Centerfield

I am on record (and remain) in favor of reelecting Senator Chafee. I don't know if I would agree that he is always consistent with his stated principles, but he is clearly being so on this issue.

Politically, the bottom line here is pretty simple. If Chafee wins the primary, Rhode Island is a toss-up this fall; if Chafee loses the primary, the Dems get an extra Senator. The only possible reason that a Republican of any stripe should oppose Chafee in the primary is if they honestly think we're better off with a Democratic Senator that we disagree with on everything rather than a moderate Republican whom we disagree with on everything.

Is that the GOP consensus, that Laffey would be cannon fodder?

Even living next door to RI, I don't get much of a sense of the guy other than that he's a little bit of a populist iconclast/loose cannon. Who's expected to be the democrat's standard bearer?

On occasion I hear some RI talk radio. On the several occasions when I have heard complaints about Chaffee (at least 3 or 4 times, often including multiple callers complaining about him) the complainer is invariably a Republican. I wonder if Chaffee would contemplate a Liebermanesque move should Laffey defeat him.

But I don't really know if Laffey's challenge is proving to be as serious. My guess is that the casual component of the RI GOP is more moderate as a whole than the national GOP. So the callers I hear on the radio complaining about Chaffee are the engaged partisans who are connected to the national tone, but these voices are an unrepresentative sample of the RI GOP, namely those who are both irritaed enoiugh to call and invested enough in such angry fuel to pay close attention. I don't know how it is fr state to state, but my sense is that in New Englans at least there are an awful lot of people who don't pay super close attention the the minutiae, but they still vote party line most of the time. Either for the R's to keep taxes low, or for the D's to keep services from being cut. Aming such folk, the schism does fall roughly along class lines, like it or not. Not everywhere or all the time, but nevertheless...

Any chance Chafee runs as an Independent, much like Lieberman...

TN -
I doubt it. Lieberman's bid is viable (and will likely be successful) because of his personal standing, because of the unusual characteristics of Connecticut (the high percentage of independent voters) and because of the unusual characteristics of this Senate race (the absence of a viable GOP contender and a loony democratic nominee in a state with the foregoing characteristics). The imaginations of those who want to believe a third party can work are working overtime to convince themselves that Lieberman's victory will represent the dam bursting, rather than the collusion of highly irregular circumstances. None of those would seem to apply for Chafee. It's conceivable that he might do it, but it's a non-starter.

TN

I dunno the rules for RI, and surely part of the answer lies there. I was alluding to this possibility above when I said "Liebermanesque move." Chaffee may not have brought it up for either pragmatic (I don't think I'm going to lose the primary) or strategic(bringing it up may cause me to lose the primary) reasons.

Simon, FWIW, I don't really disagree with the idea of "collusion of irregular circumstances." And for the record and as I've repeatedly stated previously, I'm not currently in favor of a big move to create a 3rd party right now, centrist or otherwise. I believe that view has been attributed to me because I've consistently dissented from the view that creating a viable 3rd party is not possible or sustainable, and would be undesirable. Hopefully I've made that much clear?

I would like to point out though that momentous change can indeed come about through the collusion of irregular circumstances. Roughly speaking, that's called Serendipity, right? Of course, if Serendipity means a "good" collusion of irregular circumstances, then we'd have to also notice that serendipity is in the eye of the beholder.

If Chafee loses the GOP Primary and runs as an Independent, Laffey would be getting more than the 4% that Schlesinger is getting in the CT. race.

Whitehouse would win by default.

It was a principled stand that should be admired, whether one agrees or not.