial activists. Which just proves how they don't get it.

An alternative viewpoint is highlighted in Moving Beyond Loyalty to the Rule of Law Mixes Law & Politics, where I wrote about the importance of rediscovering the proper and limited role of the judiciary as envisioned by our Founders and how "conservatives were not simply seeking to confirm judges who will be activists - albeit conservative ones - from the bench." More on this alternative judicial philosophy can be found in the numerous links at the bottom of the preceding post as well as here.

GRAVITAS

In addition to disagreeing with Chafee on these three important policy areas, there is also a gravitas issue. Writing in President Bush's father in the 2004 presidential race - and talking about it publicly - while taking money and support from the very party he disdains is an example of unprincipled opportunism, not gravitas. And that is why this quote from a Pittsburgh editorial about Senator Rick Santorum's opponent in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race pretty well defines my view of Chafee:

But, first, allow us to dispatch, quickly, with Santorum's Democrat challenger, Bobby Casey Jr.: There's no "there" there.

We can't even say Mr. Casey, the state treasurer, is one of those fellas who says everything but says nothing; he simply doesn't say much of anything. And when he does speak, it's so passive and intellectually vapid that silence would have been more engaging and informative.

For all of these reasons, I will not vote for Chafee tomorrow. And, unlike Chafee himself, I won't try to be cute and write in his late father's name. Nope, what Chafee will get from me tomorrow is the deadly silence of one no vote.

Keep Chafee... Out of the Senate

That is the slogan that will determine my vote tomorrow. Under the present circumstances, there could be no worse outcome than to reinforce Republicans' belief that we must keep them in power regardless of their beliefs and behavior.

Frankly, I disagree with Orson Scott Card. "A chance" that Republicans will get the War on Terror right in the face of the palpable wrongness of Democrats is not good enough. Republicans must learn that the opposition's absolute looniness does not amount to a get-into-office free card, and more importantly, Democrats must learn that trafficking in insanity is not acceptable among our nation's leaders. To answer the first imperative, the Republicans must suffer electoral hardship. To answer the second, the Democrats must be given some responsibility — even with (perhaps especially with) the expectation that they will not live up to it.

The Rhode Island Senate race consists entirely of this choice: Either it is better that Lincoln Chafee wins, or it is better that he loses. As much as I sympathize with the poetic justice of a write-in vote, that route strikes me as passive negligence. Either Chafee should win, or he should lose. Standing aside and allowing your vote to be thrown in an "other" pile shirks the responsibility to make a decision. Chafee in, or Chafee out.

The Democrats could not have given us a better temporary repository of undeserved power on their side of the race.

There is really only one possible interpretation of Republican ballots that go toward Sheldon Whitehouse, and mine will be one.

Chafee out.

Public Poll Shows Chafee and Whitehouse Neck-and-Neck

Since there�s not much policy difference between the candidates to discuss in the RI Senate race, we might as well mention the horserace news.

A Mason-Dixon poll released over the weekend (link via WJAR-TV NBC 10) showed incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee with a one-point lead over challenger Sheldon Whitehouse. Someone in the Whitehouse campaign and/or the Democratic Party must believe that the race has closed to a dead heat; according to Steve Peoples of the Projo�s 7-to-7 blog, former President Bill Clinton has been directed to Rhode Island for an unscheduled-as-of-last-week visit back to RI to try to give the Whitehouse campaign one last jolt.

Is Sheldon Whitehouse�s refusal to answer the Chafee campaign�s charges of being soft-on-corruption taking its toll, with Sheldon Whitehouse playing the role of Matt Brown, but in slower motion? Or is it simply that the Whitehouse�s highly partisan campaign strategy � vote for me because I�m a Democrat and Democrats are good � hit its ceiling early on (after all, people have been pretty sure about who the Democrat in this race from the start)? And with the race tightening, do disaffected conservative voters have cause reconsider their positions? About 384,000 people voted in the RI Senate race in 2000. About 30,000 people voted for Steve Laffey this year. If turnout is similar to 2000, and half of Laffey�s voters leave their Senate ballots blank, that�s a swing of about 2% in Whitehouse�s direction, enough to change a potential 51%-49% victory to a 49%-51% loss.

Chafee/Whitehouse Neck and Neck?

Rich Lowry of National Review says internal polls are showing that the Chafee/Whitehouse race is much closer than any publicly released poll is showing�

This is what I'm hearing about GOP internals: In MO, Talent has now had two good nights in a row. He's up by two in the three-day average, up five in the two-day. In NJ, Kean is hanging in there, just down by two in the two-day. In MD, unfortunately, there's no sign yet that it's happening for Steele�he slipped a little from the night before. OH and PA, of course, are gonzo. In TN, Corker is up by one, but the public polls show him with a much bigger lead. In the internals, he continues to have just a slightly better fav/unfav than Ford. In RI�is this good or bad news?�Chafee is right there with Whitehouse, just .1 behind in last night's track. Finally, there's VA, where it's not looking so great. Webb was leading last night, and is leading in the two-day. (Sorry, nothing from MT.)

I�m assuming by �.1�, Lowry means 1 point down, or else Senator Chafee would be in the "gonzo" category.

I doubt, however, that any pollster knows how to take into account the effects the casino get-out-the-vote effort is going to have.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

On the other hand, Senator Chafee claimed yesterday that his campaign is so broke, they're not actually doing any polls. From Steve Peoples of the Projo's new Political Scene blog...

"I am going to confess that we are so broke we are not polling," Chafee said this afternoon at the Federal Reserve restaurant, when repeatedly asked about his internal polling numbers. "We are using all our resources to influence voters."

Most competitive federal candidates continuously run internal polls to gauge where they stand....

Chafee said his campaign is depending on another campaign's internal polls for information, though he wouldn't acknowledge which one.

Lincoln Chafee is...

...Myrth York's kind of Republican, so she's endorsed him. Add her to the list of "Progressive" groups that have endorsed the Senator. Too little, too late? According the latest polls, it might be ('course, that is a link to Zogby...).

Is Pragmatism Enough for the Ideologically-Minded?

I'm burnt out on this year's elections, so it was by pure chance that I happened upon the tail end of the last debate between Senator Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse last night. It's really become an election by and for syllogistic simpletons, hasn't it? Like most other Democrats, Whitehouse is running against BUSH. Like many Republicans, Chafee is running away from BUSH. That is really what their messages have become. Plus, both are bluebloods and to hear each tell it, the other is either corrupt and wishy-washy or inept and wishy-washy. You decide who is speaking about whom. I can't tell the difference anymore. Truth be told, I never could. What a choice...

But there is a difference between them, I suppose.

You see, if I were to take off my ideological lense and go all pragmatic on your a**es, I'd have to say that the "average Rhode Island voter" (whover she may be) would probably benefit more by sending Senator Chafee back to Washington. Tenured incumbents really do deliver for their constituents, after all. As much as fiscal conservative's hate to admit it, one persons "pork" is another's "special project" and multi-term incumbents are the most effective purveyors of pork. And most of their constituents won't take them to task for directing millions of dollars their way. In fact, and unfortunately, that's exactly what many folks think a politician's job is: to get other people's money to help improve our backyard.

Another related argument, and one made by Senator Chafee, is that having at least one Republican in our otherwise Democrat-dominated national political delegation is smart politics. That way, Rhode Island will always have at least one elected official who will be in the party in power in Washington, D.C. Hard to argue with the technical logic, though what benefit can be accrued is directly related to the ability of said politician to "deliver" the goods when his party is in power.

Based largely upon the aforementioned pragmatic reasons, I've narrowed my decision down to "No-voting" in the Senate race or voting for Senator Chafee. But is pragmatism enough? Aren't there any ideologically conservative justifications that can be summoned to legitmize supporting either Chafee or Whitehouse?

I've come to believe that, regardless of how this election turns out, any hope held by RI conservatives that we can somehow move the ideological ball toward us by electing or not electing either of these two candidates is unfounded. I believe that if Senator Chafee were to emerge victorious, he would be so politically tempered that it will be well-nigh impossible for anyone to beat him, whether in a primary or general election. That is bad news for conservatives.

By the same token, I believe that should Sheldon Whitehouse take the seat, the power of incumbency would serve him well and Rhode Islanders would get used to the idea of having an all Democrat delegation. Then there would be no turning back. Now, I suppose Mayor Laffey or even Governor Carcieri might have a shot in beating Whitehouse 6 years on, so maybe I'm being overly-pessimistic, but given the "navy blue" of the RI electorate (H/T: Maureen Moakley on the last Lively Experiment), I think my pessimism is justified.

Thus, electing either Chafee or Whitehouse will do nothing to help the conservative cause in RI in either the short or long term. Basically, we're screwed on this front, kids, and will be better served to look elsewhere for any conservative movement opportunities.

But back to the reality of the senate race. Like it or not, conservatives simply can't apply the standard set of ideological benchmarks to this race. If we're going to vote, we need to put ideology aside and vote based on other factors. For me, right now, I still don't know whether I'm going to swallow hard and vote for a liberal blueblood Republican or "check out" of the process and let the rest of the electorate decide who their (my) Senator is going to be. It will come down to me standing in the booth looking at that ballot and which decision will allow me to live with my conscience.

A New Blog on the RI Scene (from a distance)

Four student journalists from the University of Richmond (no, Rhode Islanders, that's Richmond, Virginia,) are covering the '06 Senate race in our little ol' state at Rhode Island Senate Central: Voices in the 2006 Senate Election.

The Intraconservative Debate Kicks into Gear

Over in the Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez takes up the call of pro-Republican conservatives:

You'd just be a punk (I'm just borrowing Mona's reader's word ) if you actually care about issues like activist judges, abortion (today there is still not a ban on partial-birth abortion, still held up in court), marriage, but stay home on Election Day. ...

Yes, earmarks suck. And I'm not defending Republican congressional performance across the board by any stretch. But not only are we at war but we have core domestic societal issues that are not going away. Don't expect matters to get better under Democratic leadership. Don't kid yourself about the impact of staying home or protest voting. As Mona notes, largescale Republican losses will not be interpreted as simply conservative frustration over spending (and Internet gambling?).

Perhaps it is indicative of time's acceleration as I age, but I simply can't rev myself to feel as if a two-year, or even four-year, or even six-year election cycle is of dire consequence. With the War on Terror, Social Security, Immigration, and the whole slate of Culture War issues, the best we can hope for — the best we should hope for, especially when the "we" is conservatives — is gradual, long-term change. Democrat victories will not be decisive on any of these matters, but continued Republican control will arguably be dilatory. It is a legitimate, and as-yet unrebutted, conclusion among conservatives that a short-term loss may be in our long-term interests.

I say "unrebutted," but Lopez and Mona Charon do make allusion. Here's Charon, from a post with the telling title "But What Will the Pundits Say Later?":

And yet, of course, though many bitter conservatives may do just that, the post-election analysis — assuming a big Democratic win — will be "rejection of the Iraq War," push back against Bush's war on civil liberties, blah, blah. Few will interpret the results to mean Republicans and the Bush White House disappointed the base by failing to hold the line on earmarks.

Personally, I'm much less concerned about what the pundits will say than what the Republicans will believe, and I think they're much too shrewd to miss the effect of party-base attrition. Circumstances may differ in other states, but in our home state of Rhode Island, a Chafee victory will stand as evidence that he does not need to court conservatives in order to win. A Chafee loss due to "bitter conservatives," however, will carry the lesson that, while Republicans may not win significantly in this state, they sure as Sheldon aren't going to without our votes.

ADDENDUM:
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds provides further evidence that American bipartisan democracy has progressed from "least bad" voting to "least nauseating" voting:

As I mentioned before, the Republicans don't really deserve my vote -- though as Bob Corker hasn't been in Washington that's not really his fault -- but nonetheless the Democrats have blown it again. Not long ago I was thinking that a Democratic majority in Congress wouldn't be so bad; but the sexual McCarthyism from the pro-outing crowd, coupled with the Dems' steadfast refusal to offer anything useful on national security, has convinced me that they just don't deserve a victory with those tactics. That's not Ford's fault, either, really. But I just don't think the Democrats are ready for a majority right now. We'll see how many other voters agree.

Writing from the land of Chafee/Whitehouse, I have to admit a certain envy of those choosing between Corker and Ford. However, perhaps it is because I believe our Democrat in the race would be so spectacularly uninspiring that I'm inclined to respond to Reynolds' opinion that "the Democrats are [not] ready for a majority right now" by saying, "exactly."

The healthiest outcome, of course, would be for the Democrats to undermine the Republicans' ability to stray so far toward political self-interest by returning to representative sanity. That the Democrats actually appear to moving away from this wide open field, running the political race with two left feet, as it were, suggests that their understanding of the current landscape — of the world, of reality — is fundamentally flawed. Given the long-term nature of just about every issue currently facing us, I'm not sure it wouldn't be worth letting them drive for a few years in order to inspire more sober minds to refocus.

The Sounds of Silence

I've so thoroughly checked out of the current RI Senate race that I didn't even realize there was a debate last night. Ah well....the ProJo has it covered.

I suppose no one can really be surprised that the conservatives hereabouts have taken, at best, lukewarm interest in a race between Patrician "A" and Patrician "B" in which both try their hardest to show how unconservative (ie; "anti-Bush") they are.

Patrician "A" owes his current electoral viability to the political groundgame orchestrated by the advisors of the President he currently castigates. Meanwhile, Patrician "B" offers no really new ideas and has basically chiseled his whole campaign down to the core theme that a vote for his opponent is a vote for BUSH. It's politics as a game of "I know you are but what am I?" It's certainly not a debate over political ideas and is really all about winning political power for its own sake. That's fine, but it's not very interesting to me. But, heck, if you're interested, feel free to comment.

UPDATE: Chuck Nevola is a more intrepid man than I and has more analysis here.

Whitehouse Supports Carcieri?

While running errands on my way home from work yesterday afternoon, I heard Sheldon Whitehouse explain to Dan Yorke's radio listeners that balance between the parties is important in the federal government (from part 2 of Yorke's streaming audio):

... right now the Republicans have a monopoly on power in Washington. They do not provide any significant check on George Bush and his administration. They're trying to create what is essentially an accountability-free zone down in Washington for George Bush's policies. And it's the most partisan and toughest, meanest group you've ever seen. And the only way — you know, for six years people have had a chance to have them listen to other ideas, or to have them come and work with the Democrats on solutions to problems, but when they have all the power, and they don't want to listen, and they don't want to work with people, there's only one way back. And that's to make sure that the institutions of government in Washington are balanced, and in fact that there's some Democratic aspect to this.

One very disappointing observation about Whitehouse's performance — especially in context of the broader Democrat message — is that the Democrats are not asking why American voters have taken all majority power away from them. Oh, you get the standard allusions to fear-mongering on the part of the Republicans, but that only emphasizes the absence of any admission of the responsibility that an active opposition party inherently must claim. It only emphasizes that the Democrats are essentially fear-mongering in turn, with, as Yorke pointed out, the Republicans as the villains.

He may do so only out of necessity, but at least Chafee is willing to discuss the trends and shifts within his own party and explain where he sees his role as being. The fact that the Democrats won't even hint at the possibility of evaluating their own trends and shifts explicitly to "bring voters back" within their fold — nevermind correcting problems within their own party — is worrisome.

My second observation of Whitehouse's appeal to the distribution of power is that, in taking up such a message, Rhode Island Democrats are walking a very fine line. To the extent that it has merit with respect to the federal government, it has at least an equivalent degree with respect to our state government. If they succeed at implanting that principle — that mode of political thought — in voters' minds, they will undermine Charlie Fogarty's campaign for governor.

Personally, I think that would be a positive development; for Rhode Islanders, Governor Carcieri's loss would be much more damaging than Senator Chafee's.

What the Heck...Even More Poll Numbers!

(Heads Up--or Nota Bene for the cultured sort--Andrew and I were obviously working the same story and posted them within 1 minute of each other. This proves we Anchor Rising Contributors don't collude!!!! I kept my post up because of the wonderfully witty and pithy observations....but I did truncate most of it to the "extended" section.)

As noted in the comments to my earlier "poll post" {and Andrew's new post--MAC} a new Brown poll (Darrell West) is out, with some encouraging numbers for both Governor Carcieri and Senator Chafee.

Governor

Carcieri (R) - 50%
Fogarty (D) - 38%

U.S. Senate

Whitehouse (D) - 40%
Chafee (R) - 39%
Undecided - 21 %

Note: The sample was 578 likely voters taken from September 16-18 (over the weekend) and has a margin of error of +/- 4%.

Editorial note: First, notice how this poll was taken (responsibly, imo) a few days after the contentious primary. Second, it's my strictly anecdotal understanding that polls that sample over the weekend favor Democrats. Third, there can be no doubt in which direction these two races are trending as the average voter starts paying attention: toward the incumbents.

Now, for some numbers regarding other races of import:

Lieutenant Governor

Roberts (D) - 34%
Centracchio (R) - 30%
Healey (CM) - 11%
Undecided - 25%

Attorney General

Lynch (D) - 57%
Harsch (R) - 24%

Secretary of State

Stenhouse (R) - 35%
Mollis (D) - 30%
Undecided - 35%

Treasurer

Caprio (D) - 43%
Lyon (R) - 18%
Undecided - 39%

Congress (RI-2)

Langevin (D) - 60%
Driver (I) - 21%
Undecided - 19%

Congress (RI-1)

Kennedy (D) - 60%
Scott (R) - 25%
Undecided - 15%

Casino Amendment

Oppose - 55%
Approve - 36
Undecided - 9%

Note: Of these, according to West, 66%:

...think there should be competitive bidding on the right to operate a gambling casino in West Warwick, while 27 percent do not.

When asked their thoughts about this casino, 75 percent claim it would result in people betting money they can't afford to bet, 61 percent feel it would boost tourism in the state, 60 percent believe it would create more gambling addicts, 59 percent it would create meaningful jobs, 55 percent feel it would reduce revenues the state gets from gaming at Lincoln Park and Newport Grand, 47 percent think it would benefit the Rhode Island economy, 51 percent say it would increase crime rates, 42 percent think it would raise the level of organized crime activity in the state, 39 percent believe it would help reduce taxes, and 36 percent say it would harm the hotel and entertainment industry in Providence.

Hmmmm. Methinks Harrah's has just increased their advertising budget for the next few weeks.

What the Heck...Here's Some Poll Numbers

The ProJo has a story about the latest Rasmussen poll that offers a snapshot of where we stand in the races for Governor and U.S. Senate 7 weeks out from the General Election (actually 8 weeks, the poll was taken last week).

Governor

Carcieri (R) - 47%
Fogarty (D) - 45%

U.S. Senate

Whitehouse (D) - 51%
Chafee (R) - 43%

Note: The sample was 500 likely voters taken a day after the primaries and has a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.

Editorial note: How likely are "likely" voters to vote in an off-year election? With regards to the Senate race: how seriously to take numbers gathered a day after one of the most negative and contested primaries in recent memory?

Controlling the Tides

There have been times, over the past year, when I've felt compelled, in public and private intra–Anchor Rising discussions, to defend commenter Anthony. This is how he reciprocates:

If you can't vote for Chafee over Sheldon Whitehouse, you are not a Republican. You are not a conservative. You are just a disgruntled, pathetic sore loser.

Granted that, in his comment, Anthony is not addressing me directly, but a personal insult is no less personal for being broadly cast. What anybody who has read Anchor Rising for more than the past few weeks should know and keep in mind is that I am manifestly not a "Laffey guy," as some would have it now. Indeed, until very recently, I was pretty much intending to sitting out the primaries.

I long ago resolved never to vote for Linc Chafee, but my handling of his opponents remains an open question. Whatever votes I cast from here on out, while they may result in part from disgruntlement, will not be spurred by the sting of Laffey's loss.

The closing weeks and months of the primary emphasized for me two considerations:

• I am unimpressed with the national Republicans' leadership.
• I am beyond unimpressed with the Rhode Island GOP.

Chafee is central to perpetuating both of these factors. In the former case, his vacillation and liberal contrariness weaken the hands of those whose policies I would support, and it was on his behalf that the National Republican Senatorial Committee lay bare its ugly lust for power. In the latter case, he contributes credibility to an uncredible organization — emboldening those invested in the status quo of a me-too "alternative" party in the state.

With increasing obviousness over the past fifteen years, we have been heading into a critical time for national security. The decades to come will also be critical for the fiscal security of the United States and its citizens. And throughout it all, technology and the berserker gasps of moral relativism will make it crucial, during the next half-century, to reinforce the bulwark principles of our culture.

Although I had been drawn in to what may prove to have been a period of conservative fantasy that problems might actually be solved following the dreamlike false peace of the previous decade, the palliative of power among our leaders has begun to convince me that calamity is inevitable. Moreover, the longer we postpone the inevitable, the worse it may be. And whether the damage is maximal or not, a change in leadership will come.

Now that he's actually begun to put his face forward in the campaign, my opinion of Sheldon Whitehouse is that the Democrats could not have chosen a better incumbent to be overthrown down the road. (His last name isn't even Kennedy.) Even a coworker of mine who is a reflexive Democrat, from a demographic that has been ill served by its support for that party yet has hardly changed its voting habits, mocks Whitehouse's presentation in his commercials.

I'm open to arguments that I should only inflict one negative for Chafee on election day (i.e., the not vote) rather than two (the not vote plus the opponent vote). I'm increasingly persuaded, however, that there may be something of hope in the odor of stale baby powder and pressed silk against which I will have to hold my nose should I fill in the arrow for the trust-funded Democrat at the top of my ballot.

Washington Post: Go Negative To Win

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post sums up Rhode Island�s Republican Primary as follows (h/t RI Future)�

[Winner] Republican Turnout Operation: Say what you will about President Bush's dismal approval ratings and the toxic national political environment for his party. But once again, Republicans showed they know how to turn out the voters they need to win elections. They made nearly 200,000 voter contacts in the final 11 days of the Rhode Island Senate campaign and the state was flooded with staff from around the country. For all the criticism -- much of it spot-on -- that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has received this cycle, the organization deserve major kudos for its work here. In addition to the ground game, the NRSC spent heavily on an ad campaign to bolster Chafee and weaken Laffey. It worked. Chafee's victory over the more conservative Laffey puts Republicans a much better position to hold this seat in November�.

[Loser] Positive Ads: Laffey's refusal to attack Chafee on television in the Rhode Island primary race played a major role in his loss. While Chafee's campaign bashed the Cranston Mayor on television, Laffey ran NOT ONE negative (or comparative) ad against the incumbent in the final two months of the campaign. Yes, we know that polling shows people don't like negative campaign commercials and that it breeds cynicism in the political process. It also happens to work. By not answering Chafee's hits with some of his own, Laffey left the impression in the minds of some voters that the allegations were true. It's Campaign 101; some things in politics just don't change.

Lessons Learned

I was tempted to frame this post around a list of the "lessons learned" from yesterday's primary elections, but the fact of the matter is, that in most cases, we didn't learn anything new: instead, we witnessed a thoroughly typical Rhode Island election.

Why do I say that? Show me an incumbent or longtime political insider who didn't win yesterday? Chafee? He had both the name and incumbency. Centracchio? He ran a fairly muted campaign, but name recognition gave him a landslide. Mollis? Political insider if ever there was one. Langevin? Incumbent with a tough fight, but the result was never really in doubt. And so it went.

I guess that perhaps I did learn one lesson: while not ideologically conservative, Rhode Islanders are functionally conservative. They go to the polls and reafirm their support for the Kennedy's and the Chafee's every 2, 4, 6 years. They like their patricians. Yes, there are those--many of whom I suspect are not native to the state--who, election after election, make up the 30-40% who quixotically attempt to change the status quo. Those numbers haven't changed in the decade plus that I've lived here, and it doesn't appear as if they will any time soon.

So what to do? Now is not the time to strategize about reforming the Rhode Island GOP. In this election cycle, that is not going to happen. Instead, conservatives and our fellow-traveller populist/reformers have to look to a few short term goals.

The primary goal is to ensure the reelection of Governor Carcieri. There is little doubt in my mind that he is the closest thing to the ideal conservative there is here in Rhode Island. I'd also say to vote for the GOP in the various state office races. The state GOP has already written off many legislative races, but there is still some cause for optimism in the race for Lt. Governor and perhaps even Secretary of State. At the very least, even winning one or two of these offices would be progress and serve as some sort of check on Democrat power--and business as usual--in state government.

The Congressional races offer little hope for coservatives. Our choices in District 1 are between newcomer Jon Scott (R) and Patrick Kennedy (D) and in District 2 between Jim Langevin (D) and Rod Driver (I). The results of these two races are entirely predictable, but quixotic or not, Scott should be supported. Pick your poison in District 2.

Now, what to do about the U.S. Senate race between Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse? First, I must compliment Mayor Laffey for his very conciliatory gesture of telling Senator Chafee that he would vote for him over Whitehouse in the general election. This is apparently in contrast to what the Chafee campaign had said they would do during the run-up to the election if the shoe had ended up on the other foot. (Who would have been unsenatorial, even petty, then?). Such grace will put Mayor Laffey in good stead when he runs for governor in four years (any doubts?). In the end, though he may have run as an outsider against both the national and state GOP, the bottom line is that in a race between a Republican and a Democrat, Mayor Laffey will stick with his party. Can the same be said about those who voted against Senator Chafee in this primary?

Justin has already indicated his dilemma and not a few Laffey supporters are now contemplating writing in "John Chafee." I don't have an answer for them. I can tell them that, for myself, sitting out an election or making a protest vote is not an option.

I'm as idealistic as the next conservative, but also recognize that there is a time for idealism and a time for pragmatism. For two years, I've attempted to rebut the pragmatic reasons for supporting Senator Chafee in the primary--he's more electable and he can vouchsafe a GOP controlled (and thus more conservative) U.S. Senate--by offering arguments rooted in conservative beliefs.

For me, the primary is the best time to argue over the ideas that should undergird a political party and in this primary I tried to convince Rhode Island Republicans the value of maintaining conservative ideals against practical politics. In the end, I was unsuccessful. It was a spirited debate, but ideas lost and pragmatism won. It's disappointing, but now pragmatism will simply have to be enough.

The Only Questions Now

Is it worth forcing change in the Republican Party at Rhode Island and national levels by voting for a Democrat whom I despise, or would it be enough simply not to vote (or to write in Ronald Reagan)?

And a related question: Is the "slightly better" leadership of the Republican Party only postponing, perhaps with a consequent exacerbation of, those calamities that we fear were the Democrats regain control? If Democrat leadership let through a relatively minor terrorist attack, for example, mightn't the national-security-based backlash at the polls give hawks a stronger hand to prevent such outcomes as a nuclear Iran?

How horrible that we find ourselves in the position of asking such questions.

A Data Point for Future Campaign Marketers

The flier at left, which arrived at my house within the past week (fittingly, on garbage day), will stand as the final motivation for me to actually take the time to go out on primary day and actively vote against Linc Chafee.

No doubt exacerbated by current events and the specific fears that plague aware citizens of the day, I find this imagery both disturbing in its callousness and offensive in its aggression on a very basic level. Take a bow, National Republican Senatorial Committee; although I can't claim that you've driven me away from a vote for the candidate whom you favor, you've most certainly increased Mr. Laffey's votes by a count of at least one.

If it should happen that Mr. Laffey wins and you shift your focus toward his election, please learn from your mistakes and don't sway voters toward Sheldon Whitehouse.

Understanding Senator Chafee's Thinking on Foreign Policy, Israel, and John Bolton

After the first three Republican Senate debates, Senator Lincoln Chafee left voters with three seemingly incompatible views of foreign policy...

• A flirtation with pacifism ("A bad peace is better than a good war"),
• Support for isolationism ("Fear of foreign entanglements"), and
• Support for American hegemony ("A world where America is the strongest country in a peaceful world").

Senator Chafee's statements in the fourth debate and subsequent actions, especially the decision to delay the confirmation of John Bolton because of his disagreement with American policy towards Israel, allows us to pull this all together.

Start with the second statement above. Senator Chafee is not issuing the warning against entanglements as an endorsement of a minimalist foreign policy, in the way that the warning has historically been understood. In fact, over the course of the campaign, the Senator has made it clear that he favors of a great number of foreign entanglements.

Let's compare the entanglements that Senator Chafee favors to ones he opposes. We know that Senator Chafee opposed the War in Iraq; you can make a perfectly valid case that Iraq has proven that the US was not ready for an entanglement of that scale, so there is no problem with the Senator's position here.

But we also know that Senator Chafee had an initial instinctive ambivalence against action in Afghanistan. We know that the Senator was one of just three to oppose sanctions against Syria for its continuing support of terrorism, yet he wants America to invest itself in putting strong diplomatic pressure on Israel. You can't apply the kind of diplomatic pressure the Senator favors without being strongly entangled in the world. We know that Senator Chafee favors more negotiations with Syria and Iran, which can be fairly described as further entanglements. We know that the Senator was willing to tangle himself up with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to take his low-cost oil. And it is hard to see how the US can play enough of role in reducing poverty in Mexico to impact illegal immigration into the United States, as the Senator has suggested, without a willingness to become entangled in that country's affairs.

An unfortunate pattern emerges. The Senator seems biased against "entanglements" when they support an ally facing an armed threat (Israel) or take the battle to an adversary (Syria, Afghanistan), while he embraces entanglements that are of the nature of "global social work" or quests for -- dare I use the word -- appeasement of adversaries.

With this narrow meaning of "entanglement" understood, the different ideas expressed by Senator Chafee do fit together into a coherent whole. Change the third principle expressed by the Senator to "America should be one of the two strongest countries in a peaceful world", and you have a pretty good description of the foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter, a policy that was built on the assumption that the existence of the United States somehow frightened leaders that might otherwise be reasonable into becoming hard-line expansionists. History quickly revealed this assumption to be wrong. The existence of the US was the check on Communist expansion, not the source of it. And the policies that flowed from the Carter administration -- heavy-pressure-on-allies/nothing-more-than-talk-with-adversaries to prove how "nice" we were -- did nothing to mellow the totalitarian drive for domination.

Now, the source of instability in the world is not a Communist bloc, but the dictatorships, oligarchies and terrorist networks that have been spawned in failed states and are controlled by leaders all-too-comfortable with the use of violence for expanding their political power. But the nature of dictatorship really hasn't changed in the last 25 years. Dictators today, just like the dictators of the past, are willing to use violence as an instrument of policy because of something intrinsic to themselves, not because of a reaction to the policies of the United States.

If the United States follows the path that Senator Chafee seems to be suggesting -- punishing allies and engaging in endless talk with adversaries while signaling that any action against adversaries is off-the-table, because it is too "entangling" -- the result will be an invitation to oligarchs and warlords to step-up their violent push against us. This is not an invitation that will promote peace, or even mere stability, for anyone.

Recapping Chafee/Laffey 2006

A long time ago (November of 2004, or so), we at Anchor Rising started talking about whether or not Senator Chafee would be facing any real opposition in 2006. Part of this was out of a desire to see another Republican who, as Justin Katz wrote, didn't hem and haw so much. I wanted someone who would be a little more, well, serious, and willing to take a principled, conservative stance — including supporting a President of his own party on key issues — every now and then. And we weren't just talking about his opposition to the Iraq War or tax policy. Even on secondary issues, he could be aggravating. Case in point: His very "democratic" opposition to the Electoral College, which I took him to task for, as did Justin. At the same time, I wondered if the RI GOP would become more effective, and Justin reported that change was indeed afoot with Steve Laffey as one of the agents.

Thus, lo' and behold, the waters began to roil, and the seas began to change (as metaphors begin to mix), and talk of real opponents for the good Senator began to percolate. Rep. James Langevin was an early favorite and was mentioned at National Review. This inspired Justin to wonder if it might be worth it to "clear the decks" by voting for anybody but Chafee (well, except Patrick K.). Of course, I had to add my 2 cents and discussed a variety of "what if?" scenarios centered around the speculation that Langevin would oppose Chafee. And then, in the back of the room, Mayor Laffey began raising his hand.

While the postulations about his potential primary opponents were coming to the fore, Senator Chafee opposed the Bush Administrations "Clear Skies" initiative (and offered his own), explained why tax increases lay at the heart of his Social Security reform measures, and also displayed his deliberative dutifulness by see-sawing around the first nomination of John Bolton as UN Ambassador (and he's doing it again) and standing up as the lone Republican to vote against Priscilla Owen to the Court of Appeals. All of this inspired Mac Owens to pen the Senator a letter.

Meanwhile, back here in Rhode Island, Mayor Laffey was hosting a radio show and talking to the likes of the East Greenwich School Committee about the nature of contract talks with teachers. He was also causing me some concern about his conservative credentials with his acceptance of the Mexican and Guatemalen Matricula Consular identification cards. Amidst all of this, a "Draft Laffey" movement erupted and elicited comment from national pundit Hugh Hewitt. I opined that I thought the movement had less to do with the viability of Laffey as a Senate candidate than with a general dislike for Chafee and also went on record as saying I distrusted the "cult of personality" that seemed to surround the Mayor.

Andrew Morse explained the unsuccessful efforts made by the RI GOP to convince Steve Laffey to run for a state-level office and not the U.S. Senate. Andrew also wondered "what strings [were] attached" (all for Chafee?) to an early $500,000 donation to the state GOP from the national party.

