Rhode Islanders: Regarding Lincoln Chafee...

I'm glad we gained another seat, but have to say that I'm sorry to see a man that I thought was truly honorable have to go to win it. Now that he has announced he will vote NOT to confirm Bolton, my admiration has grown yet again.

He broke with his hateful, fear-mongering party so many times--and because of that, I wonder:

Do you think the RI Republican Party put a lot of resources and weight to his campaign?

I've often wondered how the current Rs would treat one of their own in a re-election bid when they perhaps perceived him as a threat to an R president and/or agenda. Was he well-financed? Lots of ads? Volunteers? What do you think?

...who, by birth and birth alone, was hard-wired to be a repug, much in the same way that I, by birth, am a hard-wired FDR Dem (my Dad and Mom were FDR Dems).

And I think you are right about Chafee; he could no more become a Democrat than I could become a Republican (or even a Green, for that matter).

It just would be a tremendous disconnect.

you that Linc Chafee was an honorable guy. I'll miss him. And yes the national repubs poured a shitload of money into his campaign, and support.

The GOP, I guess, just liked having a Republican holding the seat. They likely realized that Chaffee was their best hope for a Republican in Rhode Island.

I'm not so sure I wouldn't have voted for him. That took balls to be the only republican to vote against Mr. Bush's war. He's for sure to the left of my DINO senator. I wish he would have went independent or switched parties - he probably would have won his seat back if he had. I just hate seeing people get beat because of the letter by there name. I'm on the other side of that being from Nebraska, so it's just something I really hate to see.

but I really do think I could have marked that R for him, given the chance.

and he still ran as a Republican.

He's one of the extremely few Republicans that showed a true conscious. I guess because of that conscious, the GOP let him go without assistance of dirty tricks which lead to his defeat. I hope he returns to the political arena wearing a new initial behind his name. He's a good man.

He enabled them and supported them when it counted. It's gonna take a lot to make up for that.

Even our guys let us down--and he pretty much has made Bolton's nomination a dead issue, thank God.

But, um, thanks for playing.

...he also ran against a real progressive, Whitehouse, and waged a slanderous campaign against him and the Democratic Party. I'm just glad he lost and is on the sidelines now. We need real leaders, not moral basket cases wrought with guilt and indecision.

Was his the nasty campaign, or was it the RNCs?

For instance, the DSCC ran far different ads for our candidate than the candidate's committee did.

Who paid for the nasty ads, and can you show me evidence that he approved them?

I'm willing to play along here; I find this quite interesting.

Was he condemning them? Even Corker condemned the anti-Ford ads by the RNC/RNSC. But that's too little. He got to sit back and take the apparent "high road" while his partison comrades did the hatchet job.

Did his campaign and the RNC campaign converge, or were they of two different camps?

Can't help it, I'm such a wonk and I think this might be truly interesting in the long run.

Here in Providence, my girlfriend and a lot of other people called Lincoln's office a LOT about opposing the Bolton nomination, and he didn't do anything!!! Then we saw him out on the campaign trail and embarressed him in public about Bolton and NOT listening to what RI voters were telling him on the phone and in surveys.

Now, months later he does something. If he would have opposed Bolton when it counted and locked the nomination in comittee, then he might have actually got Dem votes. (but then again he wouldn't have gotten money from George's friends.)

I don't see anything honorable about his actions. They aren't even face-saving if you follow the history of it all. Just annother GOP too little too late.

That isn't leadership.

wants you to vote for it.

I only wish most of the Dems would have had that kind of "cowardice."

But what a wonderful, wonderful idea...