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The Weakest Linc

Why are the Republicans going out of their way to keep a liberal in the Senate?

Feb 13, 2006, Vol. 11, No. 21 • By DUNCAN CURRIE
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LINCOLN CHAFEE, easily the Senate's most liberal Republican, didn't vote for George W. Bush in 2004. Instead, he lodged a "symbolic protest" by casting a write-in ballot for former president George H.W. Bush. Chafee's beef with the younger Bush? Iraq ("a very, very costly quagmire"), tax cuts, the environment, gay marriage, abortion, the deficit--Rhode Island's junior senator opposed the president's "far-right-wing" policies on all of them.

Nevertheless, in his bid for reelection this year, Chafee has so far enjoyed the robust support of the White House, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Rhode Island state GOP, and leading Senate conservatives--despite the presence on the primary ballot of a right-of-center alternative, Cranston mayor Stephen Laffey. Explains NRSC spokesman Dan Ronayne, "You're talking about probably the second most liberal state in the country." (Rhode Island was the most pro-Gore state in 2000, giving him 61 percent of the vote, and second only to Massachusetts in its support for Kerry in 2004, at 59 percent of the vote.) "We think Chafee is the only Republican who can keep the seat."

Lincoln Chafee is often "the only Republican," or one of very few. He was the only Senate Republican to vote against the Iraq war resolution, and one of three to oppose a ban on partial-birth abortion. He was one of two Senate Republicans to vote against both of President Bush's principal tax cuts, in May 2001 and May 2003 (the other was John McCain). Just last week, he was the only Republican to vote against Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court.

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