Don Hawthorne then offered his own "Reflections on Chafee, Laffey, Party Politics & the Future of Rhode Island," in which he dismissed Chafee ("What is the big deal if Senator Chafee loses in 2006?") and suggested that Mayor Laffey could put his talents to better use by running for a statewide office — like Treasurer — and thus help rebuild the Republican party in Rhode Island. But Mayor Laffey decided to run for the Senate anyway, and Senator Chafee said that he'd "take great satisfaction in ending" Mayor Laffey's political career. And the gloves were off!!!

With the Laffey/Chafee race off and running, I expressed a hope that the Laffey campaign could help lead to reform within the RI GOP. (Now I have a few doubts.) Don also weighed in and explained that, while most recognized that Senator Chafee was a lost cause to conservatives, Mayor Laffey's conservative bona fides needed a little vetting as his views on healthcare and energy demonstrated political opportunism over a principled, conservative vision.

Senator Chafee realized he couldn't appeal to the the GOP base in Rhode Island (yes, even in Rhode Island, it's conservative) and actively sought to woo Democrats (as "Independents") into the GOP primary, with the help of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. At this point, I tried to sum up where the Laffey/Chafee race stood. (And after re-reading that post, not much has changed in a year!) I also delved into the difference between ideological and political motivation in electoral politics.

In December, as the National Republican Senatorial Committee explained why non-Republicans were the key to electing Chafee, Mayor Laffey garnered the support of the Club for Growth. It was also revealed that Mayor Laffey had donated to Democrats in the past and that he had a penchant for pixelization. Justin was critical of the sophomoric mindset that resulted in Laffey's pixel problem and then felt it necessary to clarify to the "you're either with 'em or agin 'em" crowd that criticism of a candidate didn't equate to non-support. Additionally, Mayor Laffey clarified that, just like Senator Chafee, he was opposed to drilling in ANWR. Thus, they do, in fact, agree on something.

The new year brought a ratcheting up of Mayor Laffey's War on "Pork" and more deliberate deliberation from Senator Chafee, this time on the confirmation of now-Justice Alito. After everyone else had voted, he was the sole Republican to say "No"; Laffey said he would have said "Yes," and I discussed why this vote showed that Senator Chafee wasn't even a Moderate Republican and that I simply couldn't support him. Then National Review endorsed Laffey and the Chafee camp responded.

This spring brought polls (too many to link to!), anti-Laffey ads, anti-Chafee ads, and more tete-a-tete.

Senator Chafee was environmentally consistent in supporting the Cape Wind Project (as did Laffey — hey, that's two things they agree on). Chafee also voted against pork (yes, really) in the Senate and voted against allowing Hawaii to set up a racially based government. For his part, Mayor Laffey offered up his own school choice program and a tax plan. Both candidates also revealed their differences over their policies toward Israel and immigration reform.

In June, Justin braved the RI GOP convention and managed (barely) to stay awake as Senator Chafee was officially endorsed while Mayor Laffey stayed away. Andrew dissected the Laffey and Chafee approaches toward immigration (1, 2, 3). And Senator Chafee continued to pound on the central point of his entire Senate campaign: Laffey can't beat Whitehouse. This prompted me to ask if conservative and moderate Republicans (and independents) could unite after this tendentious GOP primary to keep Sheldon "Picnic" Whitehouse out of the Senate.

Later in the summer, a debate schedule was announced, and our own Aggregatin' Andrew produced recaps of 'em all.

Debate number 1 was held on the Arlene Violet Show, and Andrew summarized the opening statements and the candidate's views on illegal immigration, war and the Middle East, a cross-examination, taxes and spending, and a few other matters. Then Andrew followed up on the ProJo's post-debate follow-up and then followed up again.

Debate 2 was on the Dan Yorke Show (audio here: 1, 2, 3, 4), and Andrew posted on Politics and Punditry, the Ad-Wars (1 & 2), and Issues.

For Debate 3, which was sponsored by WPRI (debate transcript is here) and broadcast nationally on C-SPAN (debate video as well as candidate ads can be found here), Andrew offered an open forum as well as some summaries on the budget, immigration and foreign policy. I also offered my own post-debate thoughts.

Then a little dirty pool was played when some of Mayor Laffey's college writings mysteriously found their way into the lap of the ProJo, and Justin sought some clarification from the Mayor.

Finally, WJAR sponsored Debate 4 (Part 1, Part 2, and Bill Rappleye's Recap found here), and Andrew posted an open thread and summaries of the lightning round and the three panel portions of the debate (1, 2, 3).

Senator Chafee and the NRSC got into hot water over a pro-Chafee commercial that included imagery of Hispanic illegal (purportedly) immigrants that seemed to saddle them with being a threat to national security. The ad was pulled (eventually), after (as the ProJo noted) the ad had run its predetermined course.

With two weeks to go before the primary, Don concluded that neither Chafee nor Laffey had measured up to the "political greatness" test. On the other hand, Justin's early doubts about Mayor Laffey's demeanor seem to have been allayed by the Mayor's debate performances.

With a week to go, both Chafee and Laffey have received national exposure while negative ads are dominating the airwaves and polls give us no hint as to who will emerge victorious. For that, we'll have to wait 'til Tuesday.

Sheldon Whitehouse Changes his Mind on Iraq Deadline for Fear of Potential "Reporter Questions"

Apparently, Sheldon Whitehouse doesn't want to be bothered by the press questioning him too closely on such substantive issues as the War in Iraq. So much so, that he's decided to drop his call for a deadline to withdraw the troops "because a reporter would question him about it if such a date passed without a troop withdrawal." What?

To summarize the story in today's ProJo, Sheldon Whitehouse opposes the Iraq War and opposed "firm deadlines for troop withdrawal" last November but then changed his mind (when it looked like then-Dem primary opponent Matt Brown was gaining traction) and declared "that all the U.S. troops should withdraw by the end of this year" in the Spring of 2006. This put him on the radical left-wing side of the argument, setting him "apart from Chafee and the majority of Senate Democrats -- including [Senator Jack] Reed." In mid-June, Whitehouse said he would have supported Sen. John Kerry's proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq by mid-2007, but he still preferred the December 2006 deadline. He also said he would have supported Senator Reed's "nonbinding resolution" calling for a timetable to withdraw some troops by years end, though he preferred Kerry's (by then) defeated proposal. And now:

Whitehouse has since moved back toward the political center on the war issue, dropping his call for a specific deadline for pulling out the troops. In television and newspaper interviews over the last two weeks, Whitehouse has said military leaders should set the pace for a pullout, with "troop safety" as the key factor in their decision.

Whitehouse said in an interview last week that he held the same position before and after Brown's departure from the race: a call for a "rapid and responsible" withdrawal that would open the door to diplomatic solutions to the conflict.

It was "the march of time" that changed his December pullout deadline, according to Whitehouse. Whitehouse said he does not now seek a new, later deadline, because a reporter would question him about it if such a date passed without a troop withdrawal.

That's a good reason to change your mind....so a reporter won't ask you about it. That's leadership.

The �Republican Main Street Partnership� Clinic on How to Make Yourself Irrelevant

Two clinics for the price of one!

This is how the Republican Main Street Partnership describes their mission on their website�

Addressing a broad spectrum of issues, the Partnership reaches out to disenfranchised Republicans-- people who are distressed by the stridency too-often associated with the Party, and to others attracted by a thoughtful, centrist approach to Republican politics. The Partnership demonstrates inclusion, respect, reason and compassion.

Questions for the Partnership: If you are against stridency and in favor of a thoughtful approach to politics, then why have you put up an anonymous website attacking a candidate that you oppose but delivering no substantive message whatsoever? Aren�t anonymous negative attacks about as �strident� as you can get?

You�ve gone to the trouble of launching a Rhode Island-oriented website, so why not use it to promote the kinds of thoughtful debate you claim to support, instead of using it for insincere negative attacks? (I say �insincere� because you say the candidate you oppose is not really a conservative, but if that were true, you�d actually like him!) Do you really not believe in the positions you�ve taken, or do you just believe that voters are not smart enough to comprehend your brilliance?

Moderates are not going to be a force in the Republican party until the leadership of groups like the Republican Main Street Partnership overcomes the hypocrisy with which they approach politics.

Whois data on the �StopLaffeyNow� website�
Domain Name.......... stoplaffeynow.com
Creation Date........ 2005-12-07
Registration Date.... 2005-12-07
Expiry Date.......... 2006-12-07
Organisation Name.... Republican Main Street Patrnership
Organisation Address. 1350 I Street N.W. - Suite 560
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Washington
Organisation Address. 20005
Organisation Address. DC
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES

The �Republicans Who Care� Clinic on How to Make Yourself Irrelevant

Just in case you�ve haven�t had your fill of issueless negative ads, the Projo�s Katherine Gregg reports on organization called the �Republicans Who Care Individual Fund� who have gone on the air with an attack-ad against Steve Laffey...

A group supporting moderate Republicans has entered the U.S. Senate fray with a hard-knuckled ad alleging that GOP challenger Stephen P. Laffey's last two jobs as a stockbroker "ended in disgrace" and he was sued by one former employer "for stealing confidential documents that Laffey didn't return until a judge made him."

The ad was scheduled to begin airing late last night on Channel 6 (WLNE), at the behest of a group calling itself Republicans Who Care Individual Fund that is affiliated with the Republican Main Street Partnership.

According to the IRS, the Republicans Who Care Individual Fund was formerly known as the �Main Street Individual Fund�. Before it changed its name, Main Street's biggest donor was a gentleman named Dinakar Singh, a major Democratic party campaign contributor. Mr. Singh gave the Main Street Individual Fund $100,000 (in April �04) in between giving $20,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (February �04) and giving $4,000 to Patrick Kennedy (June �04).

In this election cycle, Mr. Singh has not contributed anything to Republicans Who Care. However, the organization did take $25,000 from a gentleman named Sidney Weinberg, a major contributor to the Teaching Hospital Education Political Action Committee (THEPAC). The name sounds non-partisan enough, but THEPAC gives most of its ample funds to Democrats, including Edward Kennedy ($1,000), Hillary Clinton ($5,000), Charles Rangel ($6,500) and, again, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($30,000). Apparently the supporters of Senator Lincoln Chafee have advanced their strategy of trying to overwhelm Republican votes with Democratic votes to trying to overwhelm Republican voters with Democratic money too!

But the problem with organizations like Republicans Who Care (and the Republican Main Street Partnership) is more than just the money. It is that they are more comfortable taking Democratic money than they are talking substantively to Republican voters. Yet again, the so-called "moderate" wing of the party is demanding a right to be a force in the Republican party while refusing to tell the public what they stand for (and refusing to tell the Republican segment of the public how they are different from Democrats) in their highest-profile messaging. Republicans Who Care didn�t care enough to engage Rhode Island in the extended campaign involving the Senate�s most vulnerable Republican liberal, rejecting dialogue and compromise with their own party�s voters, preferring to use personal surprise attacks to try to silence those with whom they disagree.

If the Republican moderates don�t think they can win a legitimate battle of ideas in Rhode Island, then where exactly do they think they can win?

The Unspokens of Politics

Charles Bakst correctly identifies one of the reasons I've been feeling more favorably toward Steve Laffey of late:

... the more Chafee attacks him, the cooler and calmer Laffey tries to come across in debates and ads.

More significant, perhaps, has been the gradual emergence of the oh-so-sincere face of Sheldon Whitehouse into view. Culpability may be mere matters of degree regardless of what happens, but I'd hate to find myself directly contributing to Whitehouse's victory for the reason that I will be unable to bring myself to vote against him. Win or lose, a vote for the Republican will say as much as my single vote is able to say, and I simply will not vote for Chafee in the general election.

Whether a vote for Laffey will be part of a victory may, in small part, depend upon whether the mayor heeds — albeit, with a twist — Mr. Bakst's warning:

YOU HAVE to wonder where all the Chafee-Laffey back and forth in the primary will lead in the general election as the Republican survivor goes head to head with Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.

I had occasion last week to touch on this subject, at least as it might relate to women, with Washington-based pollster Anna Greenberg. She did an extensive survey of women's political attitudes here for the Women's Fund of Rhode Island. Greenberg, who also polls for Attorney General Patrick Lynch, found women are heavily into quality education, affordable health care, and secure retirement, issues that often have taken a back seat in the Chafee-Laffey primary to tirades against "special interests" and illegal immigration, debates over tax cuts, and squabbles about style.

Whoever wins the GOP race, Greenberg said, "there's going to be some real work for the Republican nominee to pivot back to a conversation that's more relevant to what sort-of-regular people care about, and I think that's going to be a real challenge."

I almost had to rub my eyes and reread the paragraph to believe that ostensibly informed people would see a need for pivoting in order to relate (on one hand) special interests, illegal immigration, and tax cuts to (on the other) education, healthcare, and retirement. I suppose that drawing the links for those who don't see them (or alternately, providing them with spectacles) is partly our job as writers, but suffice to say that I find it not comforting in the least that such as Baskt won't at least chip in toward the cause of honest comprehension... and that their audiences probably don't want them to.

Chafee & Laffey: Has Either Passed the Political Greatness Test?

I had a chance today to re-read the latest developments in the Chafee-Laffey race as highlighted in the recent Anchor Rising postings on the Senate race, including the numerous comments posted by many readers.

After that effort, my overall reaction is a simple one: I will be glad when this race is over because I have found it to be a largely uninspiring campaign by both candidates and by many of their supporters. You can throw Sheldon Whitehouse into that same brew, too.

These two postings from nearly a year ago in 2005 still summarize my general thoughts on the race:

Reflections on Chafee, Laffey, Party Politics & the Future of Rhode Island

Is Laffey vs. Chafee Really a Battle Between Visionary Principles & a Reactionary Establishment? Unfortunately Not.

Some will likely say that the two postings contain more overt criticisms of Mayor Laffey than of Senator Chafee. I think they do. To a large degree, that is a reflection of my disappointment in several of the Mayor's policy positions as well as some of my lingering concerns about whether he picked the right race to run in and whether he can keep his ego under control.

However, the relative balance of my comments is mostly a reflection of what I perceive to be a near-total lack of substance in Senator Chafee. That perception leads me to dismiss him as simply not a serious leader, with no further comments being warranted.

Overall, this third posting expresses some further thoughts on why I have found this whole campaign so unsatisfying:

Raising the Bar: Expecting Greatness From Our Political Leaders, which includes these words by Steven Hayward:

What is greatness, especially political greatness? In three thousand years we have not surpassed the understanding of Aristotle, who summed up political greatness as the ability to translate wisdom into action on behalf of the public good. To be able to do this, Aristotle argued, requires a combination of moral virtue, practical wisdom, and public-spiritedness...One must know not only what is good for oneself but also what is good for others. It is not enough merely to be wise or intelligent in the ordinary IQ-score sense; in fact, Aristotle goes to great lengths to show that practical wisdom "is at the opposite pole from intelligence." One must have moral virtue, judgment, and public spirit in a fine balance, and these traits must be equally matched to the particular circumstances of time and place...

Greatness, especially political greatness, carries a whiff of political incorrectness...

In place of greatness, today we have mere celebrity, best exemplified by...People magazine...

Greatness is ultimately a question of character. Good character does not change with the times: it has eternal qualities. Aristotle connects the honor that accrues to the magnanimous person with the virtues of friendship. This suggests that it is always within our grasp to cultivate the virtue of greatness as individuals, even if circumstances - crises - do not call forth the need for political greatness on the highest level...

The tides of history and the scale of modern life have not made obsolete or incommensurate the kind of large-souled greatness we associate with Churchill or Lincoln or George Washington...yet the cases of Churchill and Reagan offer powerful refutation to the historicist premise that humans and human society are mostly corks bobbing on the waves of history...Why were Churchill and Reagan virtually alone among their contemporaries in their particular insights and resolves? The answer must be that they transcended their environments and transformed their circumstances as only great men can do, and thereby bent history to their will..

Can there be another Churchill, or another Reagan? The answer is plainly yes, though we must note that the greatness of statesmen is seldom recognized in their own time. Typically we only recognize greatness in hindsight...

Leo Strauss took the death of Churchill in 1965 as the occasion to remind his students that "we have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves and our students, of political greatness, of human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility and their triumphs, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness."

Contemplating on the example of Churchill and his influence on Reagan gives us confidence that even though the mountaintops may be often shrouded in fog, we can still tell the difference between peaks and valleys.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

In response to Mr. Mahn's comment below: The validity or lack of validity of my thoughts in this posting will be unaffected by whether turnout is high or low in the September 12 primary.

Rather, let me now offer a more granular explanation of why I am so disappointed in how this Senate campaign has played out.

To paraphrase the late Richard Weaver, I believe ideas have consequences and that means my views on this race are influenced primarily by the major ideas expressed by each candidate. More specifically, I have looked to see which candidate has articulated policies most closely aligned with my personal preference for ideas of a conservative persuasion.

My issues with Chafee are:

I cannot respect a politician who vacillates and equivocates. His thoroughly bizarre vote in the 2004 Presidential election and delay in taking a position on Judge Alito until after the vote outcome was determined are two examples of such behavior.

I find the alliance between the NRSC and Chafee to be symptomatic of the problem with Washington politics today - retaining power is more important than standing for anything. It says something about Chafee that he is willing to take money and support from the very party he so often disses.

I also cannot respect a politician who says seriously dangerous things such as "a bad peace is better than a good war" when we are engaged in a prolonged war with Islamofascists committed to the destruction of our country and Western Civilization.

I also cannot support a politician whose policy preferences are so liberal.

I am particularly repulsed by Chafee's positioning of his PAYGO budget philosophy as fiscally responsible when it is nothing more than a back-door way to increase government spending and taxes. PAYGO willfully ignores 25 years of supply-side economic policy empirical data which have shown the policy problem in Washington is over-spending, not a lack of revenue. To say otherwise is intellectually dishonest. No less important, PAYGO's formula for ongoing tax increases will result in slower economic growth that reduces the opportunities for people to live the American Dream. That is unjust to our fellow citizens.

Additionally, Chafee's energy policy proposals are nothing short of unimaginative and completely avoid addressing how to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He has rejected school choice when Laffey proposed it and Chafee's approach to the failing educational status quo is to throw more money at it without demanding any changes or accountability. His policy view on a recent drug reimportation bill shows no courage either.

It is for all of these reasons that I consider Chafee to be devoid of gravitas and therefore incapable of political greatness. By way of contrast, Chafee's father had gravitas and was someone you could respect even when disagreeing with some of his more liberal policy preferences. Bluntly speaking, I doubt Lincoln Chafee would be a viable Senate candidate if he was not living off the legacy of his father, John Chafee.

Alternatively, I have endorsed Laffey's challenges to the political status quo going as far back as December 2004. It was those challenges which made me consider him capable of political greatness, with the caveat about his ego expressed in this earlier posting.

My previous writings on Anchor Rising generally agree with a number of Laffey's policy positions on matters such as health savings accounts, school choice, pork/corporate welfare/government spending, taxation, and judicial nominees.

Here's the rub: The Laffey Plan consists of four major policy proposals and I have serious problems with two of them - energy independence and the cost of drugs.

His energy policy proposal is as shallow as Chafee's as it only proposes higher CAFE standards as well as tax credits for electrical hybrids and renewable power producers and consumers. The difference is that Chafee never suggested he was proposing a broader solution leading to energy independence.

Unfortunately, Laffey set higher voter expectations by saying he was touting a means to energy independence but then put forth a proposal devoid of courageous leadership because he dodged taking any stands on the tough and often unpopular policy questions that must be addressed for the United States to become energy independent. I held Laffey to the higher standard he encouraged and he failed to measure up on this important policy proposal.

More significantly, I found his policy preferences about the cost of drugs to be dangerously ill-informed and far more in agreement with Senator Kennedy's left-wing politics than with generally conservative beliefs based on free markets.

Laffey didn't just express platitudes about the high price of drugs like nearly every politician tends to do. Rather, among other things, he endorsed the dangerous idea of importing drugs from Canada - which is a back-door way the Left is using to socialize medicine in this country via de facto price controls. Government-driven price controls would destroy new drug innovation, just like it has in Europe. Plus, given that the Canadian market size is 5% of the United States market, importing from there is not a practical solution - which means anyone proposing the idea has to be ignorant or cynically pandering for votes.

Simultaneously, Laffey effectively lowered the quality of the public debate on healthcare by choosing to remain silent on several important and related issues: First, most people do not know that drugs are "only" 11% of total healthcare spending. If the concern is about increasing healthcare costs, why does the other 89% get no attention? Furthermore, while not perfectly separated, most people do not know that the 11% is comprised of 7% for branded drugs sold by traditional pharmaceutical companies and 4% for generic drugs sold by generic drug companies. Stripping out every last dollar of profit by traditional pharmaceutical companies would reduce healthcare costs by 1% - and ensure much higher costs in the future when there were no forthcoming new drugs. Second, while sometimes costly in their own right, drugs often have a positive cost impact by reducing overall healthcare system expenses. In other words, more drug use can eliminate costly surgeries or reduce hospital stays. Third, drugs can extend lives or improve the quality-of-life of the patient.

Comments in his policy proposal about direct-to-consumer advertising and me-too drugs also showed a thorough lack of understanding of the industry, too.

I have spent 23 years working in the healthcare industry; more on my thoughts about these drug industry issues can be found here.

I was alarmed that his healthcare policy proposal listed such information sources as Marcia Angell and Ralph Nader's Public Citizen. It is a matter of public record that Angell has endorsed a single-payer national health insurance system, like Canada, while working with fellow advocates like David Himmelstein (whom I met when I chaired a 1993 national conference and hosted a healthcare public policy panel with him and Stuart Butler from the Heritage Foundation).

You can read the drug industry's response to Angell's book here.

If Laffey is truly conservative, what is he doing endorsing policy ideas backed by overt advocates of socialized medicine? That goes beyond taking a populist stance. In addition to the philosophical issues here, there is also a practical implication to advocating this policy: Socialized medicine delivers lower quality healthcare to citizens.

I cannot reconcile the underlying philosophical incongruence between these various policy preferences without concluding that Laffey either is not truly conservative in his beliefs or he is playing dishonest/opportunistic political games. Neither is an attractive conclusion to reach.

I expected more from him than Chafee and I think Laffey missed an opportunity to show real leadership on some tough issues - leadership that could lead to political greatness over time. And that begs the question whether he wants to win more than he wants to show the gravitas necessary to lead an informed public debate.

I would encourage you to return to Hayward's words earlier in this posting about political greatness and ask yourself if the candidates have held themselves to a high enough standard of excellence. Have we held them to that high standard as well? Have our own comments to others fostered achieving that same standard of excellence, too?

New Chafee Add: It's All About Style Now

The new Chafee add is up (called "People") and it looks like the time for policy debate is over. It's all personality politics, now. Here's the transcript:

Elderly Man: �Laffey is running for Senate here in the State of Rhode Island but his ego is the size of the State of Texas.�

Soccer Mom1: �He talks down to you�like he�s better than everyone.�

Regular Guy1: �Laffey�s a polarizing figure.�

Elderly Woman: �And he started hurting some of the people in Cranston, especially the elderly people.�

Older Woman: �Steve Laffey is a total different personality than Linc Chafee. And I really like Linc Chafee�s personality.�

War Veteran:�Keep Lincoln Chafee.�

Soccer Mom2:�Linc Chafee is a well-informed decision maker.�

Regular Guy2: �The Senator gets the job done.�

This seems to be a clear sign that Chafee feels he has to directly go negative (vice via his NRSC surrogates). I wonder if Laffey will take the bait.

(Tip via Dan Yorke).

Chafee to Benefit From Nat'l GOP "Draft"

Via a tip supplied by AuH2ORepublican in a comment to Andrew's most recent post, the Hotline's Kevin Rennie reports:

Democrats were right in 2004: the Republicans have adopted a draft. It only applies, however, to party workers employed by state victory committees in the east of the Mississippi. For many it will be worse than boot camp. They are to be sent to Rhode Island to try to rescue Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee�s re-election campaign in the September 12th primary.

Workers start arriving Friday and will be charged with sorting out the mess that Washington operatives believe is the Chafee campaign. First task may be to get Republican voters to forget Chafee�s erratic performance in the last two of the four broadcast debates between the incumbent and his lively challenger, Cranston mayor Stephen Laffey.

Scores of GOP workers will begin arriving this week and stay through the open primary as they search for and then try to persuade some of the 70,000 registered Republicans and several hundred thousand independent voters eligible to participate in the open primary to support Chaffee. Draftees, many of whom may be more compatible with Laffey, will be paid by their home-state committees. Food and lodging expenses will be picked up by Republican National Committee. Some of the faithful, however, may prefer to go AWOL than work for a Republican who opposes mangers on public property and calls the Club for Growth one of most notorious special interest groups in Washington.

Party pros may be hoping that the influx of energetic workers will inspire Chafee to put some heat under what they see as his lethargic performance in the day-to-day grind of campaigning in the Ocean State.

Yes, this piece is full of rumor and conjecture, but the fact is that the ground troops are indeed on their way to help Senator Chafee {Add this to the $180,000 in direct mailing support for Chafee--ed.}. I wonder if the Club For Growth has a similar ground force (to go along with its mailing support)? (No, I'm not volunteering).

State Senator asks Chafee Campaign to Renounce NRSC Commercial

The Associated Press reports that State Senator Juan Pichardo has asked the Chafee campaign to renounce the National Republican Senatorial Committee�s latest anti-Laffey ad (available here on YouTube)�

State Sen. Juan Pichardo (D-Providence) sent Chafee a letter dated Friday asking him to renounce the spot.

"The ad's script and imagery are clearly meant to engender fear that, as a group, Hispanic immigrants present a threat to the security of Rhode Island and the nation," wrote Pichardo, a naturalized citizen who emigrated from the Dominican Republic. "I am deeply concerned that as a result, the ad will unfairly create feelings of prejudice and suspicion toward the Hispanic community as a whole."

Chafee described the ad as accurate during a Saturday night debate with Laffey.

But his spokesman Ian Lang referred questions to the NRSC after Pichardo's letter appeared yesterday on a Democratic Web site.

"This is not our ad, we have nothing to do with it," Lang said.

Remember that Mr. Lang�s response is motivated as much by campaign finance anti-coordination regulations as it is by traditional political considerations.

Current campaign law exempts the NRSC�s negative ad from counting as a contribution to the Chafee campaign since it never says "vote for Senator Chafee". If, however, the NRSC had sat down with Senator Chafee to develop a positive ad to help his campaign, the result would have been considered a �coordinated� ad subject to contribution limits. In other words, there�s no limit on how much bad stuff you can throw around about a candidate you oppose, but the resources that you can expend working with a candidate you support are strictly rationed.

That�s our ridiculous system of campaign finance reform. (Of course, since Senator Chafee did vote to implement this system, he probably shouldn�t complain about it too loudly.)

Chafee-Laffey IV: Third Panel Round

Republican Senate candidates Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey debated on television on WJAR-TV Channel 10 this past Saturday. Here are the notes I jotted down during the panel's third round of questioning...

Bill Rappleye asks how exactly the US should free itself from dependency on foreign oil.
Senator Lincoln Chafee discusses the increasing demand for oil created by increased consumption by China�s huge population.
Rappleye: But what do we do in this country?
Chafee says that 60% of US consumption is from transportation, so we need to raise CAFE standards. Chafee notes that he drives a hybrid, but it was made in Japan. Government should force industry in the direction of 50 mpg cars, so the US can become a leader in hybrid vehicles.
Mayor Steve Laffey touts his specific plan to get America off of foreign oil (available at electlaffey.com). The US needs to raise CAF� standards from 27 mpg to 40 mpg, pass tax credits for hybrids, and offer 20 year producer and consumer credits. We need to get off foreign oil to win the War on Terror, and we won�t unless we create program on the scale of putting a man on the Moon.
Chafee says he�s worked in the Senate on raising CAFE standards, so Laffey should be endorsing his candidacy.

Michelle Johnson asks if America needs to build a fence on its southern border.
Laffey says yes for reasons of national security and stopping illegal immigration. Also, it�s not humane to have people walking days through the desert in hopes of getting to America.
Chafee says he voted in favor of a bill that had strict border security and a path to legality for currently illegal immigrants. We also need to address poverty in other countries to stop illegal immigration at the source.
Johnson asks Chafee how working illegally in Canada influenced his position on this issue.
Chafee tells an anecdote about contact with the RCMP at the racetrack where he worked that led him to obtaining landed immigrant status.
Gene Valicenti asks Chafee how old he was at the time.
Chafee: About 23.
Laffey volunteers that he�s never worked illegally in any other country. Also notes his campaign won�t run an ad about Chafee�s youthful indiscretion.
Johnson asks Laffey about Chafee�s experience as an example of how countries sometimes need people from outside to do work.
Laffey answers that Chafee going to Canada is not quite the same as poor people crossing into America and then reiterates his opposition to the �Kennedy� bill.
Chafee asks Laffey if he supports the Sensenbrenner bill (the House�s enforcement-only immigration bill).
Laffey says he hasn�t read the specific House bill, but he supports securing the border first. Then second step is then to enforce law against employers. Laffey goes on to criticize Chafee�s support for the provision of the Senate bill that he says gives foreign workers 4-5 times as much money as domestic workers at the same job site.
Chafee: �You�re a one man filibuster� who doesn�t offer solutions. What bill do you support?
Laffey says he would support a bill that would secure the borders first.
Chafee asks Laffey if he would oppose the House bill.
Laffey reiterates that he has not read the House bill, but would support it if it is a bill that secures the borders first.

Jim Taricani asks how much aid the government should give to people to get out of poverty and if that aid should come with restricitions.
Chafee says that America is at the top of the world because of our great social programs. Welfare re-authorization is just coming up now and the goal is to build the middle class.
Taricani asks about the role of individual responsibility in people getting themselves out of poverty.
Chafee responds that the Clinton compromise which got people to work for there welfare was a good thing, but you have to pay attention to day-care when you consider this issue.
Laffey says that the �96 welfare reform, with 5-year limit on benefits, was good policy. But America is not great because of its social programs, it�s great because it�s a place where everyone has a chance to get ahead. Unless the financial direction of the country changes, this won�t continue to be true.
Taricani asks Laffey how tax cuts benefit poor people.
Laffey invokes the multiplier effect, attributing it to JFK. When small businesses get tax cuts, they can afford to hire more employees, and everyone does better.
Chafee says that JFK�s financial plan is not something to brag about, because we had Vietnam, and then got deeper and deeper into debt. The country didn�t get out until 1999, when Democrats and Republicans worked on revenues and expenditures together.
Laffey says he won�t criticize John or Bobby Kennedy
Chafee says he�s talking about financials, not people.

Chafee-Laffey IV: Second Panel Round

Republican Senate candidates Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey debated on television on WJAR-TV Channel 10 this past Saturday. Here are the notes I jotted down during the panel's second round of questioning...

Michelle Johnson asks Mayor Steve Laffey about being quoted or perhaps misquoted as saying God told him to run for mayor. What does he think the role of faith in politics is?
Laffey: I pray, I go to church, but when I get involved, it is all about public policy and what it is the best decision for the people I serve.
Gene Valicenti asks Laffey if God told him to run.
Laffey: No, but I�ve remarked something to the effect of �I guess the man upstairs wanted me to run�.
Senator Lincoln Chafee says that Rhode Island was founded on the separation of church and state by Roger Williams fleeing Puritan persecution and that RI wouldn�t join the US until that principle was included in the Federal constitution. Laffey put a charade of a cr�che at City Hall, and was sued by ACLU.
Laffey responds that the people of Cranston put different displays at City Hall and their right to do so was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Valicenti notes that Laffey did lead the fight on the issue.
Laffey says it all started with a man who wanted to place a Menorah at City Hall, so he called a lawyer and learned that public holiday displays are OK as long as they are diverse; there�s tremendous public support for this.
Valicenti agrees that the public approves and asks Chafee if that�s wrong.
Chafee says he point is that there is a separation of church and state and we don�t want state sponsored religion.
Laffey says what we want is the Federal courts to make these decisions, not Chafee.

Jim Taricani asks Chafee why Republicans should vote for him when his positions differ from the Republican mainstream on issues like tax cuts, war on Iraq, abortion and stem cells.
Chafee says he considers himself a �traditional Republican� who favors fiscal responsibility, the environment, personal freedoms (keep governmentt out of our bedroom) and opposes foreign entanglements.
Taricani asks Laffey what Republicanism means to him.
Laffey says he refers to himself as reformer and a populist, in the mold of Teddy Roosevelet. TR saw unequal power, and he worked to set it right for people. In Cranston, I saw unequal power, and I set out to change it. Both great Democrats like JFK and great Republicans like RWR have favored tax cuts. Recent tax cuts have generated 500 billion dollars in extra revenue.
Taricani asks Chafee why he doesn�t believe in tax cuts?
Chafee: Deficits! We have to have the resources to fund special education, prepare for wars and natural disasters, and invest in infrastructure.
Taricani asks Chafee why people should think the guy with the Harvard MBA is wrong on this.
Chafee says the tax cuts were too deep. We�re still in deficits and they�re like an addiction, easy to get into but hard to get out of.

