Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Chafee Wins Primary 54 - 46

As of about 12:15 AM, the unofficial tally reported by the Providence Journal gives incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee 34,407 votes, and a comfortable victory, over conservative challenger Stephen Laffey and his 29,052 supporters in Rhode Island's primary yesterday.
Read all about it in the Providence Journal
Excerpt:
Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, fueled by a furious grass-roots campaign that produced a record GOP primary voter turnout, won Senate renomination yesterday, beating back a spirited challenge from Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, the combative conservative.

I wondered whether the right wing of the national GOP would target the heretic RINO Chaffee as part of their crusade to purify the Party. If the right wing of the national GOP did it shows that there are limits to The Rove's legendary ability to impose his will upon the hinterlands of the GOP domain. They played to their strength in this particular contest, and the fact that they got behind Chafee shows that they know when to let principle acquiesce to political reality, and demonstrates The Rove's legendary ability to keep his eye on the strategic ball.

It now remains to be seen if Rhode Island's otherwise dominant Democrats have the juice to sack Linc and bring the world's oldest political party a step closer to the Grail of a Democratically Controlled United States Senate.

Source
Providence Journal, "Chafee staves off challenger.", Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Note: Amended at 12:00 PM Wednesday September 13, 2006

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

ChrisMC wrote: "If the right wing of the national GOP did target the heretic RINO Chaffee as part of their crusade to purify the Party, it shows that there are limits to The Rove's legendary ability to impose his will upon the hinterlands of the GOP domain."

I write: ChrisMC, I'm not sure where you've been for past 3 months or so, but the national GOP actually has been supporting Chafee and spent considerable dollars attacking his right-wing GOP opponent.

Anonymous said...

Republicans are the big tent. Democrats are the party of ideological purges

Anonymous said...

hAHAHAHAHAHAHAH--Where's the Kool-aid drinker who said that laffey would beat Chaffee because Chaffee was Bush Lite. Gotta be tough being a lib.

The National Repubs wanted nothing to do with Laffey--so get your facts right. R's have a big tent, and it's getting bigger!!!

Anonymous said...

The is 0% chance of the Dems retaking the Senate-- especially now. They have to pick up 5 seats, and there are only 5 vunerable Republican seats (Rhode Island, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Missouri)....and the Missouri looks like it is becoming more R every day.

House is a 50/50 toss-up thought....how Connecticut goes here, so goes the nation.

And of course, maybe Alan Gold will win and the Senate will be more Republican. (snicker)

Jim said...

This is shocking to me, not because of the outcome - I expected it, but because of the implications. Today, as a Connecticut Democrat, I bow my head to the Rhode Island Republicans. Maybe it's because they're not in the minority in their state, but they didn't take their moderate incumbent up to Federal Hill.

I had a college roommate who is a Rhode Island Republican... he always was the classiest of the group.

Anonymous said...

Genghis - In your post, titled "New Bloggers", you wrote the following, and I quote: "we are adding Chris MC as a nonpartisan "issues" blogger. He will be exploring many vital issues in-depth in his postings, and we are glad to have his expertise."

Now, we all know that chris mc is a loyal Democrat, and that's fine; however, this post is far from "non-partisan" and it does not really deal with issues. In my opinion, it is rank partisan drivel. More importantly, he does not get his facts straight. Everyone knew that the GOP establishment was backing Chafee, it had even been the source of discussion on this site in numerous posts. I hope that you will clarify chris mc's role on this board with us and with him. This post does not meet the parameters you yourself set forth when he was announced. I don't know him and I have no axe to grind. If he wants to be a partisan Democratic poster, fine; but you at least should tell us if that is what he is going to be doing.

Anonymous said...

The candidate of the establishment - Party, Administration, Rove et al was Chafee.

He would not have won otherwise.

The Republicans have stood by Spector and now Chafee - A clear sign that while there may be disagreements, the Party is not likely to abandon its more independent members unlike, hmm, the extreme liberal wing of the democrat party...

Anonymous said...

Good to see Chris own up to his goof in the Chafee post. However, the responses ignore the fact that Chris' post was partially accurate.

The extreme right-wing within the GOP did target Senator Chafee. A number of prominent extreme-right groups organized hard to defeat him, and support from unaffiliated voters is the only reason he won the primary. If the Rhode Island GOP primary was open to just Republican voters, we'd be reading stories this morning about how an incumbent moderate Senator was defeated (some might say purged) by a candidate backed by more extreme elements within his party.

Anonymous said...

This was one of the most ridiculous posts I've ever read on this site. Period.

Even more ridiculous than Turfgrrl's obvious and incessant Lamont-bashing that she continues to poorly spin as simple journalism.

Karl Rove this, Karl Rove that... please. Why would Karl Rove back a candidate that would surely give the seat to the Democrats in November. It's been public knowledge for a month at least that the RNC (that's Republican National Committee Chris, about as "establishment" as you can get) has been pouring resources into this race on behalf of Chaffee.

"Non-partisan issues blogger" Funny GC, funny.

Anonymous said...

I'm still waiting to hear what Connecticut "issue" this post is related to. There is no shred of non-partisanness to it so I won't even ask for an explanation there.

Anonymous said...

bluecoat, care to serve up some proof that demonstrates I back "chameleon Joe to the hilt?"