Saving the RINOThis is a tough thing for a lot of us to accept, but it's important. Lincoln Chafee is up for reelection to the Senate next year, and a lot of people on our side are looking to throw him under the bus. And I can't blame them entirely; he's not a dependable vote for the Republican platform.
John Miller has
a column today on Chafee, who's getting a primary challenger named Steve Laffey in 2006. Apparently the NRSC is already running ads against Laffey in the hopes of preserving Chafee. And I agree with Miller, that the party should be neutral in the primary process. But this part is absurd:
As a critic of Bush’s Social Security proposals, a foe of oil drilling in the Arctic, and an enthusiastic supporter of solar panels, Laffey wouldn’t be the most conservative member of the Senate. But it’s not as though Chafee, whose lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is a pathetic 41, is competing for that honor.Yes, Chafee is not the most conservative Senator out there. But if he were, he'd be a dead duck come the general election, because his state also falls rather short of being the most conservative as well.
Consider these percentages for the Democratic candidates for president in the last five elections, as compared to the famously liberal Massachusetts:
Year....Mass.....RI
2004....61.9%..59.4%
2000....59.8%..61.0%
1996....61.5%..59.7%
1992....47.5%..47.0% (Perot was running this year)
1988....53.2%..55.6%
So it's not hard to see that Rhode Island is not much more conservative than Massachusetts. Which is to say that it's quite liberal indeed.
And how bad is that 41 lifetime rating from the ACU? Well, let's take a look at some the Democrats from around there:
St....Senator.....ACU Rating
RI.....Reed..........8
MA.....Kennedy.......3
MA.....Kerry.........5
CT.....Dodd..........8
CT.....Lieberman....17
NY.....Schumer.......6
NY.....Clinton.......9
VT.....Leahy.........6
NJ.....Lautenberg....6
NJ.....Corzine.......5
Jumpin' Jim Jeffords gets a 25, but that's weighted with the years he was a Republican; since he went independent, he's gotten much more liberal, with a 4 rating in 2004 and a 10 in 2003.
Republicans? Well, in case you missed it, there aren't a lot in the Northeastern United States. Gregg and Sununu in New Hampshire are solid conservatives with 79 and 95 ratings respectively; they also represent the only conservative state in New England. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, from Maine check in at 57 and 51 respectively.
Don't get me wrong; maybe Laffey's electable, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing some squishes like Mike DeWine or John McCain who are from more conservative states than Chafee, get knocked off. But we're not going to do a whole lot better than Lincoln in Rhode Island.