Bill Rappleye asks about college students graduating with an average debt of $20,000. What is the role of government in making college affordable and what about Pell grants?
Laffey says he supports maintaining Pell grants at the current level. Education at the college level is very successful in this country, the real education problem is at the primary and secondary level.
Rappleye: My question is about paying for college.
Laffey says the existing system is appropriate.
Chafee warns to watch what Laffey says, not what he does; Laffey supports deep tax cuts, even though Pell grants are not keeping up with college tuitions. An investment in education that gives everyone a chance to go to college is what makes America great.
Laffey says we should cut the $27B in pork, cut the $125-$150B in corporate welfare, and freeze discretionary non-defense spending to pay for existing programs without increasing the deficit or raising taxes.
Rappleye tries to get back to his original question. Is it OK for kids to graduate with a $20,000 debt?
Laffey says education loans at current rates are a good investment. Students and parents have to put some money in the game.
Chafee says that Laffey offers lots of sound bytes but no real solutions.

Chafee-Laffey IV: First Panel Round

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey debated on television on WJAR-TV Channel 10 this past Saturday. Here are the notes I jotted down during the panel's first round of questioning...

Bill Rappleye begins by telling Mayor Steve Laffey that he�s not interested in how he felt about Boy George 20 years ago, but will ask about his current campaign commercial where he mentions that his brother died of aids. Why bring up the cause of death?
Laffey says he understands how families go through struggles. The way he grew help helps him have empathy for the problems people face.
Senator Lincoln Chafee agrees with Rappleye�s premise that how candidates feel today is what�s important, then details his own gay rights record; he supports employment non-discrimination rights, opposes the Federal marriage amendment and supports hate crimes legislation. Chafee then brings up the Jackvony pixelation...
Gene Valicenti asks how the Jackovny pixelation is pertinent.
Chafee says it shows a vindictiveness on the part of Laffey.
Laffey says becoming a public official shouldn�t mean losing a sense of humor and he thought it was funny when he got pixelated by Chafee at the Rhode Island follies. This is not an issue for US Senate race.
Chafee, after acknowledging that people can�t be held accountable for things they did as college students, says neither the Boy George column or the pixelation were funny.
Rappleye asks Chafee if his campaign had anything to do with Boy George column finding its way to the Projo.
Chafee: �Not that I know of.�

Jim Taricani asks if prosecutors should ask for the death penalty for Osama Bin Laden, if he�s found guilty.
Chafee says he opposes the death penalty because Rhode Island executed innocent people in the 19th century.
Laffey says the death penalty is inappropriate in many situations, but someone responsible for 3000 deaths should pay the ultimate penalty.
Taricani asks Chafee if his opposition to the death penalty is on moral/religious grounds.
Chafee cites a 19th-century example of mob violence and says that we have to be careful, plus the deterrent effect has not been shown to be strong.
Laffey says there�s no possibility of a mistake in a case involving Osama Bin Laden, because he openly takes credit for mass murder.
Chafee: Once you oppose the death penalty, you can�t make exceptions.

Michelle Johnson (For those unfamiliar with this name, note that many of the unbylined Associated Press stories on Rhode Island politics are written by Ms. Johnson) asks about Chafee�s previous statement that �A bad peace is better than a good war�. When is the use of military force appropriate?
Chafee cites the �religious parameters� of a just war. It must be a last resort, authorized by a legitimate authority, redress a wrong suffered, have a reasonable chance of success, have the ultimate goal of re-establishing peace, be proportional to the injury suffered, and avoid civilian targets.
Johnson asks if Afghanistan and Iraq met the criteria.
Chafee says no to Iraq and that he voted to authorize force in Afganistan. There have been shifting rationales for Iraq, first it was WMD, the bringing democracy, then remaking the Middle East, and now it�s a war on �Islamic fundamentalism�.
Johnson asks Laffey when he thinks the use of military force is appropriate.
Laffey: When the national interest or the people of the United States are at risk. Bad peaces lead to other wars.
Johnson asks Laffey how much diplomacy we should try in Iran.
Laffey answers we�ve already been working on diplomacy for past 3 years. Unfortunately, Russia & China won�t cooperate because of the price of oil. We need to move to economic sanctions against Iran, but they have to be sanctions that will really hurt.
Chafee: We have to be smart in our decisions or else �sometimes we incite the extremists�, leading to things likes the elections of Hamas and the Islamic brotherhood. Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

Chafee-Laffey IV: The Lightning Round

In the opening �lightning round� of Saturday night�s Laffey-Chafee debate, moderator Gene Valicenti got concise answers from Republican Senate Candidates Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey on several important issues. Here�s a summary. Complete video of the original is available on the WJAR-TV Channel 10 website�

Gene Valicenti asks why gasoline costs 3 bucks a gallon.
Senator Lincoln Chafee cites demand created by China and hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Steve Laffey says because of the lack of a national energy policy.

Valicenti asks for a quick-fix for stopping prices from rising to 4 bucks a gallon.
Chafee says reduce consumption by improving mileage standards on cars.
Laffey says there is no quick fix. Increasing the use of solar power and increasing CAF� standards are a start.

Valicenti says the Iranians opening a nuclear power plant. Do we need to consider military action?
Laffey says economics sanctions are now necessary, because diplomacy has failed.
Chafee says we need to open an embassy in Iran and start a bi-lateral dialogue.

Valicenti asks if a military draft needs to be instituted.
Both candidates say no.

Valicenti asks the candidates if they believe global warming exists.
Laffey says he�s heard good arguments on both sides, and we should act as if it�s true.
Chafee says even the Bush administration acknowledges that climate change is occurring because of human activity.

Valicenti asks if the candidates support gay marriage.
Chafee says yes.
Laffey says he supports civil unions, but not marriage.

Valicenti asks if the President can order wiretaps without a warrant.
Laffey says there are circumstances where it is necessary, but special Judges should be notified as quickly as possible.
Chafee says the Fourth Amendment is clear, no warrantless wiretapping.

Satire? Hit Piece?

I'd like a specific answer, from Mayor Laffey, whether this (PDF) is satire:

There are many people who are too weak to live by any moral principles; they decide what is best by their own irrational whims and desires. These cowards attempt to justify their actions in two ways. Firstly, they try to bring others down to their way of life by exhorting them to compromise their values. Secondly, these moral milksops say that no one can be wholly good so please don't accuse me of being all bad. It is these same ingrates who belittle people who have clear, simple answers to the world's problems. They accuse others of seeing things in black and white, as if that was bad, impossible, or somehow wrong. What these poltroons are really saying is "Please don't discriminate between right and wrong."

Now, I'd be the first to express pretend astonishment that the Providence Journal would offer this particular college-age Laffey column as "a sample of a humor column by Stephen Laffey in a campus newspaper," rather than, say, the column from which Scott MacKay has drawn his first example, from which the headline was drawn, and on which Laffey was specifically using the humor defense. If the Providence Journal intended to prove that its pretense toward journalistic neutrality is merely a cover for aspirations toward status as a political force in this state, it could have comported itself no better.

That doesn't, however, excuse Laffey for taking the politically expedient route of disavowing all of his writing at the time. How refreshing it would be if the mayor would quickly put a larger sampling of his college columns on his Web site and explain what principles expressed therein were legitimately held and which were "over the top." Doing so might (one can only surmise) help to resolve some of the ambiguity that Rhode Island conservatives find in his persona.

Chafee-Laffey IV: Open Thread

Anchor Rising readers are invited to use the comments section of this post to give their own real time reactions to tonight's Republican Senate debate between Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey (WJAR-TV Channel 10 @ 7:30 pm). Also, Channel 10 political reporter Bill Rappleye will hold a pre-debate discussion with Robert Weygand, Susan Farmer and Jennifer Duffy beginning at 7:00 pm.

Insightful comments, witty comments, and even comments that spin like Lynda Carter in an old episode of Wonder Woman are all welcome, but personally insulting or crude posts will be deleted as soon as I see them.

The comments will open at 7:30 are open now!

Laffey's College Columns

Scott MacKay has an article in today�s Projo discussing several columns that Steve Laffey wrote as an undergraduate student for a college newspaper in 1983�

In one column in the Bowdoin Patriot, the paper published by campus Republicans, Laffey wrote, "I have never once seen a happy homosexual. This is not to say there aren't any; I simply haven't seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet. All the homosexuals I've seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life."

Laffey, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, said he regrets writing that and other articles denigrating gays. But he chalks it up to undergraduate hijinks, saying, "In college we engaged in sophomoric political satire."

Asked if any of the columns represented his views, Laffey said in an interview at his Cranston home yesterday, "No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . . Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny."

Whether you believe that a candidate's college writings are a vaild subject in a campaign or you believe that this is an example of gotcha politics (MacKay reports that the Projo was made aware of the columns by an anonymous delivery), please keep the discussion civil.

Laffey-Chafee III: Debating Foreign Policy

In the second radio debate, Senator Lincoln Chafee was asked if he really believed that weapons of mass destruction were the sole reason for invading Iraq. Senator Chafee answered that if there was a wider purpose to the war, it should have been put forth by the President and debated in public before a decision was made. I believe that Senator Chafee was spot-on with this answer. When history looks back on the conduct of the War in Iraq, President George W. Bush�s decision to not rally America around a greater cause than WMD in making the case for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Husein will be viewed as the primary failure from which the other problems have grown.

It is in a spirit that recognizes the importance of public debate when setting America's direction in the world -- the spirit expressed by Senator Chafee himself, at a moment where he well-represented the ideal of New England Republicanism -- that I offer the criticism that follows.

In three debates, Senator Chafee has offered three different views of foreign policy. In the first debate, Senator Chafee flirted dangerously with pacifism (�a bad peace is better than a good war�). In the second debate, the Senator presented a pre-World War II-style isolationism as true Republicanism (�avoid foreign entanglements�). Then, in Wednesday�s debate, Senator Chafee expressed a preference for a view that goes by the inelegant name of benevolent global hegemonism (�America should be the strongest country in a peaceful world�).

The dreaded neoconservatives also begin from the premise that America should be the strongest country in a peaceful world. But they go further, adding the idea that the only way the world will stay peaceful is if America is the nation that enforces the peace. Another group of foreign policy thinkers share the goal of a dominant America in a peaceful world, but believe that America is sufficiently powerful to creatively work through international institutions to reach that goal (no one has come up with a good name for this group yet). Then there are the realists who believe it is impossible for any country to maintain its status as most powerful, because everybody else inevitably gangs up to take down number one. There are many other possibilities, outside of and in between these views.

Given the diversity of choices available, Senator Chafee�s statement in the third debate that America should be the strongest country in a peaceful world was much more than a platitude. It was a very bold statement of American foreign policy. It was, however, entirely incompatible with his positions from the first two debates. It is not reasonable to believe that the world will stay peaceful if the U.S. disengages out of a desire to �avoid foreign entanglements�. With the US on the sidelines, who will stop a Slobodan Milosevic or a Saddam Husein from ending the peace in full scale military actions that swallow up neighboring states? And a stated willingness to accept a �bad peace� makes any hope of any peace less likely by neutralizing deterrence as a strategic option. Dictators and tyrants who believe they can be bully other nations into accepting disadvantageous truces will continually use violence or the threat of violence to take what they want.

I believe that Senator Chafee is sincere in what he has said about his beliefs, foreign policy or otherwise, but because of the contradictions, I am not yet convinced that he has expressed his core foreign policy beliefs during this series of debates.

Mayor Steve Laffey has approached foreign policy from a more operational direction, placing national energy policy at the center of his foreign policy platform. Not to be pedantic here, but this also is a way of avoiding foreign entanglements -- not all foreign entanglements, but a particular foreign entanglement, dependence on foreign oil, that is unduly controlled by other nations.

What makes the goal of energy independence more than the 21st century version of isolationism is that pursuing energy independence treats reduced entanglements as a means while traditional isolationism treats reduced entanglements as the end. In conventional foreign policy terms, the energy-policy-as-foreign-policy position is the belief that the constraints on America created by dependence on foreign oil have become so burdensome, they impair the ability of the United States to pursue whatever degree of foreign engagement the American polity chooses to be in its best interest.

Chafee-Laffey IV Moved to Saturday

The final debate in the Republican Senate series, originally scheduled for tonight, has been moved to Saturday at 7:00 on WJAR-TV Channel 10.

Laffey-Chafee III: Debating Immigration

During Wednesday�s debate, when discussing illegal immigration, Senator Lincoln Chafee said �the most important thing on any issue is to be consistent�, then contrasted Mayor Steve Laffey's opposition to the amnesty-based immigration reform passed by the Senate to his support for using consular ID cards in the City of Cranston. The Senator believes the two positions reflect a politically motivaed flip-flop. Mayor Laffey's decision to allow Cranston to accept consular IDs is also the subject of the National Republican Senatorial Committee's latest anti-Laffey ad.

1. Senator Chafee supports the �John McCain� bill (also known as the pick-any-combination-of-names from McCain-Kennedy-Martinez-Hagel-Frist-and-Reid bill). The key component of the bill is the so-called Martinez-Hagel compromise. Matinez-Hagel divides illegal immigrants currently within the United States into three groups. Illegal immigrants who have been in the US for more than 5 years are immediately eligible to pay for permanent amnesty with back taxes and fines. Illegal immigrants who have been in the US for between 2 and 5 years are eligible for a temporary amnesty if they return to a valid point of entry into the US. Illegal immigrants who have been in the US for less than 2 years are required to leave, but may be allowed to re-enter as "guest workers". The defining characteristic of "guest workers" versus other categories of non-citizens legally in America is that "guest workers" are only allowed to stay in the US for as long as they are employed.

Support for the Martinez-Hagel compromise is the basis of Senator Chafee�s claim that he would support deporting illegal immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years. Yet, Senator Chafee also voted for Dianne Feinstein�s �orange card� amendment, which would have given permanent amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States on or before January 1, 2006.

How is this consistent?

2. Steve Laffey has also criticized Senator Chafee for making illegal immigrants eligible for social security benefits and allowing foreign guest workers to be paid more than American citizens.

Here�s John McCain as quoted in the Washington Times describing how the current immigration bill deals with the issue of social security�

"We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy," said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican.

"The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community," he said. "If this amendment were enacted, the nest egg that these immigrants have worked hard for would be taken from them and their families."

The "Ensign amendment" (which failed by one vote) would have prevented work done by someone in the country illegally from counting towards Social Security. Senator Chafee is technically correct when he says that no illegal immigrant will ever collect social security under a measure he has voted for, but work done by illegal immigrants, even by those using someone else�s identity, will count towards an amnesty recipient's Social Security benefits.

3. And, bizarre as it sounds, a provision in the immigration bill allowing foreign guest workers to be paid more than American citizens does exist. It has to do with the arcana of labor law. Kate O�Beirne from National Review explains the mechanics�

The bill extends Davis-Bacon �prevailing wage� provisions�typically the area�s union wage that applies only to construction on federal projects under current law�to all occupations (e.g. roofers, carpenters, electricians, etc.) covered by Davis-Bacon. So guest-workers (but not citizen workers) must be paid Davis-Bacon wage rates for jobs in the private sector if their occupation is covered by Davis-Bacon. Presumably because Senate Democrats� union bosses thought this provision too modest, an amendment by Senator Barack Obama, approved by voice vote, extended Davis-Bacon wages rates to all private work performed by guest workers, even if their occupations are not covered by Davis-Bacon,

...while Mickey Kaus tries to explan what legislators who supported this measure might have been thinking�

First take is that this provision will effectively price many guest workers out of the market, not only because it raises the legal guest-worker wage, but also because it makes them a magnet for wage-related litigation from annoyed construction unions who will claim that the guest-worker wages don't meet Davis-Bacon's government-set "prevailing wage" standards....

4. Finally, Senator Chafee voted against requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to certify that the border is secure before any guest worker or amnesty program can be implemented.

So in sum, the current NRSC ad says that Rhode Island voters concerned about illegal immigration should vote for the candidate who has favored the broadest amnesty that has been proposed to date, who has supported allowing work done by illegal immigrants to count towards social security benefits, who has voted to extend American labor law to foreign citizens (but not simliarly employed Americans), and who voted against securing the border before implementing any amensty, all because of a decision by that candidate's opponent about consular ID cards.

The 4 Things I Took Away from Laffey/Chafee 3

After the third Laffey/Chafee debate, I went "black" and avoided all punditry. Thus, here are the four (uninfluenced) items that stuck with me after the debate last night.

First: Chafee's labeling of Federal tax dollars to local/state government--what Laffey calls "pork"--as "property tax relief" was pretty clever. Never heard that one before. And though Laffey tried to pooh-pooh it by saying he's never heard a voter praise Chafee for tax relief, I think it was a rather ingenius attempt to blunt the "pork" argument. I'm not sure if it worked, but it was at least original.

Second: Laffey's explanation about why he called for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. To paraphrase, "The administration went to war based on the worst case scenario and fought it based on a best case scenario." Simply put, a good sound bite. It was clearly aimed at the independents in both the primary and the general election. Whether or not they view it as a genuine feeling or political gamesmanship is an open question.

Third: Laffey won the debate, both on style and on the substantive issues. I suspect that this is especially true in the eyes of most GOP members. However, while Laffey scored some points amongst the independents, Chafee probably did enough to keep a hold of most of them. If this were a debate prior to the general election, Chafee would have come out looking better. But it's not.

Fourth: Because this was on C-SPAN, I couldn't help but wondering what the average conservative Republicans across the land must have been thinking while watching the debate. Perhaps something like, "Those are what they call Republicans in Rhode Island?"

Most national political junkies--those most likely to watch a GOP debate in tiny, Democrat dominated RI on C-SPAN in the summer--probably knew that Lincoln Chafee is a moderate Republican who seems to enjoy being the far outlier of the GOP. However, I don't think that the idealized "typical GOP" member was aware of Steve Laffey's populist bent. He called for Rumsfeld's resignation, accused the GOP run Federal government of corruption, and railed against "Big Oil", to give a few examples.

Whether we in Rhode Island realize it or not, President Bush still has strong support in the GOP base across the country. What that base saw were two "Republicans" doing their damndest to distance themselves from a President of their own party (Glenn Reynolds makes a good point about this tactic. MAC); a President that most national GOP members agree with on most of the issues (Believe it, it's true!). I don't think they are envious of the choice that RI Republicans have to make in September. When viewed through the lens of what a "typical" conservative Republican might be, neither Laffey nor Chafee fits the bill.

But this isn't Kansas: this is a uniquely Rhode Island race. Those of us who have been following it understand that both of these candidates are trying to do two things at once. They have to run against each other in the GOP primary and keep an eye on the Independent-dominated general electorate. That's something that probably can't be fully appreciated in other parts of the country. After all, what other state's largest voting block doesn't identify itself with either political party? Rhode Islanders like to take their cue from the Independent Man standing atop the State House. It would seem that--regardless of who they elect in the GOP primary--they'll have that Man, in one form or another, to support in the general election.

Laffey-Chafee III: Debating the Budget

Lots of budget numbers were thrown around in Wednesday�s debate. Let�s put them in one place and try to sort out how everything fits together�

1. How much is the overall Federal budget?

As Senator Chafee noted, the overall budget is in the vicinity of 2.5 trillion -- that�s $2,500,000,000,000 � and growing.

2. What�s the basic breakdown of that spending?

Using the Office of Management and the Budget�s 2005 numbers...

Entitlement Spending	$1,300,000,000,000	53%
Defense Spending	$490,000,000,000	20%
Discretionary Non-Defense Spending	$470,000,000,000	19%
Interest on the Debt	$180,000,000,000	7%.

3. How much of a dent can you make by cutting out pork?

Mayor Laffey quoted a figure of $27 billion dollars. That figure, I suspect, comes from the Citizens Against Government Waste numbers. That�s not chump change, but neither will it cancel out the growth in entitlements. Note also that about half of the CAGW number is defense related.

4. What about corporate welfare?

There seems to be less agreement on what exactly constitutes corportate welfare. Mayor Laffey claimed there was $125-$150 billion of corporate welfare that could be cut. That�s an estimate towards the high end. Here�s three others I found�

• Ed Feulner (Chairman of the Heritage Foundation): $60 billion
• Cato Institute (America�s favorite Libertarian think-tank): $93 billion
• Public Citizen (�Nader�s Raiders�): $125 billion

Cato breaks their estimate down by category, showing the defense spending accounts for only a small percentage. My hunch is that the Public Citizen figure includes a bunch of defense spending as �corporate welfare� that the others don�t.

5. Isn�t this all dwarfed by the cost of the Iraq war?

No. Senator Chafee has used the figure of a billion dollars a week, roughly $50 billion per year. That seems a reasonable estimate, maybe even a little bit low, since the entire Defense budget is about $150 billion per-year higher now than it was in 2002. $50 billion is certainly larger than most pork estimates, but not an order of magnitude larger. And it�s still just about 4% of entitlement spending.

6. What about the revenue side?

Since the Bush tax-cuts, revenues have grown to about $300 billion more per year (consistent with the 12-15% increase in revenue that Mayor Laffey quotes, on top of a base of just under $2T) compared to before the tax cuts. I know that some people have a hard time accepting that revenues could go up after a tax cut, but 'dose is 'da numbahs. $300 billion is big money, enough to pay for a year�s worth of pork, corporate welfare, and the Iraq war and leave plenty left over but still only about 1/4 of the entitlement budget. That's how big the entitlements problem is. It�s not clear that even if we became a country of vegetarian (i.e. non-pork eating) pacifists (i.e. no defense budget) that tax cuts can grow revenues faster than entitlement obligations will eat them under the current structure.

The points here are�

1. Senator Chafee can�t dismiss $27 billion in pork as being fiscally irrelevant while saying he thinks the cost of the Iraq war is a consideration so big that it prohibits considering tax cuts (even under flawed static assumptions).
2. Cutting everything that Mayor Laffey has included as pork or corporate welfare would likely involve some cutting of defense programs.
3. You can see significant revenue increases after a tax cut.
4. Entitlement spending dwarfs everything else in the budget.
5. (Most important point) We have to reconsider the fundamental design of a system that demands that people forever be paying higher and higher taxes for stagnant or declining benefits. There is a design flaw in such a system that needs to be remedied.

Laffey-Chafee III: Open Thread

I�m going to try a different coverage format for tonight�s Republican Senate debate (WPRI-TV Channel 12 @ 8:00 pm, live Internet video also available) than I used in the radio debates. Instead of summarizing the debate blow-by-blow, I�ll try to provide details that usefully supplement what the candidates say about specific policies, past votes, past statements, etc.

Meanwhile, Anchor Rising readers are invited to use the comments section of this post to give their own real time reactions to the debate. Insightful comments, witty comments, and even comments that spin like a U-235 atom in an Iranian centrifuge are all welcome, but personally insulting or crude posts will be deleted as soon as I see them.

The comments will open at 8:00 are open now!

Sheldon Whitehouse Agrees with Bush Energy Policy

Sheldon Whitehouse continues his "Picnicing Across the Ocean State" campaign. He recently brought his basket to Tiverton and Little Compton. One of his big issues continues to be the price of gas, for which he blames President Bush's energy policy:

�George Bush and this Republican Congress have left us with a truly bad energy policy that�s dictated by the oil companies,� Whitehouse said. �I�ve met so many people here in Rhode Island who depend on gas to get by � and with these skyrocketing prices, they�ve got no way out. For our national security, our economy, and our environment, we urgently need a new energy strategy.�

Predictably, Whitehouse offers his own alternative energy plan, which is characterized like this in the aforelinked press release:

Earlier this month, Whitehouse unveiled a major new plan aiming to make America the world�s leader in energy innovation and achieve energy independence by 2020. The plan includes raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to an average of 40 mpg to improve fuel efficiency, and major new federal investments in development, production, and commercialization of new cellulosic biofuels made from sugar, wood waste, and switchgrass.

These are good ideas and it certainly in marked contrast to current energy policy.......or NOT!! Here are two related points from the President's Advanced Energy Initiative first outlined (hint: this is the short version) in his State of the Union speech this year. On increasing CAFE standards (excerpted from the AEI website):

The Administration increased CAFE standards for light trucks and SUVs for the first time in a decade, raising the standard from 20.7 mpg to 22.2 mpg for the current model year 2007 vehicles. We have proposed additional increases in the fuel economy of light trucks and SUVs produced in model years 2008-2011, which would save 10 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of those vehicles.

On Biofuels:

To achieve greater use of �homegrown� renewable fuels, we will need advanced technologies that will allow competitively priced ethanol to be made from cellulosic biomass, such as agricultural and forestry residues, material in municipal solid waste, trees, and grasses. Advanced technology can break those cellulosic materials down into their component sugars and then ferment them to make fuel ethanol.

To help reduce the costs of producing these advanced biofuels, and ready these technologies for commercialization, the President�s 2007 Budget increases DOE�s biomass research funding by 65%, to a total of $150 million. The President�s goal is to make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with corn-based ethanol by 2012, enabling greater use of this alternative fuel to help reduce future U.S. oil consumption.

I'm sure that the Whitehouse campaign's response will be something like, "Yeah, but we want to do more and faster....", which of course is easy to do when you're working off of someone elses proposal. Thus, given that Whitehouse's "new plan" is 8 months older than the President's current energy plan, it's pretty clear that Whitehouse agrees with the White House on an important aspect of energy policy.

Dole Giving up on Chafee?

According to the Winston-Salem Journal:

[Senator Elizabeth] Dole won't be campaigning any more for Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who is considered the most vulnerable incumbent Republican.

Chafee, a moderate Republican who publicly announced that he would not vote for Bush's re-election - he instead wrote in Bush's father's name - is facing a strong primary challenge from the right.

The Almanac of American Politics describes Rhode Island as "almost always one of the most Democratic states in presidential elections." Even if Chafee wins his primary, he faces a strong challenge from the state's former attorney general.

Nick said that Dole has no plans to go to Rhode Island between now and November. She did visit the state earlier this year.

Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University in Providence, said that is probably a good thing.

"Elizabeth Dole has good credibility on the right, (but) Chafee is pursuing independent voters now more than Republican voters," West said.

Is Elizabeth Dole giving up on Lincoln Chafee, or is she being politically pragmatic, as implied by Darryl West?

Internal Polls Show Laffey Over Chafee

Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island is trailing Cranston, R.I., Mayor Stephen Laffey in a bitterly divisive primary contest that offers Democrats their best shot at picking up a seat in one of the nation's bluest states.

Internal campaign polls show the conservative mayor's campaign attacks on Mr. Chafee's liberal voting record -- including the incumbent's opposition to President Bush's tax cuts and to Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination -- have struck a responsive chord among Republican voters.

So sayeth Don Lambro of the Washington Times. The question is, whose poll? And is this just counting Republicans or does it include independents?

(Tip via Dan Yorke, who'll have Mr. Lambro on later this afternoon.)

UPDATE: Lambro told Yorke he interviewed people on both sides, but he can't tell you who exactly gave him the info. He said Washington GOP folks tell him it's "really close", which means (based on his experience) that Chafee is in trouble. He's also not sure of the type of sample of the internal polls, apparently meaning that he doesn't know if they included independents.

Lambro said that when he talke to Ian Lang, Lang didn't argue with the point that conservatives are definitely leaning against Chafee. He also pointed out that the primary race was "competitive" and then Lang always steers the discussion to Laffey's purported gap against Whitehouse.

Yorke brought up the the GOP Senatorial bunch have really beaten up Laffey and also that the purported 20-30 point gap between Laffey and Whitehouse isn't that realistic. Yorke asked what the Washington GOP would do if Laffey won?

Lambro said they'd support him, but the depth of that support will be interesting. Given the controversy over tacit GOP support for Lieberman in CT, he doesn't think they'd be to keen on NOT supporting Laffey. In short, he thinks the national GOP would support Laffey if he should win the primary.

Yorke also asked what the Beltway take on this race was. Lambro said that the feeling is that the Dems could pick up 4-6 seats, which is why Elizabeth Dole is focusing on RI and her committee is going to help Chafee as much as they can.

Chafee-Laffey II: Issues!

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Dan Yorke Show on WPRO-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating�

Dan Yorke asks Senator Lincoln Chafee about stem cell research, and to elaborate on his criticism of his opponent's position.
Chafee says that Laffey was quiet on stem cells because he faced the dilemma of having to please certain constituencies. Eventually, he sided with special interests in support of the President�s veto of the embryonic stem-cell ban, even though numerous pro-life Senators voted for it.
Mayor Steve Laffey says Chafee�s characterization is false.
Yorke asks Laffey to give his postion on the President�s stem-cell veto.
Laffey says he supports the President�s veto of embryonic stem cell research and supports funding adult stem cell research, because adult stem cells show the best potential for cures. If the scientific facts change, he will change his position accordingly.
Yorke asks Laffey if he has made a business or a moral decision on this.
Laffey says it�s a business decision.
Chafee says the pro-life community is helping Laffey in the primary.
Laffey asks how?
Chafee says pro-lifers are an important part of Laffey�s constituency.
Laffey says Chafee has no evidence to support his thoughts.

Yorke plays a Bush clip on illegal immigration, and asks both candidates to concisely state their position on the issue.
Chafee says the American borders are gigantic, so securing them it not going to be easy. Tax cuts won�t help. Chafee says he supports the �McCain bill�.
Laffey says he opposes the �Kennedy-Reid� bill (yes, they�re both talking about the same bill) because it grants amnesty and because it lets foreign guest workers be paid more than American citizens. If we can put a man on moon, we can secure our borders and we should have done it right after 9/11.
Chafee says the wage mandates on foreign guest workers were added to the bill to protect Americans.
Laffey says the mandates don�t protect Americans.
Yorke asks Laffey about the consular ID cards issue. Yorke says he saw great celebration in the immigrant community when they were approved, because they made it easier for illegal immigrants to bank and do business.
Laffey says his approval of the program was a safety issue intended to help police do their jobs and not a quality-of-life issue intended to help illegal immigrants.

Yorke asks Chafee about the rationale for invading Iraq: Don't we all know that more than just the weapons of mass destruction rationale was involved?
Chafee says he believes the invasion it was all about WMD and threats against Saddam, but the evidence for WMD was never strong. Chafee says he knows this because he went to the CIA personally to examine the evidence, and was not convinced. It was a war based on a false premise. If the real motivation was a greater plan of remaking the Middle East, we should have debated that subject.
Laffey says it does no good to complain about the war�s rationale, but not offer solutions. We need a stable government in Iraq now that is not threat to its own people or to its neighbors. We need to get allies involved. And 3 months ago, I called for Rumsfeld to resign.
Chafee compares Laffey�s record on consular IDs to his position on Rumsfeld and Iraq, accusing Laffey of cheerleading at the beginning, then changing his mind later on.

Yorke asks about Israel.
Chafee says he has the best interests of Israel in mind. They have the right to defend themselves, but they have to make smart decisions. The way they�ve conducted themselves in the recent invasion has empowered Hezbollah.
Laffey says America would never tolerate having its soldiers kidnapped off of its own soil; Israel shouldn�t be expected to either. If Hezbollah lays down its arms, there�d peace. If Israel laid down its arms, they�d be annihilated. Senator Chafee was premature in calling for a cease-fire before Israel achieved its political goals.
Chafee notes that Israel has not yet even achieved its goal of having its kidnapped soldiers returned.

Yorke asks Chafee if he regrets voting for George H.W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential election.
Chafee says he�s doesn�t; he doesn�t flip-flop around on issues and the Bush tax cuts went too deep.
Yorke then plays a clip of Laura Bush expressing support for Chafee.
Laffey first wants to make it clear that President Bush is supporting Chafee in this race, then says the month it took Chafee to decide to vote for someone not running showed Chafee�s indecisiveness. The same pattern was visible in Chafee�s vote on Samuel Alito; by the time Chafee made his decision to vote against Alito, his decision was irrelevant.
Chafee reiterates that the President does support him, and that he maintains good relations with everybody in Washington, liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, etc.

Yorke asks his final question: What is it to be Senatorial?
Laffey says you have to be a leader. He has a track record of success of taking on the major issues of our day and has protected taxpayers. He will fight for his vision of the future on energy policy, prescription drugs, taxes and spending, etc.
Chafee says there are 3 qualities that are key to being Senatorial: courage, honesty, and an ability to work with others. You need the guts to make the hard decisions, and he has them.

Chafee-Laffey II: Ad Wars, Part 2

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Dan Yorke Show on WPRO-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating�

Dan Yorke plays the Chafee ad about Laffey�s record of raising taxes as Mayor of Cranston. Yorke notes that Laffey inherited pending bankruptcy and asks what could have been done differently.
Senator Lincoln Chafee cites his program as mayor of Warwick: a hiring freeze followed by small tax increases. That combination worked in Warwick. It�s hypocritical for Laffey to sign on to Club for Growth program of never raising taxes, when you can�t predict future circumstances that might require a tax increase.
Mayor Steve Laffey rebuts by mentioning a large pay increase for the Warwick teacher�s union that occurred under Chafee�s leadership.
Chafee said he was playing catch up.
Laffey says Chafee's situation in Warwick was not a crisis. Laffey says he worked with Democratic state Reps, and Governors Almond and Carcieri to fix things in Cranston. Yes, there was a supplemental tax imposed, but this year Cranston was the only RI community lower tax rates.

Yorke asks Laffey why the Cranston tax increases aren't a legitimate issue. Isn't it reasonable to look how someone has handled things in the past to figure out how they'll handle things in the future?
Laffey says local property taxes are different from Federal taxes and that Chafee wants to raise taxes on every single individual.
Chafee says Laffey should be more generous in sharing credit for fixing Cranston with the Cranston City Council and Cranston taxpayers. Chafee says he wants to do things on the Federal level that help reduce property taxes, like provide more Federal funding for special education. Laffey�s supporters in the Club for Growth are only interested in tax cuts for the rich.
Laffey notes that the No Child Left Behind Act, which Chafee voted for, is an unfunded mandate that puts tremendous pressure on property taxes.

Yorke acknowledges the education is a multi-wicket, but haven�t NCLB requirements brought in some necessary diligence?
Laffey says no, there�s been no measurable change in test scores. You have to treat Cranston differently from the Bronx.
Chafee wonders why all students shouldn�t be required to learn to the same level.

Yorke plays the Laffey campaign �peas in a pod� ad, which says Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse are basically the same. Yorke asks Chafee if he�s the same as Whitehouse
Chafee answers �far from it�. He�ll explain the differences during the general election campaign.
Laffey cites Chafee�s support of the death tax, opposition to Bush�s tax cuts, and the fact that Chafee has twice been mentioned as �porker of of the month� as similarities between Chafee and Whitehouse.

Yorke asks if it is fair to attack Senator Chafee�s record by singling out one project, like the bridge-to-nowhere, from an omnibus transportation bill. Don�t philosophical concerns about spending have to make some room for the practicalities of the legislative process?
Laffey says that $27 billion dollars in special earmarks in the highway bill were not in the interests of RI. They were not part of normal appropriations. Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill because it had 125 earmarks, this one had thousands of earmarks. Earmarks lead to a corruption
Yorke asks about giving the President line-item veto power.
Both candidates agree that a line-item veto is a good idea.
Chafee defends the earmark process as a legitimate part of a normal appropriations process, because it follows his asking town managers and mayors what their needs are.
Laffey asks how it was possible for Chafee to vote against the railroad-to-nowhere, if it was impossible for him to vote against a project like the bridge-to-nowhere.
Chafee cites his Concord Coalition designation as the Senate�s most fiscally conservative member as evidence of his strong record of fiscal responsibility.

Chafee-Laffey II: Ad Wars, Part 1

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Dan Yorke Show on WPRO-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating. Good luck to any non-Rhode Island residents trying to interpret this one�

Dan Yorke plays the Chafee campaign�s latest-anti-Laffey ad, then plays a more complete audio of the �Cranston firefighter� incident. An aspiring pugilist is heard to say to Mayor Laffey, �Don�t you ever talk to the wife of one of my guys. I�ll knock you right out.�
Senator Lincoln Chafee notes that the aspiring pugilist's remarks indicate that Mayor Laffey improperly addressed somebody's wife.
Mayor Steve Laffey points out that it is clear on the tape that all he said was �please stop this right now�, directly to the aspiring pugilist, in an attempt to restore order at a meeting that had gotten chaotic.
Chafee: Why did the aspiring pugilist mention somebody's wife?
Laffey says it's because the aspiring pugilist was lying; the incident has been investigated and reported on by local media. It's been confirmed that he stepped in an attempt to get people to calm down. Laffey then addresses Senator Chafee and says the personal attacks aren�t serving him well, the lies in his commercials are plain wrong, and he won�t do anything like that in his ads.
Chafee says if it�s not Laffey on the audio and video, he�ll pull the ads.

Yorke plays a more complete version of the 3rd part of the Chafee campaign's latest anti-Laffey ad, where Laffey says the older political elites in the Republican party, who are not as interested in winning as they are in grabbing some legal work and hanging out at parties, are luckily getting older and dying. Yorke notes that the Senator demanded an apology and Laffey offered one right away. So why has the Chafee campaing persisted with this issue?
Chafee said Laffey made the remark because he was angry that he sought the endorsement of the Republican party, but failed.
Laffey says he never sought the state party endorsement.
Chafee says he knows Laffey talked to people about getting the endorsement.
Laffey says name one.
Chafee says he can�t name anyone specific, but of course Laffey wanted the endorsement.

Yorke asks Laffey an incident like this has to do with his personality or if it's an anomaly.
Laffey answers it�s an anomaly. That�s why he apologized. National guys in the Chafee campaign have convinced him to go negative with this stuff.
Chafee says there are negative ads all over the place. He objects to the Laffey ad that says that Lincoln Chafee would give social security to illegal aliens. No illegal immigrant would ever get social security benefits under any program that he supports.

Yorke asks Chafee if he believes that Laffey�s apology was hollow.
Chafee believes that when you couple it with other instances, like the Jackvony pixelation, it shows a pattern.
Laffey responds that the Jackvony pixelation shows a sense of humor.
Chafee: It wasn�t funny.
Laffey: Didn�t you pixelate me out of a picture at the Follies?
Yorke: The Follies is different.

Chafee-Laffey II: Politics and Punditry

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Dan Yorke Show on WPRO-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating...

Dan Yorke announces there are no rules for this debate!

Yorke plays a Laffey ad accusing the Senator of ducking debates, then asks Mayor Steve Laffey if he really believed that the Senator was not going to debate.
Laffey says that the debates should have started earlier, before vacation season in August.
Senator Lincoln Chafee says he has always debated in the past, eight debates in his last Senate campaign. His job in Washington made it hard to debate in person.
Yorke asks Laffey if the purpose of the ads was to make it look like he baited Senator Chafee into accepting debates.
Laffey says the ad meant what it said.
Chafee mentions he always debated in his mayoral races.

Yorke opines that it�s never easy to be challenged, then asks Chafee if he�s insulted by a primary challenge.
Chafee: No, I expected a challenge.
Yorke says Chafee is promoting the idea that Laffey can�t win, and asks Chafee to explain what that means.
Chafee says this is America, and people are free to run for the office they want, but many offices held by Democrats are going unopposed. The small base of Republican talent in RI could have been better spread around.
Yorke asks Laffey about shopping around for an office to run for.
Laffey: Running for Senate fits my talents
Yorke asks Laffey if any one thing �triggered� his choice to run for Senate.
Laffey says any disagreements with Senator Chafee are professional not personal and that he takes on different missions in different parts of his life. He saw Cranston going broke, so ran for Mayor to fix it, and always said he�d do something else once Cranston was fixed. Now Cranston�s fixed, but the US is on the wrong financial path.

Yorke asks what made Laffey think this was a winnable race.
Laffey answers no one thing and that he�s always been told he can never win. To win, you need money, a message, and a candidate, and his campaign has all 3.
Chafee says he knows from personal interaction with Laffey that Laffey came to RI for the purpose of getting to Washington. Running for Mayor of Cranston was low hanging fruit to start.
Laffey says he listened to the Senator before deciding to run for Mayor to be polite, but that the Senator had no influence on his decisions. It was conditions in Cranston that made him decide to run.
Chafee says he helped Laffey with meetings with Republican Senatorial and Congressional committees, and played a role in helping him get started.
Laffey says he doesn�t mean to be rude, but he�s made his political career on his own. Laffey also mentions Chafee�s remark about looking forward to ending his career; Laffey looks as public service as a way of giving back, not a career.

Yorke asks if a career in politics a lesser mission than other careers.
Laffey thinks that people should have real careers before entering public service. Too many people go into office not understanding the real world.
Chafee says he has had non-political jobs, a summer job, the racetrack job for 7 years, Electric Boat for 4 years.
Yorke asks Chafee if he wants to end Laffey�s career.
Chafee answers �absolutely� or at least be a bump in the road.
Yorke asks Laffey if he�s done with politics if he loses.
Laffey says he doesn�t think that way (that he might lose).
Yorke asks Laffey�s about Maureen Moakley and Darrell West�s prediction that Chafee wins the primary.
Laffey says Moakley predicted Chafee wouldn�t run negative ads. Then, the next day he did. She�s 100% wrong. And it�s unfortunate that people still go to Darrell West, he�s too partisan.

Yorke asks Chafee about depending on independents to win.
Chafee says he still goes to Republican events, spaghetti suppers and breakfasts. He represents a true Republicanism of civil liberties, environmentalism, avoiding foreign entanglements, and fiscal responsibility. But he says that independents are good for him too.
Yorke asks about the big gap between Whitehouse and Laffey in the polls. Since Laffey already has high name recognition, isn�t this a serious problem?
Chafee says since everybody already knows Laffey, it will be hard to close a 30-point gap. Jeff Pine was able to close a similar-sized gap because no one knew who he was when he was polling low.
Laffey calls Chafee�s answer foolish. He doesn�t enjoy anywhere near name recognition the Chafee name brings. Things will change radically after primary. Laffey also notes he won a high-turnout primary in Cranston, after being outspent 5-1.

Today�s Senate Race Coverage from the MSM

Two new entries in the coverage of Rhode Island�s Republican Senate primary, one local and one national, were printed today. Neither breaks much new ground for those already been paying attention to the contest, with perhaps one important exception.

The local entry is a Projo article by Mark Arsenault focusing on the Club for Growth�

In its endorsement of Laffey on its Web site, the Club acknowledges: "One risk is that, after beating Chafee in the primary, Laffey loses the general election to the Democrat. But the odds of this happening are not overwhelming -- and we believe this risk is acceptable."

The Club argues that Chafee is the most liberal Republican in the Senate, and the chance to replace him is worth this risk for several reasons:

"First, it wouldn't be much of a loss if a new Democrat senator were elected, as he would vote much the same as Chafee does now," the Club claims. "Second, it is unlikely this loss would result in tipping control of the Senate back to the Democrats -- though that, too, can't be ruled out. If Republicans lose so many seats that the Rhode Island race is crucial, Chafee would probably lose, too."

Meanwhile, at the national level, OpinionJournal has a national level summary of the Senate race written by Kimberly Strassel that concludes in a way that may raise an eyebrow or two�

Yet it says something about GOP frustration that even these long odds haven't fazed many. Laffey supporters are betting that if he wins the primary, the GOP establishment will offer its support....

It's still a long shot, although at least some Republican strategists are nonplussed. They've long argued the party should write off the Northeast, and focus on consolidating its gains in the South and Midwest. If voters are as angry as seems, it may have no choice.

Writing off an entire area of the country is never a good idea, for any political party that wants to actually win nor for any party that wants to actually govern after winning elections.

Two Final Debate Follow-ups

Two more sets of questions worth following up on from the first Republican Senatorial debate...

1. The first question is for both Senator Chafee and Mayor Laffey. Mayor Laffey�s fiscal proposals have focused mostly on reducing discretionary spending of various forms, while Senator Chafee blamed the necessity for high-taxes on the war in Iraq.

Yet at one point during the evening, both candidates agreed that there is a �demographic tidal wave� about to hit entitlements. To fill in some detail, I refer you to Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution, who argues that entitlements are on a path towards dwarfing all other budgetary considerations�

Entitlements, on the other hand, represented 53 percent of total federal spending in 2005 with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid representing 41 percent of the total. These three programs are growing rapidly, and along with interest on the debt, will absorb all projected federal revenues by the early 2030s.

The reasons for this rapid growth include the aging of the population (greater longevity, in particular�not just the retirement of the large baby boom generation) and rapidly increasing spending on health care�.A variety of health care reforms�from greater use of electronic records to curtailing malpractice awards�could reduce the level of spending somewhat, but are not likely to constrain spending growth very much, except perhaps temporarily.

The question for both candidates is what basic principles do they believe in with regards to bringing entitlement spending under control?

2. The second question is for Senator Chafee: When discussing pork, the Senator discussed the complex and delicate nature of the legislative process. When discussing immigration, the Senator said he supported requiring illegal immigrants who had been in the US for two years or less to leave the country, as embodied in the Martinez-Hagel compromise.

Why then did Senator Chafee vote in favor of Senator Dianne Feinstein�s �orange card� amendment which would have given amnesty to all illegal immigrants within the United States on or before January 1, 2006 (for those really bad at math, that�s significantly less than two years) and unraveled the fragile Martinez-Hagel consensus on the Senate immigration bill?

Liberal Republicans, Character, Principles, and Negative Ads

Senator Lincoln Chafee opened Thursday night�s Senate debate with an important point: issues will change, so people need to elect representatives whom they trust to have the character to make good decisions in unforeseen circumstances. But character is not all that indicates how a politician will deal with the unknown. Yes, character helps determine how someone will react when confronted with the temptation to wander astray from his principles, but the principles themselves are important too. To make an informed decision between candidates running for office, it is necessary to consider the basic principles that candidates believe in, as well as their characters.

In some ways, determining the principles underlie the liberal Republicanism that Senator Lincoln Chafee represents is difficult, because Rhode Island's liberal Republicanism has become an unfinished thought. We all know how the thought begins, �Rhode Island is a blue state, so everyone has to accept the Rhode Island Republicans will be more liberal than the Republicans in the rest of the country in order to win elections�. But how does the thought end? Is there any difference between the ends of liberal Republicans and those of plain ol� liberals, or do liberal Republicans offer nothing more than, to paraphrase Peggy Noonan, a promise to try to to slow down the liberal program -- the continuing government takeover of as much political and economic life as possible -- just a little bit?

The recent paid media put forth by the Chafee campaign, the latest in a string of issueless, backwards-looking attacks on Steve Laffey, makes the answer pretty clear. Liberal Republicans, in another unfortunate conjunction between liberal Republicanism and unqualified liberalism, have adopted the attitude that anybody who believes differently from they do can�t possibly be serious � can�t even be a good person! They've bought into the idea that liberal assumptions and liberal ends are so self-evidently correct, they need no defense, and that non-liberal ideas like tax-simplification, smaller government, reducing the power of bureaucracies and empowering individuals don't merit any serious discussion.

The only choice that matters to the liberal wing of the Republican party is which personalities can best manage the high-tax nanny-state they would like to perpetuate; that's why their campaign spends so much time focusing on the issue of personality. Any other discussions are treated as mere distractions from the inevitable march of history towards an ever-stronger Federal government. Fortunately, America's voters have a history of embracing a belief that a wider array of choices is possible.

Following-Up the Projo's Debate Follow-Up on Taxing and Spending

There are a few gaps that need to be filled in Mark Arsenault's Republican Senate debate follow-up article appearing in today's Projo. The article contrasts the positions of Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey on the issues of taxes and spending.

1. Though Arsenault's description of the PAYGO rule supported by Senator Chafee regarding deficits is correct in a technical sense,

Chafee is a believer in "pay as you go," a philosophy from the 1990s that requires spending cuts or a new source of revenue to balance each tax cut or new spending program.

...Arsenault doesn't discuss PAYGO's ultimate ramification. The key word in Arsenault's description is "new". The authors of PAYGO were certain to exempt the growth of "old" spending -- spending on already existing entitlement programs that increases according to pre-determined formulas -- from any limitation. Here's how the exception appears in the text of the legislation...

(1) IN GENERAL -- It shall not be in order in the Senate to consider any direct spending or revenue legislation that would increase the on-budget deficit or cause an on-budget deficit for any 1 of the 3 applicable time periods as measured in paragraphs (5) and (6)...

(4) EXCLUSION.--For purposes of this subsection, the terms "direct-spending legislation'' and "revenue legislation'' do not include --
(A) any concurrent resolution on the budget

Since Congress' concurrent resolution on the budget is that the only place where spending on existing entitlements needs an annual approval, exempting the budget resolution from the PAYGO rule exempts entitlement growth from the PAYGO rule. And, as Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution explains, entitlement programs are where our country's biggest spending problems are...

In efforts to restore fiscal balance, it's important to focus on entitlements for a number of reasons:

• Entitlements are where the big dollars are.
• They are growing rapidly.
• Given the unsustainable deficits that this growth implies, there are only three possible options: restructure entitlements, eliminate most of the rest of government, or raise taxes to unprecedented levels.

Ultimately, the entitlements-exempt PAYGO rule favored by the Democrats and Senator Chafee becomes a way of forcing automatic tax-increases on the public. Here's Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation explaining how...

While PAYGO allows current entitlement programs to grow on autopilot, it would likely lead to the expiration of the current tax cuts. Merely retaining the tax relief that Americans now enjoy would, under PAYGO, require 60 votes in the Senate and a waiver in the House. To avoid this supermajority requirement, lawmakers seeking to prevent tax increases would have to either: A) raise other taxes; or B) reduce mandatory spending by a larger amount than has ever been enacted. Option A is still a net tax increase (raising one tax to avoid raising another), and Option B is probably politically unrealistic.

Senator Chafee tries to define his position on taxes and spending, which presumably includes PAYGO, as that of a traditional conservative Republican...

Chafee says that, while opposing the big tax cuts, he also voted against major spending items, such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which he says is too expensive. "I'm a very traditional conservative Republican on taxes and spending," he said.

But it is difficult to accept this statement as meaningful when the Senator supports a program that seeks to turn the Federal Government into an entitlement machine paid for through automatic yearly tax-increases.

2. Arsenault devotes only a single to line Mayor Laffey's proposal for tax simplification...

He also proposes rewriting and simplifying the tax code,

...presenting tax-simplification as if it were an add-on to the the Mayor's fiscal proposals, when it is actually a starting point. Mayor Laffey argues that simplifiying the tax code will reduce the power of lobbyists and the associated corruption they can bring. He is far from alone in arguing this (Mickey Kaus provided one of the best explanations I can remember seeing, but I can't locate the exact quote). The essential argument is that the influence of K-Street lobbyists in Washington is rooted in their knowledge of and their ability to manipulate an arcane tax code; simplify the tax-code, and corporate and industrial-sector lobbyists will become no more or less influential than Sierra Club-type lobbyists.

Unfortunately, since Arsenault relegates tax-simplification to a sidebar, we never learn Senator Chafee's position on tax simplification, nor any arguments for or against the idea. Do politicians unwilling to pursue tax-simplification take that position because they believe that tax-simplification does not matter, because they believe a complex tax-code is an inherently good thing, or because they are simply unwilling to challenge the existing network of lobbyists on this issue?

The MSM Reports on the Republican Senate Debate, and a Curious Omission

The MSM reports on last night�s Senatorial debate have been filed. Here are reports from�

• Scott MacKay and Mark Arsenault in the Projo,
• Jim Baron in the Pawtucket Times, and
• M.L. Johnson in the Associated Press (via the Boston Globe).

All three MSM reports picked up on Senator Chafee�s statement of �a bad peace is better than a good war�, but none of the three reported on the Senator�s questioning (in response to a question about Israel) of where a war on �Islamic extremism� gets you, the statement made during last night�s debate most in need of clarification.

Also, the Chafee campaign has their review of the debate up on their campaign website. They think Senator Chafee won.

RILawJournal has a live blog report that does an excellent job capturing the tone of the debate's back-and-forth.

More follow-up coming next week�

Laffey-Chafee I: Miscellaneous Questions

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Arlene Violet Show on WHJJ-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating. "Miscellaneous" should only be read to imply that these questions did not fit into any other category, not that they are less important than the others...

Arlene Violet asks if drug companies or individuals got the better deal from the recent drug bill.
Mayor Steve Laffey answers that drug companies got a better deal, because medicare cannot negotiate for cheaper drugs.
Senator Lincoln Chafee says he voted against the drug bill because it had no bulk purchasing provisions.

Violet asks Chafee if he would support vouchers under any circumstance.
Chafee says no, vouchers undermine public schools.
Laffey says he wants every kid to have the opportunity that vouchers can provide. He mentions he�s trying to start a public school choice program between Cranston and Providence. Laffey says he supports vouchers and public choice.

Violet asks Chafee to name 3 places where he supports the President.
Chafee says he supports the President on free trade, respects his work on No-Child-Left-Behind, and keeps good relations with the White House.
Laffey says he supports the President on free trade, tax cuts, and the War on Terror. He disagrees with the President on NCLB, because education decisions should be made locally.

Violet says part of being a Senator is being willing to compromise, and asks Laffey for 3 issues on which he might compromise.
Laffey says he�s successfully worked with unions on negotiating health co-pays, proving he's is able to compromise and work with others. Laffey names the phaseout of the estate tax as an issue he would compromise on.
Chafee uses his time to mention that Laffey encouraged a primary against a Republican city councilman which shows that he has a hard time working with others.
Laffey questions the relevance of the intra-party politics in Cranston�s fourth ward to a race for United States Senator.

Violet asks Chafee if he knew a consulting firm his campaign hired was connected (by marriage) to an individual convicted of jamming phone lines on an election day. (Violet also asks if the consulting firm�s work will involve phoning voters).
Chafee takes responsibility for the hire and says he didn�t know about the relationship with the convicted individual. The firm can continue to work for the campaign as long as no professional relationship is established.

Violet seems like she�s going to ask Laffey a question about stem-cells, but at the last moment changes direction, and segues into a question about using Medicaid funds for abortion.
Alas, your intrepid blogger couldn�t follow the question or answer on this one. Fortunately, we�ll get three more chances to get it answered!

Laffey-Chafee I: Taxes and Spending

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Arlene Violet Show on WHJJ-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating...

Arlene Violet asks about extending expiring tax-cuts.
Senator Lincoln Chafee laments that we have failed to cut spending, yet we are cutting taxes. The biggest expense of all is this war in Iraq, which costs a billion dollars a week. We can�t cut taxes during a war.
Mayor Steve Laffey says that revenues have increased 12-14% in the three years following the tax cuts. Receipts are up relative to CBO estimates. Tax-cuts that encourage growth should be made permanent.

Violet asks something about spending and earmarks.
Laffey says spending can be brought under control by cutting pork, corporate welfare, and non-military discretionary spending.
Chafee is sympathetic to earmark reform. Appropriators in Congress have too much power. But other areas of the budget, like farm subsidies, dwarf what�s spent on earmarks.

Violet: Medicare is in worse shape than social security. What do we do?
Chafee says a demographic tidal wave is about to hit entitlements. We need people (like me, I assume the Senator means) who can work together to solve this.
Laffey basically agrees (I assume with himself in the role of �me�).

Violet asks about the responsibility of a Senator with respect to pork, and asks Laffey to name 3 projects in Rhode Island that are pork.
Laffey says a Senator should support his state, but through the normal appropriations process. The transportation bill brought plenty to RI, without counting the earmarks, and many of the recent Congressional scandals show how earmarking has become a magnet for corruption. Names the Westerly animal shelter as an example of pork
Chafee again cites the $1 billion dollars he has brought to Rhode Island because of his work on the Environment and Public Works committee. Mentions he obtained part of the money to take down the Jamestown bridge.

Laffey-Chafee I: Cross-Examination

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Arlene Violet Show on WHJJ-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating. This is the part where they get to ask one another questions...

Senator Lincoln Chafee says he voted against tax cuts in 2001, because we should be fully funding special education programs like the IDEA program before cutting taxes. And more Federal funding for special ed would mean local property taxes could be lowered. What does Mayor Laffey think?
Mayor Steve Laffey says he cut local spending by firing the crossing guards. Meaningful property tax-relief will only come if unfunded mandates are done away with and management rights are restored. And tax cuts stimulate growth and make more money available.
Chafee rebuts: Crossing guards were only 1/4 of 1 percent of the Cranston budget. The Federal government has promised to fund 40% of IDEA, but hasn�t gotten to 20% yet.

Laffey asks about Senator Chafee�s vote against using the $223,000,000 appropriated for the bridge-to-nowhere funding to pay for bridges damaged by Hurricane Katrina. What good did that do for Rhode Island?
Chafee responds by defending the overall highway bill which the bridge-to-nowhere was part of. The highway bill required 3 years of delicate compromise, and brought $1 billion dollars into Rhode Island, $2.21 for every dollar we pay in gas taxes.
Laffey says he is asking about just the vote on the specific amendment, not the entire bill.
Chafee says that in practice, voting against the bridge to nowhere was impossible.

Chafee asks about Laffey�s signing an anti-tax pledge put forth by the Americans for Tax Reform. Are you bought and paid for, or does your signature mean nothing?
Laffey responds that he read the pledge carefully, modified it by removing portions he didn�t like, and only signed on to the provisions he agreed with.
Chafee expresses displeasure at being criticized by �a right wing organization� like the Club for Growth, then defends his record as Mayor of Warwick. Chafee says he raised taxes less in 7 years as mayor than Laffey has in 4, plus he raised investment in the city pension fund from $70 million to $225 million.
Laffey cites his own record on city pension funding, going from $9 million to $40 million, plus he inherited a city that was going bankrupt, which everyone in Rhode Island knows.

Laffey asks Chafee about a March 13, 2001 vote that allowed the government to raid social security to pay for more spending.
Chafee responds by citing the Concord Coalition citation of himself as Congress�s most fiscally responsible member.
Laffey responds that Chafee didn�t answer the question.

Laffey-Chafee I: War and the Middle East

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Arlene Violet Show on WHJJ-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating...

Arlene Violet asks if American foreign policy should always be in tandem with Israel�s.
Mayor Steve Laffey addresses the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Israel was attacked and they have the right to respond. We all want a cease-fire, but only if it leads to a lasting peace, which can only happen if Hezbollah is degraded.
Senator Lincoln Chafee decries the escalation of the current war, says it�s been escalated until it�s a war on �Islamic extremism� (this reference to extremism is the one point where I�m going to interject myself, and opine that maybe Senator Chafee didn�t say quite what he meant here) and where does that take us? Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

Violet presses for an answer on Israel that is wider than just the current conflict.
Laffey: Israel has tried to live in peace. If Hezbollah laid down its arms, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its arms, they would be annihilated.
Chafee stresses that he does not come to this issue from naivety. A bad peace is better than a good war. We should return to the peace process that started with Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat.

Violet asks if there is a civil war in Iraq, and if should Donald Rumsfeld should resign as secretary of defense.
Chafee emphasizes engaging Iraq�s neighbors to improve the situation there.
Laffey says Rumsfeld should resign. He has a tough job and has to be held accountable for the failures.

Violet asks about President Bush�s use of wiretapping and signing statements.
Laffey: Courts should decide signing statement issue. Today�s events in Great Britain show us that wiretapping is justified, but the President should get the proper authorization from judges and keep congress informed.
Chafee criticizes Laffey for supporting the war but opposing Rumsfeld. Chafee says that the Constitution is a sacred document that protects people from wiretapping. The Constitution says the Presdient is Commander-in-Chief, but that shouldn�t be stretched too far.

Laffey-Chafee I: Illegal immigration.

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, debated on today�s Arlene Violet Show on WHJJ-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating...

Arlene Violet opens the debate with illegal immigration. Should illegal immigrants be deported?
Senator Lincoln Chafee expresses support for �the John McCain bill� including the Martinez-Hagel provisions that include deportation for immigrants who have been less 2 years.
Mayor Steve Laffey expresses opposition to the �McCain-Kennedy� bill and wants to secure the border first.

Violet asks about tougher enforcement of immigration laws.
Chafee first criticizes Laffey�s history with consular ID cards issue. Chafee then criticizes the House�s enforcement-only approach to immigration, saying that not one member of the Senate will support the House bill, nor will he.
Laffey defends the consular cards, saying they made for a more secure Cranston. Securing border and enforcing immigration laws needs to be done before anything else.

Violet asks about American practices, like subsidized agribusiness, that create conditions in other countries that encourage illegal immigration.
Chafee first criticizes Laffey for not being consistent on the immigration issue, then says free trade is the best way to address the root causes of illegal immigration.
Laffey says that once borders are secure and laws are being enforced, we can work with Mexico to get them to make necessary changes and implement a guest worker program if it's needed.

Laffey-Chafee I: Opening Statements

Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate debated on today�s Arlene Violet Show on WHJJ-AM radio. Here are the notes I jotted down as they were debating...

Senator Chafee asks voters to consider three things in his opening statement...

• Who can win in November?
• Who can best represent Rhode Island?
• Issues are going to change, so you have to look at character when electing a Senator.

Mayor Laffey talks about the three biggest problems he believes need fixing in his opening statement�

• Too many tax-breaks for special interests and spending is out of control.
• The cost of prescription drugs needs to be lowered
• The United States needs a national energy policy to enhance national security.

Sheldon Whitehouse's First Flip-Flop?

Has Sheldon Whitehouse already changed his position on the Iraq War? In his initial TV ads, he said he wanted troops out of Iraq "by the end of this year". And as recently as June, Whitehouse told Projo columnist Charles Bakst that he supported a hard deadline on troop withdrawal from Iraq...

Whitehouse, who wants U.S. troops out by the end of 2006, says he'd have voted last week for Sen. John Kerry's proposal to require withdrawal of all combat forces by next July, with redeployments beginning this year.

Whitehouse would have voted for the Kerry amendment even though another Democratic-sponsored amendment was available (sponsored, in part, by Jack Reed) that called for the beginnings of a "phased redeployment", but without providing a final deadline to our enemies that they could use in their planning.

Now, in his latest TV advertisement, Sheldon Whitehouse says that he supports "a responsible redeployment of our troops out of Iraq", a position that is much more vague than the hard-deadline option he previously favored. It is legitimate to ask if the new emphasis is being driven by an actual change in position on Whitehouse's part, or if it is simply an attempt to tell people what he thinks they want to hear, i.e. I agree with the well-respected Jack Reed, and not the incoherent John Kerry.

One last concern: In the new TV ad, Whitehouse talks about sending "a clear signal that we are really getting out" of Iraq. If he believes that "signals" are important to the conduct of foreign affairs, does he also accept the possibility that a negative signal is sent to the rest of the world when the US walks away from a potential ally?

The Chafee Campaign's Independent Experts

Today�s Projo contains an unbylined story concerning some controversy surrounding the Chafee campaign�s efforts to reach independent voters�

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee's campaign has paid $386,000 to a company controlled by the wife of James Tobin, a former Republican National Committee campaign official who was found guilty of criminally violating federal election law in a New Hampshire case.

The firm Northeast Strategies LLC specializes in targeting unaffiliated voters....

Tobin was found guilty of participating in a scheme by New Hampshire Republicans to jam the 2002 Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote telephone lines in New Hampshire. Tobin was sentenced to 10 months in jail.

"We had no idea that Northeast Strategies had any connection to Tobin," said Steve Hourahan, Chafee's campaign spokesman.

The original source for the story is a Washington Post article from Sunday.

Chafee's Perilous Pragmatic Appeal to the GOP

I understand what Sen. Chafee is doing by highlighting the polling data showing that Mayor Laffey is "unelectable" should he beat Chafee in the GOP primary and face-off against Sheldon Whitehouse in the General election. As Dan Yorke pointed out today, it makes political sense to scare people a little bit. But Yorke also made the point that it seems like the Senator is playing with a double-edged sword.

The continual pounding of the message that only Senator Chafee can beat Whitehouse leaves the impression that all Chafee has to offer is that he can hold the seat for the GOP. "Vote against Laffey, not for Chafee." I'm not sure if this pragmatic approach is appealing enough to the more ideologically minded GOP primary voter. And I'm not sure if it does much to help Sen. Chafee as far as laying groundwork should he win the primary and have to face Whitehouse. By leaning so heavy on the anti-Laffey tactic, he isn't giving many reasons for the General election voter to support him. It's a tough spot.

And this all brings me to another question: how many GOP voters will vote for whomever emerges from the primary, whether it be Laffey or Chafee? There has been much back and forth (and vitriol) in the Comments of this blog between the two groups of supporters. Should Chafee win, will the Laffeyites take their ball and go home? Or throw all ideology aside and vote against Chafee due to spite, even if he is still marginally more conservative than Whitehouse? Should Laffey win, will the Chafee voters suddenly decide it's not as important to hold the GOP Senate majority as they once did--especially given that it has been their main argument for keeping Chafee?

The Republican Rapid Responders are Coming!

From the Associated Press, via WPRI-TV�

A Republican group describing itself as a "strike force" of experienced campaigners is heading to Rhode Island to help Senator Lincoln Chafee�.

Former state Representative Brock Bierman is coordinating the effort by the Republican Rapid Responders. They'll arrive in the final weeks before the September 12th primary.

Chafee angered many Republicans by voting against President Bush's tax cuts, the Iraq War and the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. But the Republican National Committee still backs Chafee.

An extended version of the AP story includes these details�

Republican Rapid Responders is a Virginia-based group formed in 2004 to help re-elect President Bush. Bierman described its members as "political junkies" who are interested in getting Republicans elected and preserving the party's majority in the Senate�.

It sent an e-mail to members Monday asking them to volunteer in Rhode Island for at least five days -- and as much as two weeks -- before the primary. Rhode Island Victories, an arm of the state Republican Party, will pay volunteers' expenses, including airfare, lodging and food.

The volunteers will focus on door-to-door campaigning, making phone calls and getting Chafee supporters to the polls.

At least according to the FEC website, Chafee-Rhode Island Victory is technically a non-party multicandidate political action committee. And as Bill Reynolds might say, there's no truth to the rumor that the state party is now an arm of the Chafee campaign.

Chafee/Laffey Debate Schedule

In case you missed it, here�s the debate schedule agreed upon between Senator Lincoln Chafee and Mayor Steve Laffey �

• Thursday, August 10, 5-6 pm, WHJJ 920-AM (The Arlene Violet Show)
• Thursday, August 17, 5-6 pm , WPRO 630-AM (The Dan Yorke Show)
• Wednesday, August 23, 7-8 pm, WPRI-TV Channel 12
• Thursday, August 24, 7-8 pm, WJAR-TV Channel 10

The Latest FEC Fun

It�s been a few weeks since we�ve had an exciting new Federal Election Commission matter to discuss, so let�s lead with that this week. According to John E. Mulligan in Sunday�s Saturday's Projo, the FEC has warned the Chafee campaign about a potential violation of campaign finance law�

The Federal Election Commission has asked that Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee's name be removed from the title of the organization that sponsored First Lady Laura Bush's May visit to Providence to raise money for Chafee and Rhode Island's Republican Party.

In one of a series of letters to such groups, known as "joint fundraising committees," the FEC said "enforcement action" may be taken against them if they do not comply with the election campaign rules in question�

The FEC's letter to Chafee-Rhode Island Victory 2006 said the senator's name cannot be used because the group also represents a "multicandidate committee" -- meaning the state party, which assists many Rhode Island Republican office-seekers.

Multicandidate committees have to support five candidates for Federal office to qualify for their multicandidate status. I believe the FEC's position is that an organization can't be a true multicandiate committee if it says in its title that one of its candidate is more equal than the others. Of course, you could also approach this from a �truth in advertising� perspective and say if a single candidate is all that a particular PAC is really interested in, why not let them be up front about it?

Another part of Mulligan's article doesn�t match with current campaign finance rules. According to the �Campaign Fundraising for Dummies� documents available on the FEC website, multicandidate committees are limited to contributing $5,000 per candidate, per election. Mulligan, however, writes about a much bigger sum of money�

The Chafee-Rhode Island Victory 2006 group was formed to run Bush's Rhode Island fundraiser and pass the proceeds on to Chafee and the state party. The committee gave almost $110,000 to the senator's reelection campaign and $63,500 to the Rhode Island Republican State Central Committee, according to its midyear report to the FEC.

I suspect what Mulligan means is that $110,000 in individual contributions to Senator Chafee were collected and bundled by Chafee-Rhode Island Victory 2006, then passed along to the candidate.

Aren�t you glad we have all of our current campaign finance laws on the books making this transparent for you?

Sheldon's Scaring the Seniors

Sheldon Whitehouse is engaging in that time-tested, liberal Democrat method of winning the senior-citizen vote: scare the hell out of them:

I met a woman who asked me fearfully if the Republicans were really trying to do away with Social Security. It made me sick to have to tell her she may be right.

Over the last several months, a series of Republican leaders - from George Bush and Karl Rove to several others - have signaled that they�re planning to push for Social Security privatization if they retain control of Congress. I don�t have to tell you that that would be a disaster for Rhode Island seniors....Republican efforts to privatize Social Security will break this promise we made to seniors and force thousands of our fellow Rhode Islanders into even more precarious financial straits than now.

We�ve got to stop that from happening. Let�s keep our promise to Rhode Island seniors and make sure that the Republicans don�t have the chance to privatize Social Security.

Any honest person knows that the President's plan for Social Security Reform is concerned with future expenditures, not current.

Social Security is sound for today�s seniors and for those nearing retirement, but it needs to be fixed for younger workers � our children and grandchildren. The government has made promises it cannot afford to pay for with the current pay-as-you-go system.

* In 1950, there were 16 workers to support every one beneficiary of Social Security.

* Today, there are only 3.3 workers supporting every Social Security beneficiary.

* In 2008 � just three short years from now � baby boomers will begin to retire. And over the next few decades, people will be living longer and benefits are scheduled to increase dramatically. By the time today�s youngest workers turn 65, there will only be 2 workers supporting each beneficiary.

o Under the current system, today�s 30-year-old worker will face a 27% benefit cut when he or she reaches normal retirement age.

Instead of scaring seniors with false claims about "possible" Republican efforts to cut Social Security for today's seniors, Sheldon Whitehouse should be responsible enough to offer his own comprehensive plan. But that's too hard. It's easier to demagogue the President and "the wealthy." Note his solution:

We can protect Social Security too. We just need the courage to tell the voters we�re going to lift the limit on Social Security withholding from $90,000 to $120,000. That makes a lot more sense than cutting benefits and we can keep Social Security solvent for decades to come.

See, it's that easy? Now, I'll grant Whitehouse this: his "comprehensive" proposal could be part of a larger solution. But it'll take much more than that to vouchsafe Social Security for future generations. Of course, those future generations aren't present-day voters, are they?

UPDATE: In addition to this post by Don Hawthorne, the Heritage Foundation is a good resource for info on the entire Social Security debate. For instance, here is more info on when/how much the shorfall will be. And here is more on how the current Social Security Reform debate is about FUTURE, not PRESENT expenditures. In short, today's senior citizens have nothing to worry about when it comes to their own social security. They'll continue to get much more than what they originally paid in....

Don't Put Those "New" Unaffiliated in the Chafee Column Just Yet

Nathan Gonzales at the Rothenberg Political Report has done some analysis of those new unaffiliated voters for which Senator Chafee received so much credit for turning a couple months back. Not so fast:

...a Republican who is pulling for Chafee...[told] me that most of the changes in registration weren�t generated by Chafee�s effort. �The Chafee campaign did bump up the number of switchers [from Democrat to unaffiliated], but the lion�s share of those changes were routine,� the GOP source said.

But how could 13,596 Democrats switching to unaffiliated be �routine�? Why would they have switched except to vote for Chafee in the primary? Unfortunately, I�ll have to offer a few more numbers to explain why Chafee has received too much credit for the switches.

While most of the focus has been on Democrats switching registration to unaffiliated, a total of 3,768 Republicans also switched to unaffiliated. We don�t know why they switched, but nobody is suggesting that they did so to vote in the Democratic primary or because of an orchestrated effort to get them to switch. I suppose that means their switches were �routine� � they simply no longer wanted to identify with the GOP.

Interestingly, the 3,768 Republicans who switched to unaffiliated constituted 5.3 percent of the roughly 71,000 registered Republicans in the state at the June 13 deadline for switching party registration. The 13,596 Democrats who switched to unaffiliated constituted 5.4 percent of the roughly 250,000 Democrats.

In other words, there is little statistical difference between the proportion of Republicans and Democrats who switched to unaffiliated; they switched at the same rate. Given that, it hardly seems logical to read the switches from Democratic to unaffiliated as a dramatic development that will be a huge advantage to Chafee.

(via Greg Pollowitz at Sixers)

Senator Chafee's Foreign Policy Ideology

Once again, Senator Chafee has exhibited his prediliction to blame President Bush. (But thanks for the support Mrs. Bush!). I heard this on Rush Limbaugh yesterday, and now the transcript is up. Sen. Chafee was interviewed by NBC's David Gregory about the conflict going on in Lebanon and Israel.

Gregory says, "In effect the United States wants to allow Israel to have more time to complete what they see as a vital operation. Is that how you see it, Senator Chafee? Is that an important way and the right way to proceed?"

CHAFEE: I disagree with the president on the root cause of what's occurring here. I see the root cause of what's occurring in the failure of the road map. And the president talked the last four years about "a viable, contiguous Palestinian state living side by side with Israel," and the road map was supposed to lead in that direction. And so many missed opportunities I see. The summer of 2003 when we had a great opportunity to push the ceasefire that occurred then, in the summer of 2001. Then with the death of Yasser Arafat and the election, overwhelming majority of Palestinians voting for Abu Mazen on a platform of peace. These were opportunities that we didn't take advantage of.

RUSH: And the next question is: "Do you think that the US is wrong at this pointed to allow Israel to steno?"

CHAFEE: I think there should be a ceasefire and I disagree with the administration on that. I think immediate ceasefire and as this spreads, has the danger of going throughout the Muslim world, uh -- and that's from Morocco to Indonesia, having this unrest spread in the Muslim world...

RUSH: Where's this guy been? We need a ceasefire? All this is Bush's fault? He needs to be defeated. It's about time we get rid of these -- whatever you want to characterize Linc Chafee as being -- out of the Senate. This is absurd. It's Bush's fault! Bush missed the opportunities? There needs to be a ceasefire? All a ceasefire is is a period of time for the bad guys to arm up again and come back with even bigger and stronger and more weapons than they were using before the first time. It's like Bolton said: Ceasefire with terrorists? How in the world do you negotiate that? You don't! All the while, by the way, George Bush is helping Linc Chafee in his reelection effort just as he helped Arlen Specter. But Chafee's fallen five points behind in Rhode Island, and feels he has to come out and bite the hand that feeds him in order to boost his poll numbers up. This is not exactly the display of the execution of core principles.

Actually, I'd disagree with Rush on that last bit. This is exactly "the display of the execution of core principles" on the part of Senator Chafee (to be fair, I believe Rush was referring to the national GOP). Senator Chafee apparently believes that terrorist organizations can be counted on to engage in good faith diplomacy and lumps them in with regular nation-states to boot (something that is becoming all too common). One of Senator Chafee's core principles is a belief in the power of the peace process even when it is shown to be worthless thanks to the intransigence of some of its participants (the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah....Syria). To Senator Chafee, such faithlessness on the part of Hamas or Hezbolla is not to be blamed: the real culprit is the foreign policy failure of the Bush Administration. Thus, Senator Chafee's first inclination is to always blame--or doubt (Afghanistan)--American actions. Yes, sometimes he can be convinced to change his mind (like after a trip to Iraq), but he usually ends up reverting to his first inclination.

The dark spectre of Vietnam lays at the heart of Senator Chafee's foreign policy ideology. He has compared Iraq to Vietnam, telling Dan Yorke that we're in "another Vietnam" and that Iraq is a "quagmire." During a budget debate, he stated: "There are a lot of similarities between the Great Society and war in Vietnam, and the tax cuts and war in Iraq....We are doing it all over again."

These are only a couple anecdotal clues, but I think that they indicate that Senator Chafee has not, in fact, gotten over Vietnam. His entire frame of reference for the contemporary intersection of foreign policy and international conflict has been forever shaped by his personal experiences--and the opinions they helped to form--35 years ago during the Vietnam War. He seems unable to come to grips with the fact that not every war is "another Vietnam," nor, for that matter, is every war time administration "just like LBJ's."

Senator Chafee's foreign policy ideology is a combination of a Vietnam-shaped predisposition to blame America first and an internationalist belief in a peace process that boils down to "process for process' sake." The result is that Senator Chafee never seems to blame those who are truly at fault for a breakdown in peace.

Chafee and Laffey on Immigration II, Part 3

There are a numbers of issues regarding border security only peripherally discussed in Katherine Gregg�s Chafee v. Laffey immigration article that need to be noted in any truly �comprehensive� discussion of immigration policy.

1. Senator Chafee voted against an amendment to the Senate immigration bill that would have required the Secretary of Homeland security to certify that the border security provisions authorized by the bill were �fully completed and are fully operational� before any guest worker or amnesty program could be implemented. The Senator did vote for a less-specific alternative requiring the President to find that guest worker and amnesty programs �strengthen the national security of the United States� before implementing them.
2. Senator Chafee voted in favor of an amendment authorizing 370 miles of fencing along America�s border with Mexico. (Senator Jack Reed was one of just 16 Senators who voted against the amendment).
3. However, just last week, Senator Chafee voted against appropriating $1,800,000,000 in Homeland Security funding to build the fence. According to the Washington Times, some Senators opposed funding the fencing because they believed this particular amendment cut too deeply into the Homeland Security budget�

   Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who historically has fought to increase border security and enforcement of federal immigration laws, was among those who opposed Mr. Session's amendment�.

   Mr. Session's amendment would have required across-the-board cuts to the rest of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, Mr. Gregg said, which would mean cutting 750 new border-patrol agents and 1,200 new detention beds for illegal aliens that he included in the bill.

   "We've attempted very hard to increase Border Patrol agents in this bill, increase detention beds," he said. "And, yes, we haven't funded the wall specifically as a result of our efforts to do these increases."

   Whatever the reason, at the moment, border fencing has not yet been funded. Senator Chafee also voted against appropriating $86,000,000 �to hire 800 additional full time active duty investigators to investigate immigration laws violations.�
4. Mayor Laffey has expressed a border-security and enforcement-first position on immigration, saying that �he would support a guest-worker program after the country secured its borders and enforced its laws�. Katherine Gregg's Projo article describes the Chafee campaign�s criticism of the Mayor�s position�

   Chafee's own mailer says Laffey's get-tough rhetoric now is at odds with his February 2005 suggestion on talk radio that "we should recruit illegal labor at the border," and his well-publicized April 2005 announcement that Cranston would accept identification cards issued by the embassies of Guatemala and Mexico as legal identification. Chafee called them: "illegal immigration cards."

   In response, the Laffey campaign points out that foreign nationals who legally enter the country under rules governing guest-workers should not be grouped together with illegal immigrants�

   "Nowhere in the article does Mayor Laffey say he supports recruiting illegal immigrants," she said. "Rather, Mayor Laffey said he would support a guest-worker program after the country secured its borders and enforced its laws . . . much like the legal guest-worker programs we have today. "

   Further discussion on the consular ID issue is available here.

Chafee and Laffey on Immigration II, Part 2

In addition to their differences over the basic principle of offering amnesty to illegal immigrants, Republican Senatorial candidates Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey have differences of opinion regarding specific provisions in the recently passed Senate immigration bill.

1. The Senate bill applies Federal labor rules that apply only to Americans working on Federally-contracted projects to foreign guest workers working on any kind of project. National Review�s Kate O�Beirne (via Mickey Kaus) explains�

The bill extends Davis-Bacon �prevailing wage� provisions�typically the area�s union wage that applies only to construction on federal projects under current law�to all occupations (e.g. roofers, carpenters, electricians, etc.) covered by Davis-Bacon. So guest-workers (but not citizen workers) must be paid Davis-Bacon wage rates for jobs in the private sector if their occupation is covered by Davis-Bacon. Presumably because Senate Democrats� union bosses thought this provision too modest, an amendment by Senator Barack Obama, approved by voice vote, extended Davis-Bacon wages rates to all private work performed by guest workers, even if their occupations are not covered by Davis-Bacon.

Steve Laffey opposes the Davis-Bacon extension on the grounds that it �would guarantee foreign workers greater salaries than American employees working in the same industry�.

2. The Senate bill allows currently illegal immigrants to receive Social Security credit for work done while illegally in the US. Here are the short versions of the arguments for and against this policy as provided in the Washington Times by Senators John Ensign and John McCain...

The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment -- even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.

"There was a felony they were committing, and now they can't be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me," said Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who offered the amendment yesterday to strip out those provisions of the immigration reform bill....

"We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy," said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican.

"The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community," he said. "If this amendment were enacted, the nest egg that these immigrants have worked hard for would be taken from them and their families."

Senator Chafee voted against the specific amendment (offered by Senator Ensign) that would have disallowed work done by illegal immigrants from counting towards Social Security benefits. Steve Laffey has criticized the Senator for this vote.

Chafee campaign manager Ian Lang (as quoted in Katherine Gregg's Projo article) explains the Senator's positions on these aspects of immigration policy as follows�

Lang said the expansion of the Davis-Bacon Act "was brought in as a compromise to get the bill through," and Chafee viewed it as "part and parcel" of a bipartisan compromise that would increase fencing along the border, authorize the deployment of the National Guard and provide a pathway to citizenship.

On Social Security benefits, he said, Chafee indeed supports "the principle that people who have worked and paid into the system for years should be able to get the benefits they paid for" after the payment of back taxes and a fine qualifies them for citizenship.

Coming in part 3: The other one-third of the immigration debate�

Chafee and Laffey on Immigration II, Part 1

Katherine Gregg describes about two-thirds of the immigration debate, within the context of the Rhode Island Senate race, in today�s Projo. I say two-thirds because the immigration "issue" actually consists of multiple issues�

• Will America secure its borders and enforce its existing immigration laws?
• Will America modify its existing laws allowing foreign nationals to work legally in the US?
• What should America do about the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here?

Ms. Gregg�s article almost exclusively confines itself to the subjects of guest worker and amnesty policies.

Here's the background. On May 25 of this year, the Senate passed its version of immigration reform. The key provision of the Senate bill is the so-called �Martinez-Hagel compromise� that divides illegal immigrants currently within the United States into three groups. Illegal immigrants who have been in the US for more than 5 years are immediately eligible to pay for amnesty with back taxes and fines. Illegal immigrants who have been in the US for between 2 and 5 years are able to enter the pay-for-amnesty program after returning to a valid point of entry into the US. Illegal immigrants who have been in the US for less than 2 years can only stay if they became "guest workers". The defining characteristic of "guest workers" versus other categories of non-citizens legally in America is that "guest workers" are only allowed to stay in the US for as long as they are employed.

Senator Lincoln Chafee voted in favor of the Senate bill. Steve Laffey, his challenger in the Republican primary, would have voted against...

A spokeswoman for Laffey said he would not have voted -- as Chafee did -- for the compromise bill creating a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million to 12 million people living in the United States illegally that cleared the Senate in May with support from the likes of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

Mayor Laffey opposes the amnesty provisions of the Martinez-Hagel compromise. Under the right circumstances, he would support the creation of a guest worker program. Senator Chafee, on the other hand, voted in favor of an amendment that would have replaced the 3-tiered system with an even looser system -- amnesty for illegal immigrants within the borders of the United States as of January 1, 2006. The amendment failed by a vote of 37-61.

Coming in part 2: Bringing home the Davis-Bacon...

Poll Fodder for the Weekend

Taken from the ProJo's 7to7 blog:

A new poll by the independent pollster Rasmussen Reports finds Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, edging ahead of incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, 46 percentage points to 41.

The margin of error in the poll of 500 likely voters was 4.5 percent, according to Rasmussen Reports.

If Republicans nominate Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey, Whitehouse would have a larger lead: 57 percent to 29 percent, according to Rasmussen.

The independent pollster has run surveys in Rhode Island for several months. The polls show a positive trend for Whitehouse.

In early June, Rasmussen reported that Whitehouse trailed Chafee by two points. An earlier poll in April showed Whitehouse trailing Chafee by three points.

None of the Rasmussen polls have tested Chafee against Laffey.

The governor's race remains neck-and-neck, with Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty, a Democrat, one point ahead of incumbent Republican Governor Carcieri, 43 percent to 42 percent. The two have been within a point of each other in the last three Rasmussen polls.

The Latest Anti-Laffey Tactical Maneuver

The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Cranston City Council have made formal objections to a letter from Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey that was included in Cranston�s 2007 tax bills. The Cranston City Council has passed a resolution asking the Mayor to reimburse the city for the mailing, while the NRSC objection is in the form of a Federal Election Commission complaint.

The content making this mailing �controversial� (in the minds of some) is a discussion of Cranston's fiscal history and current fiscal situation. Here�s Mark Arsenault in the Projo on what the letter says�

Laffey's letter to Cranston residents promoted his accomplishments in office, and urged residents to watch out for fiscal traps that could affect their tax bills in the future. The letter reads in part: "I am humbled and honored to have served as your Mayor over the past four years. When I signed up for the job, I did so with the sole intent of putting Cranston back on its feet, and I am happy to say that together, we have succeeded beyond our expectations!" The letter also compares the city's fiscal conditions now to four years ago, when Cranston's finances were nearly taken over by the state because of deficits and low bond ratings.

Laffey has sent similar letters to residents in past years, as have previous administrations.

Matt Sanderson of the Cranston Herald goes into a few more specifics�

In the full-page letter from Laffey, who is running for U.S. Senate, he states what he calls his accomplishments in the past four years, such as reducing taxes by 1.5 percent, going from an $11.7 million deficit to a $20 million surplus and going up five notches in bond ratings and being the �fastest turn-around in the nation.� He also praises the 20 percent health care co-pay for city workers, and the new crossing guard program that he says saves the city $500,000 a year.

The letter makes no mention of the U.S Senate campaign.

1. From a self-consistency standpoint, I understand the Cranston City Council�s position. As Democrats, they believe that people should simply pay whatever the government tells them to pay and not expect to receive any information about where the money is going or what the forecast for the future is. Alas, it is all too unsurprising that this has apparently become the national Republican position also.

2. This example shows, despite the claims to the contrary, campaign finance regulation is synonymous with broad speech regulation. The NRSC now wants to use Federal campaign finance laws to prevent local officials from communicating with their constituents on local matters.

3. I have my June 2006 constituent mailing from Senator Chafee�s office. The footer says �Prepared, Published & Mailed At Taxpayer Expense�. The middle section of the mailing says�

I [Senator Lincoln Chafee] have spearheaded a provision which would transfer control of the Fox Point hurricane Barrier to the Army Corps of Engineers, which has the resources and expertise to ensure the barrier is properly maintained. Moreover, I have cosponsored legislation to streamline emergency response communications to ensure that all responders can effectively communicate with other state, local, and federal entities in the event of a catastrophe. I have also cosponsored legislation to allow New England states and Canadian provinces to share resources and personnel in a time of emergency.

And the difference between Senator Chafee touting his Senatorial accomplishments in an official mailing and Mayor Laffey touting his Mayoral accomplishments in an official mailing is?

Note that I am not arguing that the Senator should not be allowed to tout his accomplishments, just that other politicians should have the same rights as Senators. As Glenn Reynolds has pointed out on occasion, our Constitution prohibits the granting of titles of nobility and...

One characteristic of the titled nobility was its immunity from some legal rules laid on the commoners.

4. As techology moves forward, there is a good chance that the the issue of money will become less central to this debate. For example, suppose 30 years from now 90% of people get most of their civic information in an electronic format. Electrons are free. What rationale do you think the NRSC and the Cranston City Council will come up in this scenario for explaining why their elected political opponents shouldn�t be allowed to communicate with their constituents?

Ian Donnis Sets Up the Republican Senate Stretch Run

Ian Donnis sets up the stretch run for the Rhode Island Republican Senate primary in this week's Providence Phoenix...

With recent polls showing the two Republicans in a neck-and-neck race, [Steve] Laffey's Senate hopes will live or die on how well he can extend support beyond his conservative base in the state's tiny Republican Party. Most Rhode Island voters are independents and it is they who will likewise decide [Lincoln] Chafee's fate. And with little more than three months until the September 12 primary, the sizzling campaign -- already marked by a steady stream of back-and-forth negative advertising between both camps -- is about to shift into a higher gear.

Despite a few quibbles here and there (for instance, Donnis goes with the "moderate" label for Senator Chafee, when Senator Chafee's record tends to be moderate on tax-and-spend issues, but liberal on almost everything else of importance, averaging out somewhere well to the left of moderate; or maybe Senator Chafee really does seem moderate if you hang out with Phoenix staffers all day long) Donnis' article is an excellent view of what the non-political junkies who make up the bulk of the electorate are/will be seeing as they begin to pay closer attention the Senate race as primary day draws closer. As they say, "read the whole thing".

If readers mention in the comments that they find certain sections especially interesting or important, I'll excerpt them for a more specific discussion.

Laffey and Chafee on Yorke Show

{NB: This started as a brief re-cap of Mayor Steve Laffey's amicable return to the Dan Yorke show. Subsequently, State GOP Party official Chuck Newton and Senator Lincoln Chafee appeared.}

Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey and WPRO's Dan Yorke have buried the hatchet, hence, Laffey was on Yorke's show today to discuss the Senate race and why he would not be attending what he considers to be tonight's "fixed" RI GOP convention.

For the first time that I've heard, Laffey took on the accusation that he wasn't "senatorial" enough. He stated that if being "Senatorial" meant hanging out with Robert Byrd and doing nothing, then he never would be "Senatorial." He said that he's a reformer and that the actions of the Senate show that things need to be shaken up and that he plans on doing just that.

From there, he also explained that he wanted to shake the hold that the Old Line members have on the State GOP. He said they're happy with the scraps they get from the Democrats, don't want to rock the boat (and just want to collect fees for services) and they didn't want to win. He than offered that, "Luckily those people are old and are dying." He said that he's interested in building the State Party anew, from the ground up. Finally, he noted that Cranston was the only place that has seen a growth in GOP registrations in Rhode Island. He also that Governor Carcieri was not part of the Old Guard and affirmed his support for the Governor and his agenda.

Chances are that Yorke will have the audio somewhere here, eventually.

UPDATE: Chuck Newton of the RI GOP called in after Laffey and was on. When asked about Mayor Laffey skipping the convention, Newton stated that they'd been trying convince Laffey to attend. Newton observed that Laffey has been "bragging" about being the only real Republican and then he is stiffing the GOP convention. According to Newton, politics is about process and the convention
is part of that process.

Yorke offered that perhaps Laffey was afraid of getting "his head handed to him." To this, Newton mentioned that someone had pointed out that at the straw poll in Newport a few weeks ago, Laffey didn't show up at, but he won. Thus, Newton didn't know if a fear of losing was keeping Laffey away.

Newton also believes that an endorsement of Chafee is not a "slam dunk." Though he did assert that the Laffey campaign hasn't been focusing on convincing the delegates of the state central committee to vote for him.

SIDE NOTE: By the way, I'm awaiting the Mea Culpas from those who stated that Sen. Chafee would be running as an Independent. (Just stirring the pot).

UPDATE II: Senator Chafee spoke with Yorke on the air during the 5 O'Clock hour and offered two basic themes. His primary point was that he was the only electable Republican vs. Whitehouse, especially since Mayor Laffey enjoys nearly 100% name recognition and still polls 30 points lower than Whitehouse. Secondarily, Chafee believes that Laffey is being disrespectful to the GOP by not showing up at the convention.

Sheldon Whitehouse Lurches Beyond the Democratic Mainstream

According to his television ads, Rhode Island Senate candidate Sheldon Whitehouse wants American troops to leave Iraq "by the end this year".

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate rejected a measure sponsored by Senator John Kerry that would have required most American troops to leave Iraq by mid-2007 by a vote of 13-86.

The overwhelming margin of defeat of the amendment shows how far outside of the mainstream Sheldon Whitehouse is. His ideas on Iraq lie outside not just the national mainstream, but far to the left of the conensus of the national Democratic party. Is a candidate who promotes the foreign policy ideas of the radical fringe really a suitable representative of the citizens of Rhode Island?

Just a Note: Giuliani Endorses Chafee

I'm sure everyone will let me know if I missed this already, but included in his new website "Solutions America", Rudy Giuliani has a section for those Republicans he has endorsed. For Rhode Island, he has endorsed Lincoln Chafee, which really isn't a big surprise. But perhaps the bigger point is the whole concept of this website. Why have it? Apparently, the "Solutions America" organization has been around since 1998. Nonetheless, the effort to publicize the website launch seems to be a clear indication that Giuliani is engaged in some base-building for an '08 Presidential run.

Democrats Crossing the Line

According to this morning's ProJo:

More than 14,500 Rhode Island Democrats have switched their voter affiliations within the past six months to participate in the Sept. 12 Republican primary, a figure that experts say will probably help incumbent Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in his campaign against Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey.

State elections records compiled by the secretary of state's office show that 13,596 Democrats switched their affiliations to independent -- or unaffiliated in the state's political argot -- which would make them eligible to vote in the primary. An additional 987 Democrats switched to Republican, thus making them eligible to vote in the GOP primary.

That's quite a number, especially given the historic turnout of a GOP primary. I wonder if all of the switching has to do with the Laffey / Chafee race, though. Governor Carcieri does face a primary challenger this fall, too, and many believe that traditionally Democrat labor unions are quietly behind Michaud's candidacy. Let's not forget that. I'm also not so sure that all of this party switching augers as well for Sen. Chafee as most of the experts believe.

I would bet that many Democrats simply don't think that Laffey can win state wide. So, they believe that by disaffiliating and voting in the GOP primary they can kill the two biggest GOP birds with one stone. Should Laffey and Michaud win, Democrats no doubt believe that both Whitehouse and Fogerty would roll to general election wins. Of course, any such forecasting doesn't take into account that the vast majority of independent RI voters may not appreciate the genius of such political calculations.

Laffey Responds to the Latest Chafee Ads

The Laffey campaign has responded to the Chafee campaign�s latest round of broadcast advertising, going as far as to say that the Chafee campaign is �putting forth utter lies against his primary opponent Mayor Steve Laffey in an attempt to save his political career from impending disaster�.

The Laffey campaign takes extreme exception to three claims made by the Chafee campaign. The first two are made in Chafee TV ads...

1. Laffey swore to fight special interests. Instead he gave a city vendor a secret no-bid contract in exchange for thousands in campaign contributions.

Citing a Providence Journal article from November 19, 2005 as support, the Laffey campaign details why they believe the use of the terms "secret" and "no-bid" is not accurate...

• The City of Cranston engaged in two projects with Nestor Traffic Systems. It is unclear which one Senator Chafee is referring to, but either way, he has his facts all wrong.
  
• The first project was a contract the City of Cranston signed with Nestor Traffic Systems to test a system that measures the speed of passing cars in May of 2005. This contract was never a secret. In fact, Mayor Laffey held a press conference on May 8, 2005 announcing the contract. The Providence Journal was there and reported on it on May 9th, as well as multiple news stations.
  
• The city did not require a bid because it was a mere $10 contract for a trial phase only. Had the City of Cranston decided to use the technology, it would have put the program out to bid for a long-term contract.
  
• The second project occurred in June of 2005, when the City of Cranston awarded a bid to Nestor Traffic Systems for red light cameras AFTER the project went out to bid and Nestor was the lowest bidder. Nestor was awarded the bid by the Board of Contract and Purchase, which Mayor Laffey does not control.

Furthermore, the Chafee campaign has not presented evidence of a quid-pro-quo between Nestor and anyone in Cranston city government to support the "in exchange" claim. If we are to assume something unseemly is going on anytime government contractors make contributions to a campaign, should we apply the same standard to Federal elected officials also? For instance, if a Senator announces that a Federal contract for millions of dollars is being given to a corporation that will be doing work in his state, and then the Senator receives a campaign contribution from that corporation, should that contribution automatically be assumed to be tainted? I think that that's much too harsh a standard.

The second TV-ad complaint concerns Mayor Laffey's spending record in Cranston. Senator Chafee's ad says...

2. Stephen Laffey campaigned to cut spending, but once elected he increased spending nearly 20%.

As the Laffey campaign points out, in terms of percentage increase, the spending records of Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey over their first four years in office as Mayors are very similar. According to the sources cited in the Laffey press release, plus a few others (list)...

• Cranston went from a budget of $186,000,000 the year before Mayor Laffey took over in Cranston to a budget of $226,200,000 in his fourth year as Mayor. That�s an increase of $40,200,000 or 21.6%. Warwick went from a budget of $145,000,000 to a budget of $175,000,000 in Mayor Chafee's first four years in office, an increase of 20.6%
• The increases in non-school department spending are also roughly similar. Cranston's non-school department budget went from about $90,500,000 in 2003 to $102,400,000 proposed for FY2007, an increase of 11.6%. Warwick went from $72,000,000 to $79,500,000, an increase of 10.4%
• Warwick, however, already had a budget surplus when Lincoln Chafee took over as Mayor. Cranston was on the verge of bankruptcy when Steve Laffey came into office.

So ultimately, when the Chafee folks argue �look what he does, not what he says� in their negative ads, aren't they arguing a non-sequitur -- don�t vote for the challenger, because he has the same record that our incumbent does!

The third complaint by the Laffey campaign is...

3. In his radio ad, Senator Chafee claims he supported the attack against the Taliban.

Marc has already discussed the substance of this claim...

It is incorrect to simply state that Sen. Chafee didn't support attacking the Taliban: he eventually did, even if with reservation. The fact is that Sen. Chafee did support the action and it is not correct to imply--as the Laffey ad does--that Sen. Chafee never supported attacking the Taliban.

The Laffey campaign's subsequent defense of their ad rests on the reluctance of Sen. Chafee to make a firm decision. To my mind, this defense of the actual ad is actually more compelling and (yes) truthful than the original.

The figures on the Warwick budget during Mayor Chafee's first four years in office were taken from a June 9, 1992 Projo article by Elizabeth Rau...

City Council members last night approved a $145 million budget that will require no tax increase next year, but they delayed voting on a substantial cost-cutting measure that enabled them to freeze the tax rate.

Although school officials and parents had pleaded with the council during a hearing on Saturday to give the schools more than the $73 million allocated by Donovan, no additional money was budgeted last night,

...and a June 21, 1996 Projo article by Tony DePaul...

Anticipating that the council might challenge the overall veto, Chafee also used his line-item veto to strike out every line in the council's version of the budget, except for the school appropriation of $ 95.5 million.

Chafee contends that because the council did not override his veto by midnight June 15 - the state deadline for local budget approval - his original $ 175 million budget automatically became law.

The figures on the Cranston budget during Mayor Laffey's first four years in office were taken from a March 27, 2003 Projo article by Scott Mayerowitz...

[Mayor Laffey] urged his audience to attend Monday night's City Council meeting, at which he will submit a $191-million budget that would increase overall spending by nearly $5 million, or 2.5 percent. He has characterized his budget as $11 million short of what would be needed unless fundamental spending changes are made. (This year, the School Department's budget was frozen at the prior year's level, about $95.5 million,

...and from a May 10, 2006 Projo article by Zachary Mider...

The council considered no major changes to Mayor Stephen P. Laffey's $226.2-million budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1, instead shuffling money among minor accounts and debating salary adjustments for a few administrators.

Laffey's budget provides $123.8 million for the School Department, a $8.4-million increase but less than the School Committee requested.

Chafee and Laffey on Immigration

Senator Lincoln Chafee's campaign is accusing Steve Laffey of offering "contradictory positions" on immigration policy...

In an article in the Washington newspaper, The Hill, Steve Laffey announced that he would have opposed the recent immigration bill, despite the fact that it has been supported by President Bush and leading Republicans in the Senate. In The Hill and other publications, Steve Laffey has offered contradictory positions on this contentious issue.

Senator Chafee's criticism of Mayor Laffey's immigration stance breaks down into two parts.

1. The Chafee campaign is critical of Mayor Laffey�s 2005 decision to have the City of Cranston accept ID cards issued by the Mexican and Guatemalan governments as valid identification...

In April of 2005, Laffey announced that the City of Cranston would begin accepting an identification cards issued by embassies for the nations of Mexico and Guatemala, used extensively by illegal immigrants in the US that helps them obtain drivers licenses and government services.

According to the April 2005 Projo article cited by the Chafee campaign, the knock against consular identification cards is that they can be too easily forged...

In 2003, officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and at the Homeland Security Department have testified before Congress that the cards, if fraudulently obtained, can be used to gain access to other documentation -- such as U.S. drivers' licenses. There have been several failed attempts in Congress to enact a nationwide ban on the cards.

The Chafee camapign believes acceptance of consular ID is not consistent with a position of "strict" immigration enforcement.

In the aforementioned Hill article, Laffey campaign spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik defends Mayor Laffey's decision�

Soloveichik pointed out that the Justice Department has permitted the use of the cards, and she said they can be useful for temporary legal immigrants and also for police identifying illegal immigrants.

2. The second charge made by the Chafee campaign is that Mayor Laffey has �flip-flopped� his position on the rules that should exist for naturalizing (or not naturalizing) illegal immigrants currently in the US�

Laffey now claims that he would not extend citizenship to illegal immigrants

The �now� implies that Mayor Laffey has changed his position. However, the references provided don�t sustain this charge. Creation of a �guest worker� program for foreign nationals and setting naturalization rules for guest workers are distinct and separable issues. That Mayor Laffey has been consistent in his support of a guest worker program is not contested, while his position towards naturalizing guest workers, or any other illegal aliens, is not addressed in either reference from 2005 cited by the Chafee camp as contradicting the 2006 Hill article.

3. The Hill article also provides us with Mayor Laffey�s criticism of Senator Chafee�s immigration record�

In Rhode Island, Republican primary challenger Steve Laffey has singled out Chafee for being the only Republican to vote for an amendment to the immigration bill that would have allowed 12 million illegal immigrants to remain in the country and streamlined the legalization process.

The amendment that Senator Chafee voted for would have done away with the 3-tier Martinez-Hagel compromise(*) at the heart of the Senate immigration bill and 1) granted immediate amnesty to illegal immigrants in the U.S. as of January 1, 2006 and 2) placed illegal immigrants in the U.S. as of January 1, 2006 on an immediate path to citizenship.

Mayor Laffey also criticized Senator Chafee for his vote against another amendment regarding social security that failed by just one vote...

[Mayor Laffey] said Chafee�s votes on that amendment and against another amendment, which would have prevented legalized immigrants from collecting Social Security benefits for work they did as illegal immigrants, show just how far left Chafee has shifted.

Laffey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said Laffey would have voted against the overall bill.

In response, Chafee campaign spokesman Ian Lang defends the Senator's overall record on immigration�

Chafee spokesman Ian Lang countered by noting that Chafee�s stance on immigration is similar to President Bush�s and that the final bill makes the legalization process sufficiently difficult.

Given that Mayor Laffey is on record opposing the current Senate immigration bill, but also supports creation of a guest-worker program, it would be useful to know how the Mayor believes the current bill needs to be changed to be made into good law.

(*)The "Martinez-Hagel compromise" is the name for the provision of the Senate immigration bill which, if made into law, 1) will make illegal immigrants who have been in the US for 5 or more years eligible for immediate amnesty 2) will make illegal immigrants who have been in the United States between 2 and 5 years eligible for amensty if they first return to a legal point of entry into the US and 3) require illegal immigrants who have been here for less than 2 years to leave the country before qualifying for any "guest worker" program.

The Noonan-Bakst Resonance

Here�s Peggy Noonan in today�s OpinionJournal talking about Republicans, Democrats and taxes...

Democrats use complexity as a thing to hide behind when they talk about taxes. Republicans can say, and can mean, "I hate taxes and will cut them." Democrats can't say that, because they don't hate taxes and in fact will raise them. Though they will not say it. They will say, "Tax cuts on the top 10% of income earners are nonprogressive and unhelpful, and I will cut their tax cut, or hike their taxes, and in turn make commensurate cuts on the taxes of the most deserving lower income taxpayers, though not in a way that will negatively impact the deficit."

When voters hear this they know exactly what it means: We will raise taxes.

And here's Charles Bakst in today's Projo describing what may be a specific instance of Ms. Noonan's general principle�

[Lincoln] Chafee opposed Mr. Bush's tax cuts. [Sheldon] Whitehouse's advertising calls for repeal of the "Bush tax cuts for the rich." [Steve] Laffey said the cuts are "very good for America," and if Whitehouse "thinks higher taxes are better, let him put forth that message." Ditto, he said, for Chafee.

Laffey wants to debate the tax cuts with these guys.

Any takers among the candidates and TV stations?

Laffey Claims Chafee Didn't Support Action in Afghanistan

Mayor Laffey is running a new radio ad that states that, in the aftermath of 9/11, Sen. Chafee did not support attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan. Sen. Chafee disputes that claim and can point to his September 14, 2001 affirmative vote for authorizing Military force against those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11. The Chafee campaign has asked Laffey to pull the ad. The Laffey campaign has refused.

The Laffey camp defends its decision with the claim that their ad is refering to Sen. Chafee's initial objection to the use of military force against the Taliban. Further, they contend, given that Sen. Chafee did eventually support the action, his shifting position on Afghanistan provides an example of how reluctant Sen. Chafee is to make a decision on even fundamental matters.

As proof, the Laffey campaign is citing a ProJo story (fee required) from September 21, 2001. In it, the ProJo reported that Senator Chafee:

...balked at endorsing a punishing strike on the Taliban in the event that it fails to cooperate in the hunt for the terrorists. "In anything we do, we've got to take the long-term view. There are a lot of people that would like to be on our side that can't," Chafee said.

Further, on October 8, 2001, the Projo reported (fee req'd) that

The three Democrats in Rhode Island's Washington delegation yesterday lined up solidly behind President [Bush]'s decision to launch a military reprisal against Osama bin Laden and the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan, but Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee declined comment on the attacks.

The attitudes of [Jack Reed], Kennedy and [James Langevin] were in line with the prevailing mood in Washington...

The next day (fee req'd), Sen. Chafee finally offered tepid--and worried--support for attacking the Taliban

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, the lone Republican in Rhode Island's Washington delegation, said yesterday that he supports President Bush's decision to bomb Taliban targets in Afghanistan, but worries the military action will inflame anti-American opinion in other countries.

Chafee said he was waiting until he received more information and did not make statements until yesterday.

Finally, this story from December 2001 further supports the Laffey campaign's contention that Sen. Chafee was reluctant to pursue aggressive action in Afghanistan. In fact, Senator Chafee admits as much himself:

Senator Lincoln Chafee indicated today that he may have been wrong in his early doubts about the war in Afghanistan. Appearing on the WJAR-TV show "10 News Conference", Chafee said, "It is easy to admit when I am wrong. I could have been wrong on this" referring to the war. "I was apprehensive about going into Afghanistan" based on the unsuccessful Russian experience there. "We had not had success in our recent skirmishes in the area," he argued. "I came up through the Vietnam period. I have seen this country dragged through a bloody morass."

It is incorrect to simply state that Sen. Chafee didn't support attacking the Taliban: he eventually did, even if with reservation. The fact is that Sen. Chafee did support the action and it is not correct to imply--as the Laffey ad does--that Sen. Chafee never supported attacking the Taliban.

The Laffey campaign's subsequent defense of their ad rests on the reluctance of Sen. Chafee to make a firm decision. To my mind, this defense of the actual ad is actually more compelling and (yes) truthful than the original. As such, I would think that an ad that systematically presented the facts as listed above as proof of Sen. Chafee's pattern of always "considering" a tough issue and only making up his mind once his decision is essentially irrelevant (re: Alito) would have been just as effective and would have insulated the Laffey campaign from criticism. But then again, I'm no political consultant.

Club for Growth Poll Has Chafee and Laffey Tied

According to John E. Mulligan in the Projo�

The conservative Club for Growth has released highlights of a poll that shows Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in a statistical dead heat with his Republican primary challenger, Stephen P. Laffey.

Here are the numbers...

• Sample size: 300, 84% Republican, 16% Independent
• Statistical Margin of Error: 5.66%
• Basic Result: Chafee 45.7%, Laffey 44.3%
• Chafee Favorability: 45% Favorable/51% Unfavorable
• Laffey Favorability: 52% Favorable/27% Unfavorable

Here are the reactions�

Chafee campaign spokesman Ian Lang said the poll shows the senator ``in a strong position to win the primary, despite being hammered'' by ads financed by the Club for Growth. Lang called the poll ``a best-case scenario'' for Laffey because the sample had a high proportion of Republicans.

�and�

Laffey's campaign said in a statement, ``There are good polls and bad polls, and we don't pay much attention to any of them.''

Here Comes Anti-Chafee/Anti-Whitehouse Ad #1

The Laffey campaign has released its newest television ads. One is biographical and talks about Mayor Laffey's achievements as Mayor of Cranston. The other is a negative ad that makes the claim that Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse �agree on all the issues, taxes, spending [and] national security�. The ad goes on to say that Senator Chafee and Whitehouse are �addicted to special interest money. Whitehouse has taken $150,000, Chafee over $600,000�.

The dollar amounts presumably refer to the amount of money that Senator Chafee and former Attorney General Whitehouse have taken from political action committees. Data collected by the Federal Election Commission (current as of the last filing deadline) shows that Senator Chafee has received contributions from a mixture of business, labor, and ideological PACs and that Sheldon Whitehouse has taken the great bulk of his PAC contributions from either labor unions or from other Democratic politicians, with money from a few businesses and law-firms thrown in. The FEC website also lists that Steve Laffey has taken a total of $5,500 in contributions from two PACs, in addition to a number of in-kind contributions from the Club for Growth.

As long as candidates 1) are not manipulating the system to collect more money than is legally allowed 2) are not taking money from fringe groups and 3) are not taking money from groups diametrically opposed to their stated issue positions, I am disinclined to make much of an issue out of where campaign contributions come from, when I can discuss actual issues instead. I don't think that Lincoln Chafee, Steve Laffey, or Sheldon Whitehouse will change their issue positions because someone offers them a donation. The form of modern campaign fundraising is determined more by the maze of "reform" laws currently in place and not by any novel strategy on the part of candidates.

But the Chafee/Whitehouse comparison made in Laffey's ad goes right to the heart of the issue troubling many of Rhode Island's Republican voters. Are there any issues that Senator Chafee would like to talk about where he can meaningfully distinguish himself from a very liberal Democrat?

Here Comes Anti-Laffey Ad #3

The Chafee campaign has released its newest television ad. They�ve eschewed the cartoon characters of the previous negative ad, and gone with a traditional �I�m good because I�ve been photographed in color; my opponent is bad because he�s been photographed in black-and-white� attack ad.

The ad takes a couple of swipes at Steve Laffey�s record as Mayor of Cranston that will be familiar to people who have been following the campaign (I�ll link to the ad as soon as it appears on the Chafee website)�

�[Mayor Laffey] promised spending cuts. Instead he raised spending nearly 20% and raised taxes again and again and again�.

The Laffey campaign has already issued a rebuttal. According to figures the Laffey campaign has compiled from Providence Journal reports, Chafee raised taxes more times as Mayor of Warwick than Laffey has as Mayor of Cranston�

As Mayor of Warwick, Lincoln Chafee consistently proposed tax increases despite the absence of a financial crisis:

• FY 94: 5.0% tax increase
• FY 95: 2.6% tax increase
• FY 96: 4.4% tax increase
• FY 97: 1.9% tax increase

Mayor Laffey led Cranston from financial ruin to financial success:

• FY 04: 3.5% tax increase(*)
• FY 05: 4.3% tax increase
• FY 06: 0% (tax freeze)
• FY 07: -1.5% (tax cut)

(*)[UPDATE: Mayor Laffey also applied a one-time 12.8% tax-surcharge in his first term in dealing with Cranston's fiscal crisis.]

Obviously neither candidate has any objection to raising taxes to pay for the things they believe to be important. A real debate on tax policy should center on 1) what spending the candidates believe to be important 2) what spending the candidates believe can be eliminated (if the answer is "none" then tax-increases might be justified) and 3) why the candidates believe their plans for taxing and spending are sustainable.

Equally obvious is the fact that this ad is an attempt by the Chafee campaign to neutralize the Senator's political problems originating with his consistent support for high tax rates.

Senator Chafee's FEC Complaint Against Mayor Laffey: A Bundle of Information About Bundling

The most recent press release issued by the Chafee campaign concerning their Federal Election Commission complaint against the Laffey campaign may leave people with two mistaken impressions...

In an interview with News Channel 12, Mayor Steve Laffey has admitted that his campaign never reported the approximately $300,000 it received from the Club for Growth in its Federal Election Commission forms, a direct violation of FEC law.

Mayor Laffey initially characterized the formal complaint as filled with �frivolous and baseless charges.� When asked by News Channel 12, however, Laffey freely admitted that the special interest group, the Club for Growth, appears nowhere in his FEC filing. Laffey responded to questions about whether or not the campaign had reported that the Club for Growth had bundled the approximately $300,000 in campaign contributions by stating �no we didn�t, nor did we think we�d have to.�

One mistaken impression is that the FEC complaint concerns contributions made by the Club for Growth and not by individual donors. The other mistaken impression is that the Laffey campaign failed to report the receipt of a large sum of money to the FEC.

What Mayor Laffey is trying to explain in the second paragraph is that his campaign did report receiving the contributions, but did not report that they were �bundled�. What, you ask, does that mean?

Sources familiar with various points of the fundraising chain explain �bundling� as follows. The Club for Growth collects checks made out directly to the Laffey campaign, literally places them into a �bundle� (like a Federal Express package) and mails them to Laffey headquarters. The Laffey campaign makes an appropriate campaign finance filing for each individual donation in the bundle and counts the amount of each donaiton against the contribution limit of the individual who made it.

Campaign finance law is explicit about how bundled contributions are to be treated�

Anyone who receives and forwards an earmarked contribution to a candidate committee is considered a conduit or intermediary�

Individuals, political committees, unregistered committees and partnerships may act as conduits for earmarked contributions�

An earmarked contribution is considered to have been made by the original contributor, thus counting against his or her contribution limit with respect to the recipient candidate. The conduit�s own contribution limit is normally not affected unless the conduit exercises direction or control over the contributor�s choice of recipient candidate�

The conduit must forward an earmarked contribution to the recipient authorized committee within 10 days. The conduit�s report to the recipient (described below) must be forwarded along with the contribution�

An earmarked contribution must be reported by both the conduit (political committee or unregistered entity) and the recipient authorized committee.

What the Laffey campaign apparently has not been doing, which it is legally required to do, is the last item -- making a record of which of its donations have arrived in bundled packages.

But if the Laffey campaign has been diligently recording the appropriate information about all of the individual donations that comprise the bundles, then this is not a Matt Brown-type attempt to circumvent campaign finance limits by tapping donors multiple times in excess of what they are legally allowed to give. The contributions involved in the Chafee complaint are 1) from individuals who want to give money to the Laffey campaign, 2) from individuals who are giving money directly to the Laffey campaign and not through some network of PAC or party committee intermediate accounts and 3) from individuals who have not maxed out for the year on what they are allowed to give to the Laffey campaign.

If the Chafee campaign is alleging that there is money from unaccounted sources in the Laffey campaign account, they need to clarify that point.

Chafee Campaign Files FEC Complaint

According to the Projo�s 7-to-7 blog, Lincoln Chafee�s campaign has filed a formal Federal Elections Commission complaint against Steve Laffey�s camapaign�

In a letter sent to the FEC today, Chafee's camp complained about a few specific moves, including circumstances surrounding Vincent Indeglia�s letter to his employees at American Labor Services, Inc; possible misrepresentation of mailing related expenditures in FEC filings; and a failure to identify the Club for Growth as the conduit for more than $200,000 in donations�

Laffey, through a spokeswoman, dismissed the complaint.

"Senator Chafee�s complaints are completely baseless and frivolous, and one of the last gasps of a desperate campaign of a Washington insider," Laffey said.

RI Senate Candidates on Cape Wind

Legislation targeted to kill the Cape Wind project is still pending in the United States Senate. Cape Wind proposes building a set of windmills in Nantucket Sound that would be capable of generating three-fourths of the electricity consumed by Cape Cod.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, working with Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, wants to insert an amendment into the Coast Guard Appropriation Bill that would allow the Governor of Massachusetts to veto construction of the project even if it is approved by all of the relevant regulatory authorities. (Once again, a Democrat shows himself to be in favor of unchecked executive authority when it suits his policy agenda). Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, also a Cape Wind opponent, will likely veto the project if the Senate amendment passes.

Senator Lincoln Chafee opposes the amendment blocking the development of Cape Wind�

"[Cape Wind] is a win-win for Rhode Island. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to discontinue their improper attempt to derail this project and allow the people of New England to benefit from economic growth, a cleaner environment, and more affordable sources of energy.

With unprecedented increases in conventional energy prices, wind energy generation is a promising option to provide much needed relief to New England. It is clean and renewable; and projects such as this will help to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. In addition, termination of this project will have a negative impact on Rhode Island's economy and discourage future offshore projects in America"

Steve Laffey also supports the development of Cape Wind�

�I am 100% in favor of Cape Wind. And every Rhode Islander should know that, in my understanding, all of the production work and all the manufacturing jobs will be in Quonset.

To win the War for the Free World we have to develop solar and wind power at a great rate on the par of putting a man on the moon. We have to start now. We should have started 5 or 10 years ago.�

I contacted the campaign of Sheldon Whitehouse three times over the past two weeks to inquire about Mr. Whithouse�s position on Cape Wind. Each time his staff politely and professionally took my question and said they would pass it along to the candidate.

However, as of the time of this posting, the Whitehouse campaign has not provided an answer. This really should be a no-brainer for a candidate who claims that making America energy independent is an issue of importance to him.

Sheldon Whitehouse�s First TV Ads

The Sheldon Whitehouse campaign for US Senate has produced its first set of television ads. One advertisement lists a number of reasonably specific policy proposals�

• �Scrapping the failed Medicare prescription drug plan and replacing it with a simpler one that lowers costs�,
• �Repealing the Bush tax cuts for the Rich�,
• �Imposing a windfall profits tax on big oil�
• �Doubling our commitment to Pell Grants�,
• �Getting our troops out of Iraq by the end of this year�

The second ad states a number of broad goals, but is thin on the specific means to be used to achieve them. The themes are...

• Make America energy independent
• Lower cost of healthcare
• Quality education
• Secure retirement
• Get out of Iraq

First question for Candidate Whitehouse, with regards to the second ad: With the exception of the fifth goal (�Get out of Iraq�), which of opponents does he believe is opposed to goals 1 through 4?

Ending Earmarks Express Comes to Rhode Island Today

The �Ending Earmarks Express� is in Rhode Island today (and will be met in Westerly by Steve Laffey's Rhody Reformer). The earmark being highlighted is a $200,000 grant for an animal shelter that was insterted into the 2005 Transportation, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill...

Today�s Egregious Earmark: $200,000 in Federal Housing Funds to Build a New �state-of-the-art,� 12,000-square-foot Animal Facility in Westerly, Rhode island, which will include a �huge� dog obedience school�

The Westerly Sun newspaper wrote about U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee�s visit to Stand Up For Animals to announce the earmark:

�Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, guest of honor at the Stand Up for Animals major gifts campaign kickoff to fund a new town animal shelter, had a gift of his own to contribute Thursday. Chafee announced a $200,000 federal grant for the project, noting that the funds have been approved by a subcommittee of the Housing and Urban Development's appropriation committee in Washington.�

According to the Ending Earmarks Express website, to qualify as an �egregious earmark�, an earmark must meet at least two of the following criteria�

• Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
• Not specifically authorized;
• Not competitively awarded;
  
• Not requested by the President;
• Greatly exceeds the President�s budget request or the previous year�s funding;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.

The goal of Americans for Prosperity, sponsor of the Ending Earmarks Express, is to introduce more accountability and transparency into the Federal budgeting process.

Chafee Votes Against Progressive Tax Cuts

As had been predicted, Senator Chafee voted against the reaffirmation of President Bush's tax cuts. Meanwhile, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee has discovered that lower taxes are actually more "Progressive":

Debate over changes in the tax code often focuses on who benefits most from such changes. Most of this debate hinges on tax distribution tables that measure the impact of tax law changes on the tax liabilities of various income groups. However, many newspaper articles and think tank reports fail to consider the current progressivity of the existing tax code when discussing the benefits of tax cuts for various income groups.

For example, it is important to note that up to 40 percent of federal income tax filers cannot receive further tax relief because these taxpayers do not in effect pay federal income taxes. Millions of families, many in the bottom fifth, have either zero tax liability or receive a net transfer from the government due to the refundable portion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and/or the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

In addition, millions of people do not earn enough to file a tax return. Hence, these nonfilers, plus many of those that file tax returns in the bottom fifth, do not actually pay federal income taxes and, due to the refundable portion of the EITC and/or the CTC, many do not in effect pay payroll taxes.

Here [PDF] is the brief, 2-page report. Included is this nice chart that lays it all out (via TaxProf):

The top one percent of tax filers paid 34.27 percent of federal personal income taxes in 2003, while the top ten percent accounted for 65.84 percent of these taxes. To be counted in the top one percent, taxpayers needed an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $295,495 or more. The 2003 AGI cut-off amount for the top ten percent was $94,891, while the cut-off amount for the top/bottom fifty percent was $29,019. Again, it is important to note that many returns in the bottom half report zero or negative federal income tax liability.

These IRS data illustrate the steeply progressive nature of the federal income tax. Further, data on the number of non-filers, tax shares and the number of taxpayers effectively paying zero federal income taxes must be considered before any valid distributional evaluation of various income tax proposals or legislation can be made.

Couple this with the established fact that tax revenues have increased since President Bush's tax cuts were implemented (as they have in the past) and I'd say that current tax policy is a Progressives dream!

Sen. Chafee's Fiscal Responsibility

It looks as if the Senate is about to follow the House and pass President Bush's Tax plan that reduces rates for the upper wage earners and reforms the Alternative Minimum Tax that threatens many average, middle-class taxpayers. Of course, Democrat opponents will say it's just another tax cut for the rich. I wonder why Senator Chafee opposes it? Will we hear the usual mantra about the tax cuts not being "paid for" elsewhere in the budget?

President Bush and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill anticipated a long-sought election year victory Thursday as senators debated a bill awarding tax relief to investors and 15 million taxpayers with above-average incomes.

The Senate was expected to pass the bill providing tax cuts worth $70 billion over five years Thursday afternoon by a mostly party-line vote, and Bush was eager to sign it. The measure passed the House Wednesday, 244-185.

The legislation provides a two-year extension of the reduced 15 percent tax rate for capital gains and dividends, currently set to expire at the end of 2008.

It also would extend, for this year, recent changes to the alternative minimum tax -- originally aimed at making sure the wealthy pay at least some taxes -- to prevent it from hitting more upper middle-income families...

"Today, out of 100 Americans, the wealthiest three are now paying the same amount -- about half of the total taxes -- as the other 97," said Jim DeMint, R-S.C. "This tax and economic growth package is not for the rich. It's for the people who need jobs in this country."

Critics, including most Democrats, attacked the tax rate reductions on dividends and capital gains as being skewed in favor of the rich...

Senate vote counters prepared for a predictably partisan vote. But on the Republican side, a senior administration official said Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and George Voinovich of Ohio appeared likely to defect and vote against the bill. Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska announced he would vote for the bill and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is likely to support it as well, a spokesman said. [Emphasis added]

Back in 2004, for example, Sen. Chafee voted against a tax cut, reasoning:

�The middle class taxpayers who are targeted by these cuts are very deserving of tax relief. I have supported these tax cuts in the past and would be willing to support them now if they are done in a way that does not increase the debt. I have worked diligently with some like-minded colleagues to identify ways to pay for these changes. I am dismayed that the Congress has again been put in the position of choosing between short-term political gain and responsible fiscal management. I for one am very reluctant to saddle future generations with the bill for this fiscally ruinous policy.�

Hard to argue with, unless of course you're also quite proud of bringing home the bacon:

Thanks to Senator Chafee�s leadership in crafting the Transportation Bill of 2005, Rhode Island will be receive $2.21 for every $1 it contributes nationally in gas taxes. Senator Chafee was able to ensure that the state received the second highest rate of return in the nation.

You see, if Sen. Chafee opposes something, it's because he is opposed to "short-term political gain" and "fiscally ruinous policy," such as tax cuts. However, apparently getting Rhode Island its "fair share" with a good "rate of return" of over 2:1 isn't going to "saddle future generations."

Another Poll, Another Chafee Lead (but smaller)

New Hampshire polling outfit American Research Group (via RIFuture) seems to have done a more robust job of polling on the RI GOP Primary race than some recent efforts. The poll methodology was "based on 384 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of likely Republican primary voters in Rhode Island from April 25-May 2, 2006. The theoretical margin of error is plus or minus 5 percentage points, 95% of the time." The poll question was:

If the primary election for US Senate were being held today between Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey, for whom would you vote - Chafee or Laffey? (names rotated)

And the results broke down as follows:

Likely primary voters -- 48% Chafee / 39% Laffey / 13% Undecided
Rep. (56% of sample) -- 46% Chafee / 42% Laffey / 12% Undecided
Ind. (44% of sample) -- 51% Chafee / 35% Laffey / 14% Undecided

ARG also has a neat thing called the "Ballot Lead Calculator," which tries to "take into consideration the sampling error for the difference between two estimates that are derived from the same sample." I entered the numbers as instructed, and it revealed that Sen. Chafee has an upper margin of victory of 18.3% and a lower of -0.3%. This means, according to ARG, that "there is no significant difference between the ballot numbers for candidates A [Chafee] and B [Laffey] - they are statistically tied in that poll." This is probably largely because of the significant number of undecideds.

Now, all of you amateur pollsters can play around with what you think the breakdown of Republicans versus Independents will really be in the GOP primary and come up with whatever number satisfies you!

The Laffey Tax Plan

Republican Senatorial Candidate Steve Laffey gave the fourth of his campaign policy briefings yesterday afternoon. The subject was tax-reform.

The heart of Mayor Laffey�s proposal is tax-simplification. If elected to the Senate, Steve Laffey would work to establish three tax brackets, somewhere in the vicinity of 10, 20, and 30%; the Mayor said he would work with the Office of the Management and Budget to select exact figures that were revenue neutral with respect to present revenues, including the Bush tax-cuts of 2001, 2003, and 2004.

Mayor Laffey proposes replacing the 60,000-page Federal tax code with a greatly-simplified system of six exemptions for individual taxpayers. The exemptions would be...

1. Yourself and your family ($10,000 per person)
2. Interest on Home Mortgage
3. Personal savings for retirement and education
4. Health savings accounts (HSAs)
5. Charities
6. State and local taxes

The exemptions would be designed so that a family making $40,000 or less would owe no income tax. The $40,000 would be adjusted upward for inflation each year. Corporations would all pay the 30% rate.

Mayor Laffey would eliminate taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest and social security, as well as the �death� tax. The Mayor pointed out a major effect of reducing taxes on dividend income would be a reduction on the burden on Senior citizens, about half of whom rely upon dividends for their income. The Mayor further noted that, at present, the exemption on the death tax is scheduled to drop from $3,500,000 in 2009 to $1,000,000 in 2011, meaning people who are �rich� only in the sense that they own their own homes and have diligently funded their retirement accounts may be forced to pay substantial death taxes in 2011 and after.

Mayor Laffey argued that reducing corruption in Washington is mostly a matter of simplfying the tax code. Much of the power of lobbyists comes from their ability to ply Congress into manipulating the tax code to give advantages to favored industries. Without an incomprehensible tax code to manipulate, the influence of lobbyists is 1) greatly reduced and 2) what influence remains -- e.g. the ability to procure earmarks -- is more transparent.

Mayor Laffey presented some interesting historical data regarding tax cuts. There have been three major tax-cuts since 1960, by Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush the Younger. In all three cases, Federal revenues jumped by more than 10% two to three years after the tax-cuts were implemented.

Finally, Mayor Laffey criticized his opponent�s record on tax-issues. He criticized Senator Lincoln Chafee for voting against all three of President Bush�s major tax cut initiatives. Senator Chafee voted against the 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills reducing individual income, dividend, and capital gains tax rates. According to Factcheck.org, which has published briefs criticizing both President Bush for overstating the value of the tax cuts and the Democrats for understating their effect, the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts reduced the tax burden across-the-board, not just �for the rich�. Repealing the Bush cuts would raise taxes on a family of four making $35,000-per-year by $1,897.

In 2004, Senator Chafee was one of just three Senators who voted against the �Tax Relief for Working Families Act� that eliminated the marriage penalty and extended the child tax-credit.

The Chafee campaign has issued an official response that discusses Mayor Laffey's record as Mayor of Cranston, but not issues specifically related to the future of the Federal tax code.

Laffey's Tax Plan Presentation

Mayor Laffey has a new tax plan, according to the ProJo:

Laffey's proposal would eliminate the tax on estates, interest, dividends, capital gains and Social Security benefits.

He would also lower the highest marginal tax rate -- that paid by the highest wage earners -- to 30 percent. The top federal marginal income tax rate was 39.6 percent when President Bush took office in 2001. Through a series of tax cuts, that top rate has now fallen to 35 percent.

. . . Taxpayers would have their income levied at either 10, 20 or 30 percent -- depending on income levels -- and would be given up to six types of deductions.

Each individual filer or family could claim up to $40,000 in deductions. The standard deduction per person would be $10,000. So a family of four, earning $40,000 would pay no federal income tax.

Others deductions include interest on a mortgage, retirement and education savings, health savings account contributions, charity and state and local taxes but could only be taken to a total write-off of $40,000.

Laffey's theory is this: without a tax on dividends and interest, Americans are more likely to invest and that means growth in the economy.

Meanwhile, Senator Chafee's people fall back on the same context-lacking charge that Mayor Laffey is a tax raiser:

The Chafee campaign attacked the proposal, saying that Laffey's past record shows support for tax hikes.

"When Steve Laffey took over in Cranston, he said he would cut spending by $11 million, but he never got around to doing that," Chafee campaign manager Ian Lang said in a statement. "Now he says he will cut federal spending. When Steve Laffey took over in Cranston, he said he was for tax increases, now he says he's against them. The question is: do Rhode Islanders trust the record or the rhetoric?"

Whatever. Anyway, the Mayor's plan seems good, though it may be short on details right now (according to the story, Mayor Laffey said, "It's not all set in stone."). However, his presentation seems to have been interesting:

Laffey's 45-slide presentation was filled with quotes, images of Frankenstein, Porky Pig and a caricature of Chafee.

Th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

Campaign Ads and Pork

A dueling round of political ads has appeared on the Rhode Island airwaves. The Chafee campaign's new TV ad can be seen here. The advertisement names "environmental cleanups paid for by polluters and not taxpayers", "ending deficits with a strict pay-as-you-go plan", being "named the most fiscally responsible Senator in the nation" (presumably by the Concord Coalition), and an endorsement "by the US Chamber of Commerce for his pro-growth agenda" as reasons to re-elect Senator Chafee.

The Club for Growth is also running an ad, which can be seen here. Citing three specific Senate votes (vote #170 from 2001, vote #196 from 2003, and vote #130 from 2004), the CfG ad says that $1,300,000,000,000 is "how much higher taxes would be if Lincoln Chafee had his way". The ad also claims that Senator Chafee "pushed for $48,000,000,000 dollars in wasteful spending", providing a reference to spending data from the National Taxpayers Union.

As noted below, Senator Chafee has made a recent stand against pork spending. The Senator voted to rescind some questionable appropriations attached to the Defense, Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery Supplemental Appropriations Bill, displaying a fiscal conservatism that extends beyond mere deficit hawkishness (to understand the difference between true fiscal conservatism and mere deficit hawkishness, click here). Senator Chafee has also signed a letter to the President sent by 35 Republican Senators pledging to sustain a veto on the supplemental spending bill if the total amount appropriated exceeds what was requested by President Bush...

We are seriously concerned with the overall funding level in the Senate-reported bill, and the numerous items that are unrelated to the Global War on Terror or emergency hurricane relief needs. Should the final bill presented to you exceed the total amount you requested, forcing you to veto the bill, we will vote to sustain your veto.

These actions show a positive evolution in the Senator's position towards pork spending. Last October, Senator Chafee told the Projo that pork was not an important issue (h/t Patrick Casey)...

The day may come where all of us are going to say we are not going to add any more earmarks onto appropriations bills," Chafee said. "In the meantime, there are many worthwhile projects and in the grand scheme of things, it is not a significant part of the budget."

And the Laffey campaign has wasted no time in pointing out some of Senator Chafee's pork-friendly votes from the past, including his vote in support of the infamous bridge-to-nowhere...

Senator Chafee also has a long track record of voting for outrageous pork projects including $223 million for Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" (Senate Roll Call Vote #262) (10-20-05), $98 million for an animal disease center in Iowa (Senate Roll Call Vote #118) (04-03-03), and $1.85 million for Cornell University's viticulture consortium (Senate Roll Call Vote #215) (11-20-04).

Viticulture, for those unfamiliar with the term (like I was until I looked it up on dictionary.com) is the cultivation of grapes.

Another Story in the RIC Poll

Anchor Rising commenter Oz points out the most obvious flaw in the results of yesterday�s Rhode Island College statewide political poll�

So they polled 364 registered voters and 107 said they would vote in the republican primary.

That's a 29% participation rate.

There are roughly 660,000 registered voters in RI.

Are we to believe that 191,000 people are going to vote in the republican primary?

To put it into context, that is nearly 150,000 more than the record for a republican primary.

How can the obviously nonsensical result be explained? The answer, I suspect, is that there are many people uncomfortable admitting to a stranger on the telephone that they are unlikely to vote.

Now, if I believe what everybody tells me about Rhode Island -- that the state has insurmountable Democratic sympathies -- when I ask people to quickly answer "what primary will you be voting in�, I should expect to hear �Democratic� most of the times that I get an answer, right? Yet, the RIC poll shows an answer of �Republican� almost as often as an answer of �Democratic� to this question.

If likely non-voters were just pulling a party name out of the air, then there should have been an overprojection of likely Democratic voters that was at least as large as the overprojection of likely Republican voters. This didn't occur. To an order of magnitude, the poll correctly estimates the number of likely Democratic voters. This means that as many Rhode Islanders identify with the Republicans as with the Democrats, but that the state party has been unable to engage about 150,000 voters who should be part of the Republican base.

To build a long-term coalition, the state party -- including the Chafee campaign -- should be focusing figuring out what those 150,000 Republican-leaning but disengaged voters feel they're not getting from either party, instead of focusing on turning Democrats into Republicans for just a day.

Matt Brown is Out

The ProJo 7-to-7 blog has picked up an Associated Press report saying that Matt Brown has officially dropped out of the Rhode Island Democratic Senate primary.

Chafee Looks Solid in RIC Poll

A new Rhode Island College poll indicates that Senator Chafee holds a comfortable lead in both the GOP primary and the general election:

Chafee would beat challenger and Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey 56 percent to 28 percent in the Republican primary. For that question, the poll sampled 107 people who said they would vote in the Republican primary. Because the sample is smaller, the margin of error rises to 9 percentage points.

The results of the Democratic primary were not as clear cut, though former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse leads a three-way field with 37 percent. He is followed by Secretary of State Matthew Brown, with 21 percent, and Carl Sheeler, 8 percent. The margin of error for the Democratic primary is also 9 percentage points, with 117 people who said they would vote in the Democratic primary sampled.

But the poll indicated the outcome of the Democratic primary may be academic: Chafee would beat Whitehouse 51 percent to 32 percent and would beat Brown 53 percent to 28 percent. That is based on the full sample, with the 5-percentage-point margin of error.

Similarly, Laffey would lose, regardless of his Democratic opponent. Brown would win 48 percent to 29 percent and Whitehouse would win 50 percent to 27 percent.

This is the first public poll that attempted to sample for the GOP primary and--in that light--it's interesting to note that the percentage of support for Senator Chafee and Mayor Laffey are consistent for both the GOP primary and the general election. This is good news and bad news for Mayor Laffey. Mayor Laffey has a solid 28-30% core both within the GOP and statewide, which means he is appealing to some independents out there. Nonetheless, the bad news far outweighs the good for Mayor Laffey. He still has some work to do to appeal to the GOP primary voters, whether they are Republican or not.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the actual poll document from the RIC Bureau of Government Research and Services (PDF).

Here are some of the interesting internals:

45% of the respondents were male
55% of the respondents were female

(For below, Dem=Democrat Primary Voter, Rep-Republican Primary Voter)

East Bay - 10% of total, 9% Dem, 10% Rep
Western RI - 5% of total, 2% Dem, 4% Rep
Blackstone Valley - 16% of total, 19% Dem, 16% Rep
Providence Metro - 34% of total, 32% Dem, 33% Rep
Providence - 11% of total, 22% Dem, 4% Rep
Washington County - 13% of total, 10% Dem, 19% Rep
Newport County - 10% of total, 6% Dem, 14% Rep

I report......

The Problems with the Indeglia Letter

The Associated Press has a report on a problematic independent campaign expenditure in support of Steve Laffey�

Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey yesterday distanced himself from a letter a supporter wrote to his employees asking them to aid Laffey's Senate campaign�

The letter, written last week by Vincent Indeglia, president of [a] Providence employment agency, criticizes Laffey's opponents for their positions on immigration and asks employees to turn over names and contact information of every U.S. citizen they know. Indeglia said he left 50 to 100 copies on the desk where as many as 200 workers pick up their paychecks on Fridays�

We had no idea about this letter," said Nachama Soloveichik, spokeswoman for Laffey's campaign. "Had he asked us, we would have told him, 'Don't do this. Please don't do this.' We encourage him to take whatever steps needed to fix this."

It is a reasonable to assume that Mr. Indeglia didn't contact the Laffey campaign for fear of running afoul of the current campaign finance laws. Had Mr. Indeglia contacted the Laffey campaign before sending out his letter, the answer that Ms. Soloveichik would have given is the only answer that would not turn an independent expenditure into a coordinated in-kind contribution subject to campaign speech regulations.

Campaign finance laws that discourage people from talking directly to candidates before issuing public support need, at the very least, to be rethought.

Coordination issue aside, Mr. Indeglia may also be in violation of the �no corporate contributions� provisions of campaign finance regulations�

The letter, written on American Labor Services, Inc., letterhead by its president, asks workers to help register Hispanic citizens to vote in the Republican primary. It could violate laws that prohibit corporations from telling hourly workers which candidates to support, according to former and current Federal Elections Commission officials.

But whatever the camapign speech restrictions, Mr. Indeglia should have taken the time to get the policy positions of all of the candidates that he mentioned in his letter correct. Instead, he appears to have inaccurately portrayed the positions of both Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse on the issue of immigration�

Spokespeople for the candidates mentioned in the letter said Indeglia did not accurately express their views on the issue.

The letter said Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic candidate, want to deport illegal immigrants and make it harder for legal immigrants to become citizens, while Laffey supports allowing people to become legal residents and citizens if they choose.

However, Chafee and Whitehouse support legislation that would give illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship if they paid a fine and met other conditions. Laffey wants to secure the nation's border with Mexico, crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and create a strict guest worker policy.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

In today�s Projo, Katherine Gregg has an extensive article on the direct mail letters that both Republican Senate candidates have been sending out.

Stephanie Chafee: "If you are a registered Democrat, I am strongly encouraging you to disaffiliate and to become an unaffiliated voter"

Stephanie Chafee, wife of Senator Lincoln Chafee, has sent out an e-mail encouraging registered Democrats to disaffiliate from their party so that they can vote for Senator Chafee in the Republican primary�

Dear Friend,

This is an important election for Rhode Island�s future. My husband, Linc Chafee, is engaged in the fight of his political life. His commitment to honest, independent leadership has put him under attack from extremist on both sides of the ideological divide.

I believe that you agree with me that Linc�s centrist views are good for Rhode Island. They allow him to work with colleagues in a bipartisan manner to ensure that our state receives its fair share of federal funding, to expand access to healthcare and education, and to safeguard our beautiful forests and coastlines for this and future generations.

Linc has stood up for Rhode Island time and again. In a contentious atmosphere, he has stood firm by refusing to engage in partisan politics. Now it�s time for all of us who want more independent minded thinkers in Washington to show our support for Linc. If you are a registered Democrat, I am strongly encouraging you to disaffiliate and to become an unaffiliated voter.

If you support my husband, it is absolutely imperative that you vote for him in both the September 12th primary and in the general election on November 7th. But to be eligible to vote for him in the Republican primary you must be registered as either an unaffiliated or a Republican voter. I want to urge you to please check your affiliation and consider voting in the September primary. If you are a registered Democrat you must disaffiliate by June 14th in order to vote in Linc�s September primary.

Changing your affiliation is easy. I have enclosed a copy of a voter registration card, which will allow you to disaffiliate. This form can also be found on the board of elections website at www.elections.ri.gov and is available at your local board of canvassers located at your Town or City Hall. Enclosed, please find a listing of five easy steps to guide you through the disaffiliation process. For more information on voter registration call the campaign at (401) 921-1920 and ask for Brent Lang or email him at blang@chafeeforsenate.com.

Thank you and I hope you will join me in supporting Linc in this upcoming election.

Sincerely,
Stephanie Chafee

P.S. If you need further information, please let us know. If you are planning to be out of state during the primary, please remember to get an absentee ballot. Above all, exercise what our forefathers fought for � the right to vote.

Attachments to the e-mail included a five-step instruction sheet on how to disaffiliate, a RI disaffiliation form, and a list of city and town halls in Rhode Island.

Anchor Rising has confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail with the Chafee campaign. Campaign manager Ian Lang describes the e-mail as a message from Mrs. Chafee to friends and acquaintances sent out to help insure that the broad base of support that the Senator has developed across Rhode Island while serving as Mayor and as Senator will be eligible to vote for him on election day.

Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey on Israel

John E. Mulligan had a report in Sunday�s Projo on Rhode Island�s Republican Senate candidates' postions on �the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians�. Starting with what the candidates agree on and working outward�

1. Both Lincoln Chafee and Steve Laffey support construction of the Israeli security fence to protect Israel from terrorist attacks. Senator Chafee does have objections to the current positioning of the fence�

Chafee objects to a crucial aspect of the security barrier that Israel is building to protect certain lands: the route that barrier would take through Palestinian areas.

He argues that the proposed pathway would split the Palestinian population and block Palestinian access to Jerusalem in ways that would make a Palestinian state economically and culturally unworkable. Chafee suggested during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year that the barrier's path would "jeopardize the vision of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state."

2. In the ideal, both candidates support the concept of �land-for-peace�. Here is Mulligan�s description of Mayor Laffey�s position�

Laffey said he has no objection to a deal that would swap land -- including occupied lands on the West Bank -- for peace, provided that the Palestinian leadership recognizes Israel's right to exist and renounces violence.

�and of Senator Chafee�s position�

Chafee argued that a "land for peace" deal is the key to the creation of a Palestinian state that would respect Israel's right to exist. More specifically, he said the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank are lands that must be negotiable under the terms of the road map.

3. Senator Chafee talks about the obstacles to �land for peace� mostly in terms of the United States not putting enough pressure on Israel�

Chafee was an early critic of what he has called the Bush administration's lack of sufficient engagement in the peace process. Chafee applauds the administration's embrace of the road map process but has charged that the United States has not done enough to get Israel to follow it.

Chafee has argued that the death of longtime Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat in 2004 and the succession of Mahmoud Abbas were opportunities for peace that Israel failed to exploit. Chafee said the United States shared the responsibility for the failure to help Abbas win enough concessions for his people to consolidate his Fatah Party's power.

Mayor Laffey questions the assumption that impasses in the peace-process automatically imply that the US should step-up pressure on Israel�

Laffey said the peace process has failed over the course of many years because American leaders took the mistaken view that Arafat "was the man to deal with" and "if we could get these people to the table, we could do something reasonable."

In fact, "Arafat wouldn't take a deal" when a favorable settlement was on the table during the waning days of Bill Clinton's presidency, he said. Laffey rejected the Chafee view that the flaw in the U.S. position has been a failure to push Israel toward peace. Rather, the problem is the policy of treating "both sides as being equal when one was terrorists who kind of invented the suicide bomber," according to Laffey.

4. Distressingly, Senator Chafee again expresses skepticism that anyone can oppose his policy preferences for rational reasons. The Senator attributes American reluctance to apply increased pressure to Israel to a rather odd source�

For these Senate Republicans of the Christian right, "the West Bank being Biblically designated as the Promised Land is an issue," Chafee said, citing the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy. "I'm not going to name names," he said of his colleagues, "but there's no doubt in my mind��

Chafee said Biblical influence on Israel policy is a problem for the country "because the whole premise of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is the West Bank and trading land for peace." The Biblically inspired Republicans "would never trade land for peace, so we're going to have eternal conflict if that position prevails," Chafee said.

That�s an awfully big charge � that American leaders are pursuing a foreign policy for reasons not in the national interest of the United States � to make without naming names, especially since the differences between Senator Chafee�s and Mayor Laffey�s positions are both easily explained in terms of conventional foreign policy worldviews.

Senator Chafee operates from the assumption that the perception of American power is so threatening to the rest of the world, American interests are best served when the United States refrains from supporting its allies and from pressuring its enemies as strongly as it could. Steve Laffey views the national interest in more traditional terms, believing that the United States should support its allies, with no obligation to hold allies to a higher standard of conduct than enemies because of what other governments think.

Chafee Meets Silence in Scituate II

Senator Lincoln Chafee�s description of Scituate Republicans in the Washington Post's short feature on the Rhode Island Senate race that Marc linked to provides a subtle yet clear illustration of why the Senator is in danger of losing the Republican primary. Here is a quote from Senator Chafee, formatted using Justin�s technique of highlighting reckless absolutes�

Chafee, 53, once could count on voters in Rhode Island to tolerate his maverick ways, but this time the response [in Scituate] was blank stares. "Nobody listened to my reasoning," Chafee recounted as he piled hay into a wheelbarrow. "They support the president on everything."

With all due respect, if Senator Chafee believes what he is saying here, then he hasn�t been paying close enough attention.

Republicans don't support the President on everything. Take two recent examples. Republicans didn�t fall into line and support the President on the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Significant numbers of Republicans consider the President soft on immigration reform. And the President has listened to his party's voters on these issues -- he withdrew the Miers nomination, and has placed more emphasis on securing the borders as part of immigration reform.

Senator Chafee could also listen to Republican voters when they express their dissatisfaction with him, but has chosen a different response. In public statements like the quote from the Post, he writes off Republican voters as unreasonably closed-minded for disagreeing with him. Is it any surprise that the Senator unwilling to listen to the rank and file of his own party faces a serious challenge in a party primary?

Chafee Meets Silence in Scituate

In today's Washington Post:

Lincoln Chafee was cleaning a horse stall on his well-manicured farm one recent early morning, describing his latest encounter with hostile home-state Republicans.

The GOP senator had appeared the previous night before the Scituate Republican Town Committee to seek the endorsement of the small but influential group. In his halting, soft-spoken way, Chafee defended his opposition to the war in Iraq, domestic wiretapping and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. as the principled positions of an old-school conservative.

Chafee, 53, once could count on voters in Rhode Island to tolerate his maverick ways, but this time the response was blank stares. "Nobody listened to my reasoning," Chafee recounted as he piled hay into a wheelbarrow. "They support the president on everything."

Few paths to victory are more convoluted than the one Chafee must travel to win election to a second term this year in this strongly Democratic state. Chafee will face Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, a conservative, in the Sept. 12 GOP primary, and he must convince voters that he is "Republican enough," despite his numerous defections from the party and President Bush. If he survives the primary, Chafee then must hope that he can hold the Republican vote while wooing moderate Democrats and independents to stave off what is sure to be a strong Democratic challenge.

"I'm running for opposite constituencies," Chafee said. "It's impossible."

. . . [Cranston Mayor Steve] Laffey, 43, energetic and ebullient, is Chafee's political opposite. Although he became wealthy working for a Memphis-based financial services company, he grew up as a lower-middle-class Cranston kid...Although Laffey raised taxes as Cranston mayor -- a heretical act for a conservative Republican in Washington -- he is admired for having turned around a troubled city, including by bucking powerful unions and even a platoon of highly paid school crossing guards. State and national Republican leaders strongly urged him to run for lieutenant governor, but Laffey believes his financial management skills can be put to better use in Washington. "I'm not into that," Laffey said of the intraparty pressure. "I'm an outsider. I'm running against what's going on down there."

At least some Rhode Island Republicans agree: the Scituate Republican Town Committee. The group decided to back Laffey the morning after Chafee's appearance.

Imagine that, Republicans supporting a Republican President on such issues as War and Supreme Court nominations. Whoda thunk?

A Pro-Republican Senate Campaign Proposal

Judging from both Elizabeth Gudrais� Projo coverage of last night�s Johnson and Wales' college Republican candidates' night and the comments section of this blog, Senator Lincoln Chafee and his supporters seem determined to make Steve Laffey�s campaign contributions from 10 years ago a central issue in the Rhode Island Senate campaign�

Chafee never mentioned Laffey by name. Instead, he said: "My primary opponent actually contributed to Democrats. I've never done that."

He was referring to contributions Laffey made to Tennessee Democrats' congressional campaigns during his time working for Morgan Keegan, a Memphis investment banking firm.

Since Senator Chafee and his supporters have become very concerned about party loyalty, I�d like to propose the following deal.

Steve Laffey agrees not to give any more money to Democratic candidates and Lincoln Chafee agrees a) to vote for the next Republican Presidential nominee (Senator Chafee voted against President Bush in 2004) and/or b) to vote for judicial nominees chosen by Republican Presidents when all the other Senate Republicans are voting in favor of confirmation.

Any takers?

Steve Laffey's Campaign Contributions in Tennessee

According to a Projo article by Scott MacKay, former Tennessee Senator Fred Dalton Thompson, guest-of-honor at a fundraiser for Senator Lincoln Chafee, had this to say about Steve Laffey�

Thompson also had a needle for [Steve] Laffey, who once worked for a Tennessee investment company. Thompson said Laffey in 1994 contributed campaign money to the Democratic candidate who ran against him and the Democrat who ran against GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Anchor Rising commenter Anthony points out that campaign finance records from that period are available via the opensecrets.org website. Here are the total amounts donated by Mayor Laffey while he was in Tennessee, including the donations that former Senator Thompson was referring to...

Lamar Alexander (R)	$1,500	1999,1995
Jonathan Newman (R)	$1,000	1997
Jesse Jackson Jr. (D)	$200	1995
Jim Cooper (D)	$250	1994
Jim Sasser (D)	$1,000	1993

Lamar Alexander was (at the time) the former governor of Tennessee who ran for President in 1996 and 2000. Jonathan Newman ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in Pennsylvania in 1998. Jesse Jackson Jr. is a Congressman from Illinois. Jim Cooper was a Tennessee Congressman who lost to Fred Dalton Thompson in the campaign for the Senate seat vacated by Al Gore when he became Vice-President. Jim Sasser was the incumbent Democrat beaten by Bill Frist in 1994.

The Lighter Side of RI Senate '06

OK, we've been staying away from the Laffey/Chafee race, despite protestations in various comments sections. To tell the truth, nothing really "new" is going on that you can't get from the candidate's web sites. Nonetheless, here are a couple items that can be classified as "on the lighter side."

Mayor Laffey made a big to-do of unveiling something he called the "Rhody Reformer" at the PawSox home opener. What the heck was it? Here it is. (Hint: "That there's an RV, Clark.")

Meanwhile, Senator Chafee has been busy talking horses and had a whole chapter in Hugh Hewitt's new book named after him! (�It�s No Longer the Party of Lincoln�Chafee, That Is.")

Brown at URI

Not to assume too much, but it seems to me that RI Secretary of State and candidate for U.S. Senate Matt Brown is like his fellow state Democrats in that he hasn't had to speak to or wrangle with anybody with strongly conflicting views in far too long. I mean, think about this:

"I think it [pulling out of Iraq] is the best thing that we can do to help stabilize the situation in Iraq, given how badly the Bush administration has fouled it up," Brown said. "I do think that the root problem in Iraq is a political problem. It's an ancient, bitter conflict between the Shiites and the Sunnis ... Those groups are not going to solve their political differences as they know that our men and women are there to fight their fights for them."

So, to "stabilize" relations between these two religious groups that have been at each others' throats in a part of the world in which violence still carries a Dark Ages tint, we must allow them to fight their own fights. Of course, one could suggest that the reason the problem is a political one — as opposed to, say, a genocidal one — is precisely because the U.S. and coalition forces are around, but then again, not a few people on Brown's side of the aisle actually gave credence to Saddam's election returns.

And then there's this bit of boldness relying on ignorance:

Brown also discussed the problems facing college students in the state of Rhode Island. "I think the people are getting out of school because of the bad decisions that have come out of Washington. It is just very hard to make ends meet," Brown said. "From the cost of health care, to finding a good job, to paying off your college loans, we desperately need new leadership."

Busy as they are, I'd suggest that RI's collegiate youth needn't look so far as Washington to explain their difficulty making ends meet. In what Machiavellian class, I wonder, do they teach politicians to help create a problem and then to blame it on somebody else?

Consequences of Campaign Finance Reform

In today�s Projo, Scott Mayerowitz reports on the out-of-state funds pouring into the Rhode Island Senate campaign...

Rhode Island's Senate race is hardly a local contest.

Two out of every three dollars raised so far have come from out of state�

With less than six months to go before the Senate primary, donors have contributed nearly $4.3 million, as of the reporting period that ended Dec. 31. That number is expected to grow substantially when new figures are released April 15.

Most of the money so far has come largely from big cities on the East and West coasts.

New York residents donated more than $500,000 by the end of December. California contributors were right behind, with $440,000. Money also flowed in from Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

What is often overlooked in the debate about campaign finance reform is the effect it has on how candidates spend their time. Mayerowitz's article provides a nice snapshot�

[Matt] Brown has raised 72 percent of his money from out of state, a higher percentage than any other candidate.

Brown's top-giving ZIP code outside Rhode Island is the posh Beverly Hills 90210. In the last four months, Brown has spent at least nine days fundraising in the Los Angeles area, according to his campaign.

[Sheldon] Whitehouse is also tapping national money, with New York his top source so far.

Director Martin Scorsese hosted a Whitehouse fundraiser in his Manhattan townhouse last month, an event cohosted by former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

These are yet more examples of how campaign finance �reform� has failed. CFR is supposed to reduce the effect of money in politics. Instead, as currently implemented, it makes candidates from everywhere beholden to the wealthy areas of the country where lots of people capable of donating $2,100 to a single candidate can easily gather in one place. To be competitive, politicians have to take time away from discussing ideas with their constituents to work on raising money from out-of-staters.

Incumbents like this system, because it gives them an advantage. Their national level connections allow them to tap into a nationwide fundraising system that can deliver donations from all over the country. Challengers without that kind of access have a harder time raising the money they need to get their message out (unless, for example, the challenger is an independently wealthy former Attorney General with lots of free time on his hands; of course, our system is supposed to be open to more than just independently wealthy Attorney Generals with lots of free time on their hands).

In an OpinionJournal interview from a few months back, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed a creative solution to this problem�

"McCain-Feingold was a very bad bill which strengthened millionaires, weakened the middle class and made it harder for challengers. I would repeal any limit on people giving in the constituency they vote in." But that's not all. He'd also "simply ban all fund-raising in Washington. You can do that by straight out rules of the House and Senate." Admittedly, Mr. Gingrich has filed this proposal under "can't do." But even so, it has an elegance about it that makes it alluring�.

"Now what you've got is a dance in which members go to unending PAC [political action committee] fundraisers hosted by lobbyists in order to raise enough money that they can't be challenged, which means they don't have to go home, so they can have more time free to go to more fundraisers hosted by more lobbyists. I just think that system's wrong."

No limits might be extreme, but raising the ceiling on local contributions is a reasonable idea that would increase the amount of time Rhode Island politicians spend listening to -- and ultimately representing -- Rhode Islanders, instead of out-of-state interests.

Matt Brown's Campaign Finance Woes

In today's Pawtucket Times, Jim Baron reports on the continuing fallout from Matt Brown's campaign finance problems...

In a ceremony Thursday in the law offices of Republican Attorney General candidate J. William Harsch, state GOP Chairwoman Patricia Morgan signed on to an FEC complaint already filed by the Hawaii Republican Party.

The complaint charges a "tit for tat" arrangement in which donors who had already contributed the maximum amount allowable under law to the Brown campaign sent donations to Democratic Party organizations in Hawaii, Massachusetts and Maine, and then those party organizations contributed a similar amount to Brown.

Brown continues to assert that the matter is about appearance and not substance...

Brown, who has campaigned as a reformer and clean government candidate, has since returned the money, insisting that the arrangement was "completely legal" but acknowledging that it presents a "perception problem."

Brown campaign spokesman Matt Burgess brushed the complaint off as "just politics. It is Republicans filing complaints against Democrats. It was all completely legal and that's what the FCC will find.

Asked Thursday if the Brown campaign would do the same thing again, spokesman Matt Burgess said no, but only because it presented a perception problem, not because it was a wrong thing to do.

I suspect that Mr. Brown will eventually be vindicated in a legal sense.

However, this incident shows how campaign finance "reform" has become a barrier preventing the politically unconnected from entering politics. Mr. Brown has (had?) a legitimate shot at a Senate seat because his career in politics allowed him to develop the nationwide connections needed to set up an elaborate fundraising network capable of delivering small contributions from all over the country. Someone who has not made politics their entire career rarely has that kind of access.

Under the current system, the only people who can raise the money needed to run for statewide office are those who are in a position to spend years building a fundraising network, those with the right connections who are granted access to someone else's established network, or those who are independently wealthy. To level the playing field between the connected and unconnected, a better solution is to simplify campaign finance regulations but increase transparency and tighten up the rules regarding disclosure.

Finally, a question: Do people think that Matt Brown survives this or not? Since the Democratic primary is basically a beauty contest between two candidates with identical positions on the issues, I don't see what Mr. Brown can do to differentiate himself from Sheldon Whitehouse and bounce back from this.

Censure Pong

From a Monday news article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel by Craig Gilbert�

One liberal GOP senator, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, offered some praise for Feingold, saying the resolution would be "positive" if it fueled debate over the legality of some policies in the war on terrorism.

From a Tuesday posting on Senator Chafee�s campaign website titled "Senator Chafee Opposes Feingold's Censure Resolution"�

As I travel around Rhode Island, I am surprised by the lack of discussion on the proper balance between civil liberties and national security. While I do not agree with Senator Feingold's motion to censure the President, I believe in the need for a vigorous dialogue about this proper balance. It would be a positive step and in the best interest of the President and the American people for a constructive discussion to take place, but this censure resolution is not that step and therefore does not have my support.

From today�s Projo story by John E. Mulligan titled "Chafee refuses to rule out voting to censure Bush"...

But Chafee, a Republican, currently does not support the Wisconsin Democrat's proposal to punish the president with a censure, he said.

"Everything should occur in steps," Chafee said in an interview citing, for instance, the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the wiretapping program.

Chafee was asked whether those steps might lead to a censure of Mr. Bush that he would support. "I know you want me to go there," Chafee said, but he did not answer the question directly.

However, Chafee said he does not rule out an eventual decision to back the censure resolution, introduced Monday.

And from a new item posted today on the Senator�s website titled "Chafee reiterates opposition to Feingold's Censure Resolution"�

As I stated on Tuesday, I do not support Senator Russell Feingold�s resolution to censure the President. In a news article, the Providence Journal reporter chose to interpret the notion that I will not rule out the censure of any president in any number of hypothetical circumstances as an endorsement of the drastic censure resolution currently being offered in the Senate. This is misleading concerning my recent comments on this issue. From the first mention of this resolution, I have never expressed support for it.

I have joined colleagues on both sides of the aisle in calling for a vigorous dialogue about the balance between civil liberties and national security. I believe that as the only bodies authorized to be briefed on the full range of the wiretapping program, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees must conduct the necessary oversight, reach a final conclusion and make recommendations. I stand by that position.

How else can you interpret this last statement except as meaning nothing more than the Senator will favor any censure resolution that he does not oppose?

Inconsistent Standard of "Careful Consideration"

While Senator Chafee toyed with the idea of censuring the President--based on the alleged illegality of the NSA wire-tapping program--he has since stated he's against the idea. Nonetheless, he's still convinced that the program is illegal...even though the Senate hearings on it have not yet concluded:

When Chafee was interviewed in January about the wiretaps program, he criticized it but said he would draw no conclusions about its legality or constitutionality until the Senate Judiciary Committee completed its inquiry.

Why, Chafee was asked Tuesday, has he come to the conclusion that the program is illegal, with the committee's inquiry still under way?

Chafee answered by reiterating his initial criticism of the program. "From what I've seen," he said, the wiretap program "is outside the parameters" of the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches and existing law governing such programs.

I recall that also back in January, Senator Chafee refrained from making another decision until he "heard all the facts" and considered them carefully. In that case, it was whether or not he was going to support now-Justice Alito and he stated that he wanted to wait until after the Senate Judiciary hearings were finished before making a (finger in the wind) decision. Apparently, he doesn't feel the need apply the same careful consideration here, does he? Maybe it was a January thing?

(Cross-posted at OSB).

Senator Chafee's PAYGO Proposal & Automatic Tax Increases

Senator Lincoln Chafee is once again trying to pass off his preference for high tax rates as "fiscal responsibility". This is from a recent press release on the Senator's campaign website...

Leading deficit hawk, U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee today joined with Senator Bill Frist and Senator John McCain to co-sponsor legislation that will help get federal spending under control by establishing a Presidential Line Item Veto. Like Senator Chafee's proposed Pay-As-You-Go approach to the federal budget, this will help return fiscal responsibility to the federal government and ensure that our legacy to our children is not billions and billions of dollars of debt.

We'll take up the line-item veto a little later. For now, let's discuss the "pay-as-you go" proposal, also known as PAYGO.

The problem with Senator Chafee's most recent version of PAYGO was that it placed no limit on the overall increase in Federal spending. It only limited spending on the creation of new programs. PAYGO 2005 didn't apply to already existing entitlements -- or their automatic increases. (According to statistics quoted by Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution, entitlements now account for 53% of the budget, a total that grows each year.)

To meet the requirements of PAYGO, the automatic growth of established entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid (Social Security is defined as "off-budget" and not considered for the purposes of PAYGO) would have to be offset by either yearly tax-increases or yearly cuts in existing programs -- real cuts, not just reductions in the rate of growth or limits on new spending.

Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation explains why a PAYGO program that ignores entitlement spending would almost certainly force automatic tax increases...

While PAYGO allows current entitlement programs to grow on autopilot, it would likely lead to the expiration of the current tax cuts. Merely retaining the tax relief that Americans now enjoy would, under PAYGO, require 60 votes in the Senate and a waiver in the House. To avoid this supermajority requirement, lawmakers seeking to prevent tax increases would have to either: A) raise other taxes; or B) reduce mandatory spending by a larger amount than has ever been enacted. Option A is still a net tax increase (raising one tax to avoid raising another), and Option B is probably politically unrealistic.

Congressman John Conyers: Another Liberal Pursues School Choice For His Kids While Blocking Needy Children From Having The Same Opportunities

In an editorial entitled Choice for me, not for you, Michael Franc has yet another example of the hypocrisy of liberal Democrats regarding school choice:

The latest ethics flap in Washington exploded last week...It involves veteran Michigan Democrat and would-be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers. Two former staffers allege a pattern of corruption by Conyers, self-proclaimed "Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus," including forcing them to work on several state and local political campaigns while on his congressional payroll and allowing a senior staff counsel to conduct her private law practice out of his office.

Also among the charges is that Conyers required his staff to care for his two young boys, including providing tutoring services to Conyers' elder son while he attended a posh private school in Bloomfield Hills. The school "Little John" Conyers attends is the Cranbrook School. According to its Web site, tuition at Cranbrook runs a cool $17,880 for grades 1-5, $19,280 for middle school, and $21,730 for high school. Parents who send their kids to board at Cranbrook must cough up more than $30,000.

Yet Conyers is a longstanding opponent of any form of school choice for low-income children. At a "Stand Up for Public Schools" rally a few years back, Conyers decried educational choice as a "scheme" which "will only harm our public schools" and pointed instead to the sort of "real" school reforms drawn from the educational unions' playbook � teacher training, reduced class size, and school construction. "It is vital," he said then, "for parents, educators, and community leaders to join together to strengthen Detroit�s public schools."

Unless, of course, you can afford to send your child to The Cranbrook School.

A lengthy review of school choice issues was recently posted here. Included in that posting is this Clint Bolick quote about Hillary Clinton's recent comments on school choice and the Clinton's years-ago school choice decision for the benefit of their daughter Chelsea:

We now have nearly two decades of experience with school choice. We do not see white supremacy schools. We do not see jihadist schools. We do not see religious strife or rioting in the streets. What we do see is children who never before have gotten a break learning in safe environments chosen by their parents. And we see the power to choose providing a catalyst for public schools to improve. School choice is the tide that lifts all boats.

Never was there greater testimony to the importance of school choice than Mrs. Clinton herself. When the President and Mrs. Clinton moved into the White House, they were offered something that no other resident of the nation's capitol had: the choice of any public school for their daughter. They decided that sending their daughter to a defective school system was too great a sacrifice, and chose a private school instead. That led Wisconsin Rep. Polly Williams, the sponsor of Milwaukee's school choice program, to quip that "Bill and Hillary Clinton should not be the only people who live in public housing who get to send their kids to private schools."

I think school choice is the ultimate domestic policy issue and an aggressive pursuit of school choice policies will transform domestic political parties and domestic politics in this country. It is the one issue that can unite Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, blacks and whites, as well as the economically needy and well off - as I saw last night at a dinner party of people who themselves covered the entire political spectrum. Why? Because what happens to your child is the ultimate personal issue to a parent, an issue that stirs deep passion. This posting elaborates on that point:

...Education is inherently personal and inherently value laden. The key relationships in schools are those between individual teachers and individual students: If the teachers are not willingly committed and highly motivated, no centralized rule books or formulas are going to inspire peak performance�

Moreover, schooling inescapably involves judgments about truth and virtue, about what kind of person a youngster should aspire to be. Americans inevitably disagree with each other about those judgments�Today's Americans have no more chance of reaching consensus on [these] questions than of agreeing on what church (if any) we should all attend; that is why we keep the state out of controlling churches, just as we keep it out of other value-forming institutions such as publishing and journalism. The more we entrust such decisions to centralized state agencies, the more conflicts we foment. Zero-sum "culture wars" for control of coercive state monopolies make enemies of people who could otherwise be friends...

These are the reasons why parents, not educational bureaucrats and unionist teachers, should be in control of their childrens' educational decisions. It is why that control should be empowered by educational vouchers or tax credits to give parents the necessary leverage to ensure their children receive a proper education.

Why will it transform domestic politics? In addition to stirring passion among parents, we have a visibly failing status quo in America and in Rhode Island.

Why will it transform domestic politics? It will because school choice simply will succeed if given a chance. The posting continues and explains why:

Rather than continuing to use centralized government decrees to turn mediocre institutions into excellent ones, as they have been trying but failing to do for decades, the state and federal governments should be empowering individual families to transfer to schools of their own choice.

That strategy would bring three advantages that are absent from the command-and-control model embodied in NCLB. First, it would allow parents to rescue their children from dysfunctional schools immediately�Second, it would allow families to pick schools that are compatible with their own philosophical and religious beliefs instead of locking them into zero-sum conflicts to decide which groups win power to impose their beliefs on others. Third, it would unleash the dynamic force of competition. Real accountability to customers free to go elsewhere is qualitatively different from fake accountability to government agencies that can almost always be pressured into keeping the money flowing to schools that are manifestly failing.

The key locus for genuine reform is the states. Under the Constitution it is the states that have legal responsibility for education�The best contribution the national government can make is to get out of the way.

And I think Steve Laffey has found an issue that, if managed well, could get a non-RINO Republican elected to the United States Senate from Rhode Island.

The Chafee Campaign on the Pilot Choice Program

The statement offered by the campaign of Senator Lincoln Chafee on Steve Laffey�s announcement of a proposed pilot school choice program between Cranston and Providence ignores most of the substance that was discussed by Mayor Laffey. If this is truly representative of the Senator�s view, then the Senator has a very narrow view of the objectives of the public education system�

At a press conference today, Mayor Laffey once again demonstrated a disregard for state statutes that clearly outline the proper procedure for dealing with non-resident students�.

There is a set process in place to deal with the issues of disenrollment that the Mayor has chosen to ignore. Expedited hearings are available at the State Department of Education, which are routinely used by communities to remedy such matters. It is actually illegal for a school district to disenroll a student without first going through proper channels.

"This behavior is vintage Steve Laffey - shoot first, ask questions later," commented Chafee Campaign Manager Ian Lang. "There are appropriate procedures in place for dealing with these situations, but Mayor Laffey is either ignorant of them or simply doesn't care�

Apparently, the Chafee campaign has no interest in the pilot choice program, nor in the fact that Providence schools are failing, both discussed extensively in Mayor Laffey�s press conference, but not mentioned in the Chafee campaign press release.

If this statement truly represents the Senator�s position on public education, Senator Chafee�s interest in public education apparently ends at making sure that proper procedures are being followed in making sure that students are attending schools in their home districts, even if that means forcing students to go to bad schools when alternatives are available.

Senator Lincoln Chafee, the Concord Coalition, Fiscal Conservatives, and Deficit Hawks

In yesterday's National Review Online, Senator Lincoln Chafee's campaign manager Ian Lang defended his candidate's record on economic issues...

[Senator Chafee] has also twice been designated the Senate�s �most fiscally responsible� member by the Concord Coalition for his support of a Pay-As-You-Go approach to federal spending and for his efforts to eliminate the deficit. Up here in Rhode Island, those are the kinds of values we associate with Republicans: they are in favor of individual freedoms, they promote economic development, and they never support deficit growth.

Though the Concord Coalition gives Senator Chafee very high marks, other organizations that rate Congressmen and Senators on taxation, budget, and spending issues -- like the National Taxpayers' Union, or Americans for Tax Reform -- consistently rank Senator Chafee in the middle of the pack, better than the most profligate Democrats, but worse than almost all other Republicans.

The differences come from different choices of priorities. There are three factors involved in evaluating fiscal policy; tax rates, spending outlays, and the size of the deficit. The Concord Coalition and Senator Chafee say that cutting the deficit is the top priority. The Concord Coalition says that, for long-term deficit reduction, entitlements must be brought under control. This is not a radical position. Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist basically said the same thing last week at CPAC...

Q: Are there any issues you�d like to see Senator Chafee evolve on?

Senator Bill Frist: I need all Republicans to recognize that we need to tighten our belts like all other Americans are doing and have to do. We need to cut out the wasteful Washington spending. It is something we are committed to do and something that we will do. I would ask that all Republicans, including Senator Chafee, help me voice that entitlement reform has got to be brought back out to our agenda, because young people today are going to pay a heavy price. Their future is being mortgaged on our entitlement programs. It doesn�t mean cut them, but slow the growth, and if we do that, we can guarantee a future of prosperity for all Americans.

So if Bill Frist and the Concord Coalition, who declare Senator Chafee to be their favorite member, agree, then what's the problem?

The problem is that Senator Chafee and the Concord Coalition are "deficit hawks" but not "fiscal conservatives". Senator Chafee and the Concord Coalition operate from the decidedly non-conservative positions that 1) the expensive, inefficient, and bureaucratic government entitlement programs in existence today are the preferred methods for providing retirement and healthcare benefits, and 2) that these programs can be indefinitely sustained in their current form by tinkering with benefit schedules and adjustments and, of course, by keeping tax rates high.

Unfortunately, they seem to discount concerns that high tax-rates have a negative impact on economic growth (Mr. Lang, after all, claims that Senator Chafee's views are consistent with those who want "to promote economic development", despite the Senator's frequent opposition to tax-cuts) and resist considering creative mesaures for reform -- like voluntary, individual social security accounts -- that have the potential to permanently lower inefficient government spending.

Finally, while we are on the subject of tax-policy, one section of Mr. Lang's letter provides a too-incomplete description of reality...

Since he became mayor, [Steve] Laffey has raised taxes a whopping 20 percent � hiking the average Cranston homeowner�s tax bill by $1,000 three short years ago, while also increasing government spending.

At about the same time that Mayor Laffey was dealing with the budget issues in Cranston that Mr. Lang refers to, Senator Chafee was fighting in Congress to impose a Federal tax burden on the country that was hundreds of dollars more per-household than the President wanted. Why, at this time, was it OK for Senator Chafee to favor high tax rates, but not OK for Mayor Laffey?

RE: Chafee's Response to National Review

Thanks to Don for pointing out the Chafee campaign's response to the National Review endorsement of Mayor Laffey. To be equitable, here is the text of the letter:

I read with amusement National Review Online�s recent endorsement of Cranston, Rhode Island Mayor Stephen Laffey as a �conservative� in his GOP challenge to Sen. Lincoln Chafee.

For anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Mr. Laffey�s record, the idea of describing him as you did as a tax cutting, pro-life conservative is just plain ludicrous.

Since he became mayor, Laffey has raised taxes a whopping 20 percent � hiking the average Cranston homeowner�s tax bill by $1,000 three short years ago, while also increasing government spending. In fact under Laffey Cranston taxpayer dollars were spent on among other things; an increase in the number of employees in the Mayor�s office, money to soundproof the walls of his own office, and a new luxury SUV for him to drive.

NRO also overlooked the fact that Laffey has consistently flip-flopped on his views on abortion. Laffey says one thing when he talks with editorial boards in Washington, but when meeting with potential voters he has offered just about everything except a clear answer. Just this fall Laffey said that while he was �pro-life� he considered Roe v. Wade �settled law� so �let it go.� Even more puzzling, when asked whose position on choice he most admired, Laffey stated he believes Hillary Clinton offers a reasonable position!

In contrast, Senator Chafee represents a winning blend of fiscal conservatism, traditional Republican values, and progressive ideals. He has a strong pro-business and pro-economic growth record as reflected by his recent endorsement by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He has also twice been designated the Senate�s �most fiscally responsible� member by the Concord Coalition for his support of a Pay-As-You-Go approach to federal spending and for his efforts to eliminate the deficit. Up here in Rhode Island, those are the kinds of values we associate with Republicans: they are in favor of individual freedoms, they promote economic development, and they never support deficit growth. The only fact that NRO seemed to grasp and that recent polls reflect is that a Laffey win in a primary would likely ensure a Democratic victory in November.

In their zeal to denounce Sen. Chafee, it would appear that the editors of National Review have instead been sold a bill of goods. While Mr. Laffey may be a smooth talker, when criticizing Senator Chafee's opposition to deficit-creating tax cuts, the Mayor�s own record is one of lust for revenue-generating property tax increases.

It is clear that Laffey is no conservative. But don�t take my word for it, take Laffey�s. In a September 16, 2005 story in the Providence Journal, Laffey himself admitted, that �when you say the word �conservative,� I don�t even know what that means.�

Ian Lang
Campaign Manger
Chafee for Senate
Warwick, Rhode Island

Chafee Campaign Responds to National Review Endorsement of Laffey

Senator Lincoln Chafee's campaign responds on National Review Online to the National Review's endorsement of Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey's campaign to replace Chafee, as reported earlier by Marc.

Evans - Novak Political Report: Laffey leads Chafee

Laffey supporter The Club for Growth passes this news from the Evans-Novak Political Report on its blog (UPDATE: Thanks to Reconcilable Differences for the link to a free version of the full E-N report.):

Republicans in Rhode Island say that Sen. Chafee had given private assurances that he would be supporting the Alito Supreme Court nomination. His reversal on this issue drew a public rebuke from his most reluctant supporter, popular Gov. Don Carcieri (R), and endangers him in his primary race against Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey (R). Laffey must now be considered the narrow frontrunner in the Republican Senate primary after crossing the $1-million mark and outraising Chafee in individual contributions for the quarter.

Chafee maintains a two-to-one cash advantage after beating Laffey with PAC money and making himself a $330,000 campaign loan. But he may need a lot more than that to survive. Another negative for him on the Alito issue is the fact that it is probably impossible for him to win a Republican primary in Rhode Island without significant support from the state's large Italian population.

Rhode Island's primary doesn't happen until September. If he sees the writing on the wall, Chafee could well choose to run as an independent.

It would make sense, it is Rhode Island's largest voting bloc, after all.

Poll: Chafee's Lead Over Dems Narrows III

I think the clearest interpretation of the February 2006 Brown University/Taubman Center Senate poll results comes not from comparing them to the September 2005 poll, but to the June 2005 poll.

1. When you compare this poll results to the results from June, Matt Brown appears to be the only candidate building support amongst the general population, going from 29% to 36% against Senator Chafee, and 40% to 47% versus Mayor Laffey. Chafee and Laffey each lost 6% versus Brown, while in any matchup involving Sheldon Whitehouse; Whitehouse, Chafee, and Laffey all show losses between 1% and 3%.

2. The number of most concern to the Laffey campaign should not be the gap between himself and his Democratic challengers, but the fact that his support has been flat, or worse, since he announced his candidacy. Again, comparing to June 2005, Laffey has gone from 30% to 24% versus Brown (probably involving a real loss) and from 32% to 29% against Whitehouse (possibly involving a strong degree of statistical fluctuation; Whitehouse doesn�t show a matching gain.)

The counter-argument, which is legitimate, is that Mayor Laffey cannot assume victory in the primary before campaigning for the general election. Still, I think the message here is while Mayor Laffey�s ground campaign may be strong, the air-campaign (broadcast media) so far hasn�t been convincing to independent Rhode Islanders.

3. The Chafee campaign�s problem, on the other hand, is the closing gap between himself and Matt Brown. Chafee only leads Brown by 2%, within the poll�s margin of error. If Chafee falls behind, I don�t see how the he can mount an effective come-from-behind general election candidacy. The "I�ll keep the Senate in Republican hands" message won�t work in the general and the �I�ll bring lots of pork back to Rhode Island� is not going to be popular this election cycle. Once he falls behind one or both of the Democrats, what does Senator Chafee campaign on to regain the lead?

Re: Poll: Chafee Lead over Dems Narrows, but.....

Earlier this morning, I called Professor Darrell West, Director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, and asked why Rhode Island Republican Primary Senate results were not included in the February 2006 State Survey. Professor West answered that it is too hard to predict where independents will go.

If you look back at 2002, there were about 240,000 ballots cast for Governor in the general election, while only 25,000 people voted in the contested Republican Gubernatorial primary. That means the poll sample of 785 probably contains around 80-90 likely Republican primary voters.

To have any chance at all of giving an accurate snapshot of the race, the Brown University pollsters would have to figure out some way to identify independents likely to vote in a Republcan primary (when many independents themselves probabaly haven't decided which primary they're going to vote in!) and then conduct a second poll to get a big enough sample of Republicans + Republican-voting independents.

Poll: Chafee Lead over Dems Narrows, but.....

Brown pollster Darrell West has a new poll out that includes a curious omission (thanks to George Conway for the heads-up). But I'll get to that later. First, the stats:

U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee is locked in a close race with Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse and Matt Brown in the Senate general election, according to a new statewide survey conducted by researchers at Brown University.

The survey was conducted Feb. 4-6, 2006, at Brown University by Darrell M. West, director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the John Hazen White Sr. Public Opinion Laboratory. It is based on a statewide random sample of 785 registered voters in Rhode Island. Overall, the poll had a margin of error of about plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

If the general election were held today, Chafee has an advantage of 40 to 34 percent over Whitehouse (compared to his lead of 38 to 25 percent in September). If Brown is the Democratic nominee, Chafee�s lead is 38 to 36 percent (compared to 41 to 18 percent in September).

If the Republican nominee were Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, Whitehouse is ahead by 44 to 29 percent (up from the 35 to 25 percent lead Whitehouse had in September). If the nominees were Laffey and Brown, Brown has an advantage of 47 to 24 percent over Laffey (up from 30 to 26 percent in September).

On the face of it, the poll lends credence to the theory that Sen. Chafee is the only Republican that can win, even if his numbers are slipping. But a careful reading of the poll shows no numbers on the Republican primary, ie; Laffey v. Chafee. Why not? That's what George asked me in an email and he wondered if it was because there weren't enough Republicans in the sample to give accurate data. Here is my response:

Darrell West has a habit of underpolling Republican support. In 2002, he had a neck and neck race between now-RI Gov. Carcieri (R) and Myrth York (D). Carcieri ended up winning by around 10 pts. This does call into question his methodology (when, where does he poll?) Southern RI is more Republican than northern (around Providence) for instance. I suspect you are correct: he couldn't get enough Republicans to provide an adequate sample. Note how small his sample is in the Democrat race of Langevin v. Lawless. For such a Democrat state, that seems small, even if it is for only one district. Another factor is the large number of unaffiliated voters in the state. That's about all I can think of.

Upon further review, I understated the gap in West's polling of the governor's race in 2002. In October of 2002, he had York ahead of Carcieri, 41% to 34% with 25% undecided. Gov. Carcieri won 55% to 45%. In essence, perhaps his methodology tends to lead West to consistently undersample Republicans. I'm no pollster, I don't know. Setting that aside, it clearly shows that Mayor Laffey has his work cut out in appealling to the average RI voter, the amount of undecided can make a difference. Here are the actual political questions asked in the poll:

Survey Questions and Responses

If the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate were held today, would you vote for: 31% Matt Brown, 0% Carl Sheeler, 25% Sheldon Whitehouse, 44% don't know or no answer (based on 323 voters who say they are very likely to vote in this year�s Democratic primary)

If the Democratic primary for U.S. Congress were held today, would you vote for: 58% James Langevin, 14% Jennifer Lawless, 28% don't know or no answer (based on 160 voters who say they are very likely to vote in this year�s Democratic primary in the second congressional district)

If the Democratic primary for secretary of state were held today, would you vote for: 24% Ralph Mollis, 5% Guillaume de Ramel, 71% don't know or no answer (based on 323 voters who say they are very likely to vote in this year�s Democratic primary)

If the U.S. Senate election were held today, would you vote for: 38% Republican Lincoln Chafee, 36% Democrat Matt Brown, 26% don�t know or no answer

If the U.S. Senate election were held today, would you vote for: 40% Republican Lincoln Chafee, 34% Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, 26% don�t know or no answer

If the U.S. Senate election were held today, would you vote for: 24% Republican Stephen Laffey, 47% Democrat Matt Brown, 29% don�t know or no answer

If the U.S. Senate election were held today, would you vote for: 29% Republican Stephen Laffey, 44% Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, 27% don�t know or no answer

If the governor�s election were held today, would you vote for: 46% Republican Don Carcieri, 35% Democrat Charles Fogarty, 19% don�t know or no answer

If the lieutenant governor�s election were held today, would you vote for: 16% Republican Kernan King, 41% Democrat Elizabeth Roberts, 43% don't know or no answer

If the attorney general�s election were held today, would you vote for: 18% Republican William Harsch, 59% Democrat Patrick Lynch, 23% don't know or no answer.

Chafee, the NRSC, Etc.

George Conway over at Reconcilable Differences continues to focus national attention on the RI GOP primary and has some good stuff. Last night, he discovered that the NRSC continues its campaign of taking down stories on its web site that contain anti-Chafee comments. He also pointed to another NRSC pro-Chafee story that could use some commenting (wink wink). I wonder what would happen if anti-Chafee/pro-Laffey opinions continued to be expressed in the comments section of those stories? (BTW, George has also preserved many of the since-removed comments in this PDF).

In the meantime, a letter to the editor in today's ProJo exhibits the problem that Sen. Chafee is having by continuing to show indecisiveness and a lack of conviction:

For years, Sen. Lincoln Chafee has tiptoed between appeasing the radical wing of the Republican Party and maintaining his electability at home. However, with the Bush-Rove stranglehold over party discipline, Senator Chafee has lost his so-called independence. Rather, he has become better known for ruffling feathers in early opposition to Republican initiatives, but ultimately capitulating.

When it matters, Senator Chafee is nowhere to be found. His so-called conscience vote against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was just a hollow gesture, aimed at mitigating his election-year vulnerability in an overwhelmingly liberal state.

Mr. Chafee may have taken a "stand" this time, but he has too often been on the wrong side when his vote could really have made a difference.

Sounds like the same arguments we've been making, but from the other side of the ideological spectrum.

Meanwhile, despite Sen. Chafee's apparent belief that "moderate" and liberal (Democrat) voters will vote for him in the GOP primary, the tightening race on the Democratic side can do nothing but hurt his chances. And while Sen. Chafee "hems and haws" and hopes that the NRSC can continue to carry his water, Mayor Laffey continues to be out front in his campaign against pork barrel spending.

Former Centrist, Now Liberal Matt Brown Pulling Even with Always Liberal Sheldon Whitehouse?

If Jim Baron of the Pawtucket Times thinks these numbers are worth reporting, then I am willing to accept that they have some meaning...

U.S. Senate candidate Matt Brown says a new poll shows he has caught up with and passed his Democratic primary opponent Sheldon Whitehouse.

The poll of 502 likely Democratic primary voters conducted by telephone on Feb. 1 and 2 shows Brown with a 38-36 percent lead over Whitehouse in the three-way contest. Nowhere does the poll mention the third candidate, Carl Sheeler, although he is counted as "other" and is credited with 3 percent support.

However, I won't go as far as to endorse the statement below until I see the Brown University poll results scheduled for release later this month...

"A chapter of this campaign has closed," [Matt Brown Campaign Spokesman Matt Burgess] declared. "Sheldon Whitehouse had an opportunity to end it. If he had taken a strong stand on the issues and campaigned aggressively, he might have been able to end the campaign early" using his upper hand in name recognition.

It Would Be Wonderfully Amusing, If It Were Not So Completely Irritating & Insulting

I received a fund-raising letter last week from Senator Lincoln Chafee. Here is the paragraph to which my response vacillated between irritation and utter amusement at its words and tone:

My opponent in the Republican primary, Stephen Laffey, is preparing to run a negative campaign because the only way he can win is to attack me. You see, his divisive, confrontational approach has led to acrimony and costly law suits, but little in real results for the City of Cranston. He can't run on his record so he's going to attack mine.

Tone deaf. Chafee apparently doesn't understand that Laffey need not attack him. All Laffey has to do is speak up about what he believes in and the stark contrast with Chafee cannot be missed. Simply pathetic.

Here is to voting for change.

National Review: "Dump Chafee," Choose Laffey

It's news when the editors of a major conservative/Republican publication endorse a candidate. As such, I think it worthwhile to post the editorial in its entirety for the benefit of Anchor Rising readers.

"I want to support President Bush's choice to the Supreme Court," said Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island on January 30. "The president did win the election."

It was a bizarre statement because Chafee not only refused to support Bush's most recent choice for the Supreme Court � he was the single Republican to oppose the confirmation of Samuel Alito � but also refused to support Bush's reelection in 2004. On Election Day, he wrote in the name of Bush's father, in "symbolic protest" of the current president's positions on abortion, gay marriage, oil drilling, tax cuts, and Iraq.

One wonders: Why is Chafee a Republican at all? The senator appears none too sure himself. In 2004, when USA Today asked whether he'd consider switching parties, Chafee replied, "I'm not ruling it out."

The life of a Rhode Island Republican certainly is not an easy one � John Kerry won the state by 21 points. It would be unreasonable to expect Chafee to earn a 100-percent rating from the American Conservative Union. Yet his lifetime score of 41 percent is pathetic. No Republican senator, including Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, ranks lower. In December, the Boston Globe observed that Chafee's "liberal positions would be well-suited for a centrist Democrat." True enough � except that several centrist Democrats actually supported Alito, putting them to the right of Chafee on one of the most important votes they will cast this year.

Lincoln Almond, the former governor who appointed Chafee to the Senate in 1999 � and a Republican who knows how to win elections in Rhode Island � said that he was "disappointed" in the senator's decision to oppose Alito. Indeed, Republicans in the Ocean State ought to be so thoroughly disappointed in Chafee by now that they refuse to vote for him this year.

The argument that conservatives should support Chafee rests entirely on the assumption that he's the only Republican who can win in Rhode Island. This logic may be what has led the National Republican Senatorial Committee to continue throwing resources behind him. The assumption may or may not be true, but, whatever the case, it is far from clear that the GOP � to say nothing of conservatives � gains anything from Chafee's continued presence in the Senate. When votes really matter, he can't be counted on. Positions such as the one he took on Alito allow Democrats and the media to speak of "bipartisan opposition" to the Bush administration. And if the GOP's majority ever depended on Chafee alone, there's every reason to believe he'd bolt the party, just as James Jeffords of Vermont did in 2001.

There is an alternative. Steven Laffey, the Republican mayor of Cranston, is running against Chafee in the September primary. His underdog campaign has shown both pluck and promise. Laffey has a track record of winning Democratic votes: That's the only way he could have been elected two times as mayor of Cranston, a city of about 80,000 residents, most of them Democrats. But on key issues, Laffey is a conservative: He supports tax cuts and the war in Iraq, opposes corporate welfare and other forms of wasteful spending, and is pro-life. The Club for Growth has decided to back him. His campaign has unfortunately chosen to bash "Big Oil" in some of its early advertising � but, as we said, it's difficult to be a Republican in Rhode Island.

Even if Laffey were to win the primary but lose the general election, beating Chafee would send a helpful message to the kind of Republican who thinks Chafee's "independence" is something to admire and emulate. (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine come to mind.) That message: that Republican voters will not be taken for granted just because they are in the minority in their state. Then there's the tantalizing possibility that Laffey might actually win both the primary and the general election. It's a chance worth taking. What do conservatives have to lose? The worst possible outcome is only that Rhode Islanders will trade a virtual Democrat for a real one.

Senator Chafee on 10 News Conference: Segment 4

Here is a brief summary of Senator Lincoln Chafee�s February 5 appearance on the WJAR-TV (Channel 10) public affairs program 10 News Conference (Sundays, 6:30 am)�

Jim Taricani asks about Steve Laffey�s criticism of Chafee over Alito. Is he concerned that he could lose the primary?
Senator Lincoln Chafee answers that Mayor Laffey is the Democrats� favorite person. Chafee says his key to winning is high turnout and unaffiliated voters.

Bill Rappleye asks if that means winning requires convincing non-Republicans to vote in the Republican primary.
Chafee answers that he�s not giving up on anyone, and that he represents core Republican values, like civil liberties and strong environmentalism. Chafee acknowledges that Republican voters are mad at him.

Rappleye asks if the President has offered assisstance.
Chafee replies that he�s offered to help.

Rappleye asks if he wants the President to come to RI.
Chafee replies that he�s not hypocritical. He doesn�t want the President to come if he doesn�t support the President's agenda. McCain might come in support of Chafee, however.

Finally, the panel asks about the Senator�s legislative style.
Chafee answers that he is definitely less confrontational than Steve Laffey, and works hard to bring people to together. When asked for example of this, he cited the �Gang of 14� deal on filibusters and judges that had prevented �the shutdown of the Senate�.

Senator Chafee on 10 News Conference: Segment 3

Here is a brief summary of Senator Lincoln Chafee�s February 5 appearance on the WJAR-TV (Channel 10) public affairs program 10 News Conference (Sundays, 6:30 am)�

Jim Taricani asks about the �addicted to oil� line in the President�s State of the Union. Something similar is mentioned every year. Does Congress have the political will to really do something this time?
Senator Lincoln Chafee thinks there was more emphasis and more priority this year. The first step is raising the milage standards on cars, but the standards are voted down in Congress each year. The administration doesn't support raising mileage standards.

Bill Rappleye asks if the rhetoric matches reality.
Chafee answers that it may be changing.

Taricani asks if there will be real change on mileage standards.
Chafee: �Time will tell.�

Taricani asks what specifically has the Senator done on energy policy.
Chafee answers that he has sponsored legislation that would help reduce oil consumption, mentions ethanol.

Rappleye asks if the Senator�s antagonism of the White House makes it difficult for him to get his bills through.
Chafee replies that it�s a misconception that he doesn�t get along with the Republicans in the White House or Congress. The highway bill and the base closing commission show how well he works with other Republicans. During the time of the Alito Confirmation, other Republicans were asking what they could do to help him in RI, specifically mentions John McCain in this context.

Taricani asks about contact with administration during the Alito hearing. Did they give a wink that it was OK to vote against Alito?
Chafee: No. The administration wanted 100% Repubican support, especially to avoid the "bipartisan opposition to Judge Alito" meme.

Rappleye asks about the pressure brought to bear.
Chafee answers that they were concerned about potential impact on the primary.

Rappleye asked who specifically talked to the Senator.
Chafee answers that Elizabeth Dole and Andrew Card tried getting him in line.

Rappleye asks if the NRSC threatened to withhold funding.
Chafee: Not the NRSC, but some donors have.

Senator Chafee on 10 News Conference: Segment 2

Here is a brief summary of Senator Lincoln Chafee�s February 5 appearance on the WJAR-TV (Channel 10) public affairs program 10 News Conference (Sundays, 6:30 am)�

Jim Taricani asks about the �eavesdropping without a warrant� program. The New York Times revealed the program to the public. Should the NYT be required to give up their sources.
Senator Lincoln Chafee answers no, that�s what newpapers do.

Taricani asks even if it damaged the war-on-terror.
Chafee answers that he doesn�t believe that it did.

Bill Rappleye directly asks how the Senator feels about the surveillance program.
Chafee answers that we need to be very careful in war time. Under various WWI acts, 800 people were detained. We must remember that we're fighting to protect our liberties.

Taricani points out that polls show most Americans agree with the surveillance program. Shouldn�t the government have some latitude in this? Rappleye adds particulary when overseas communication is involved.
Chafee answers that the �Law is the law�. Post-September 11, Congress has changed laws addressing surveillance, and warrants are still required.

Rappleye asks if we should end wiretapping.
Chafee answers �or change the law�.

Taricani asks doesn�t FISA have provisions for warrantless surveillance.
Chafee: Then why work outside of FISA?

Taricani asks if President Bush is a threat to the civil liberties of Americans.
Chafee answers that some curtailing of civil liberties during WWI was popular. We have to be careful with civil liberties, and we have now have cases where American citizens have been detained for 3 years.

Taricani asks about the rendition of prisoners to foreign countries.
Chafee answers that all Americans should be following the Hamdi and Padilla cases closely.

Senator Lincoln Chafee on 10 News Conference: Segment 1

Here is a brief summary of Senator Lincoln Chafee�s February 5 appearance on the WJAR-TV (Channel 10) public affairs program 10 News Conference (Sundays, 6:30 am)�

Jim Taricani asks about the Alito nomination, why come out against after it was obvious he would be approved?
Senator Lincoln Chafee answers it was obvious all along that any President Bush nominee who did well at the hearing would go through because of the Republican 55 vote-majority in the Senate.

Taricani asks why it took so long to decide, given Alito�s pro-life leanings.
Chafee answers that the behavior of Supreme Court Justices is hard to predict. David Souter, for example, originally opposed by pro-choice people has voted pro-choice. The nominee's testimony must be examined carefully.

Taricani asks about the the Projo's "Lincoln Hamlet" editorial.
Chafee answers that his decision came only 2 business days after Senator Reed�s decision.

Bill Rappleye asks why vote against Alito, when you�ve voted for 13 pro-life judges.
Chafee answers 1) the Supreme Court is different and 2) Alito was replacing Sandra Day O�Connor, whereas John Roberts replaced William Rehnquist. The �health of the mother� exception in abortion cases is headed for the Supreme Court, and Alito may be a critical vote in these cases.

NRSC Delete's Anti-Chafee Comments

I recently posted about the angry comments being expressed by conservative Republicans in the "comments" section of an anti-Laffey story that was promoted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee on behalf of Sen. Chafee. Apparently, rather than deal head-on with discontent being expressed by their conservative base, the NRSC has instead "bravely" decided to remove the original story and the 100+ anti-Chafee comments associated with it. (Thanks to commenter "ballottra" for the heads up).

The original story was released around Dec. 19 (if memory serves) and now it is gone from the list of news releases. It seems it is the only such story removed. Thankfully, I have preserved a few of the comments in post I mentioned before.

However, the NRSCs attempt to CENSOR the legitimate grievences of GOP members concerned with the NRSCs actions in the Laffey/Chafee race were poorly implemented. Though the story and old comments are gone, new comments can still be be made here. I respectfully request that conservatives do so. I wouldn't be surprised if the NRSC eventually figures it out and takes even this meager avenue of protest away. If so, we will have to come up with another way to convey our displeasure.

Finally, a question: Does the NRSC actually believe it willl be able to issue pro-Chafee press releases with an open comments section without getting anti-Chafee comments?

For what it's worth, here are a couple stories being promoted on the NRSC website concerning the RI Senate race that seem appropriate venues for commentary...

R.I. mayor defies GOP in Senate bid

GOP Leaders Rally Around Chafee

Conservatives Smack the NRSC

A couple days ago I mentioned the dissonance occurring over at the Nat'l Republican Senatorial Committee website regarding their support for Sen. Chafee. In particular, I pointed to a story from December in which they tried to make Sen. Chafee out to be more conservative than Mayor Steve Laffey.

I also suggested reading the comments section of the story to get a flavor of how angered people were for the NRSCs support of Sen. Chafee--especially in the wake of his "No" vote against Justice Alito. Yesterday, George Conway at the Reconcilable Differences blog (hosted by National Review Online) also called attention to the same story over at the NRSC. With such national exposure, the comments selection ballooned...and things aren't going so well for Sen. Chafee or the NRSC. In short, many of the commenters claim that they will be sending money directly to candidates because they don't feel as if they can trust the national organization to stick to conservative/Republican principles. Read on for a sampling of just the most recent entries....

First, I'll start with someone willing to put his name out there:

Hello NRSC:
I am a native Rhode Islander (Newport) and I am appalled by the support that you are giving to Senator Chafee. What does it take to get support from you folks, total and complete disloyalty to the Republican President? Maybe the next thing you will do is send money and support to another one of President Bush's strongest supporters ------ Ted Kennedy? I have never been so totally disgusted by your fawning support and encourgement to someone as disloyal as Senator Chafee. He is a DEMOCRAT in Republican clothing.

However, I would like to thank you for offering me this time to vent my anger and, well, I don't think you should call me for any financial support this year. I will be sending most of my financial contributions this year to my very deserving alma mater------ Tulane University. Tulane will certainly put my money to much better us than you ever could.

Harshly,
David Bethune
Still Loyal, if a quite upset Republican
Newport, Rhode Island

The rest are mostly anonymous, and a couple comenters (I think) have been around these parts.

"I have obse