And Chafee emerges victorious, with a record turnout, crushing the former high water mark by 20,000 votes. It's time for the posters of Anchor Rising to embrace the spirit of moderation and independent leadership embodied by Senator Chafee, and affirmed by the people of Rhode Island.

We can only hope. While Laffey was gracious in his concession speech, I don't see a lot of olive branches being proffered here.

Cabot, how can I phrase this nicely ... pull your head out of Senator Chafee's rear and take a deep breath. Chafee won because more than half the voters in the REPUBLICAN primary were not Republicans. There are 68,000 registered Republicans in Rhode Island, and about 62,000 people voted in the Republican primary (91%). There is no way a real Republican can overcome that. Normally, I'd just call that stealing the election, but this isn't Bush-Gore 2000 and I just don't want to go there right now, because it isn't worth it.

People who post on Anchor Rising generally don't care about "moderation." We hold conservative values that mean something to us. To quote a real Republican, Barry Goldwater: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice -- and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Given the number of insults that have been hurled my way since the start of this year and the number of people who have suggested that I'd have nothing to say after election day, I think I have earned to right to offer a few comments (mild gloating)--

1. Laffey's divisiveness and bombastic personality led to some past employment problems and raised questions about his fit for the Senate. The solution is simple: don't be arrogant and obnoxious towards those who disagree with you. Respect their opinions even if you disagree with them.

2. We should now be able to keep the Senate Republican. It's only going to cost 4 million more than expected, but we should do it.

3. Will, don't start suggesting the election was stolen. It's poor form. Laffey lost his own precinct.

As Mayor Laffey suggested, it's time to unite and move forward to help keep the Republican Senate majority.

Chafee won dirty. He won on the votes of Democrats who disaffiliated to ensure the absence of a genuine Republican candidate in November, and he won only through a vitriolic, negative campaign of personal vilification.

I can't bring myself to lend any support to a candidate who has waged this style of campaign. What's more, he's likely to switch parties if he's ever the marginal vote anyway, so the partisan control argument cuts little ice for me. I'm tempted to write in the Senator's dad, John Chafee, a better man who would never have countenanced his son's gutter campaigning style.

I don't place all of the blame for the hit pieces on Chafee, I am easily just as disgusted at the tactics of the NRSC. But I will say this in regards to the general in Nov.
No Bolton - No Vote
C'mon, chant it with me like the lefty's do. I am sure that is the kind of discourse that resonates with thoughtful moderates.

To all of my fellow conservatives I offer this compromise.

I can't throw my support behind Whitehouse any more than I can support Chafee. Both are raving liberals. So what do I do?

I write in John Chafee. It gets me off the hook with myself by staying within the party, it doesn't give a democrat a vote (for either Linc or Shelly), and it sticks a fork in Linc's eye for his limp-wristed vote for George H.W. Bush in 2004.

I'm starting a movement.

WRITE IN JOHN CHAFEE!

Greg, You really need some anger management classes. Seek help! No one cares what your advice is. Don't you get that? Laffey lost big! How's that giant wedge of humble pie??

Rinny

Thanks for the advice which, if I wanted, I'd be on a self-help forum, not a political blog site.

If Chafee is enough of a conservative for you, than you'll always get the same crappy representation you've been getting as a state. I'm pretty sure it's time for me to move to someplace with a FUNCTIONING democracy. Maybe Fallujah, Iraq.

Anthony,

I would like to be able to vote for Senator Chafee, but I agree with Rhodeymark. If he votes against Ambassador Bolton, I will have to consider voting for Sheldon Whitehouse.

Cabot-Lodge,

If the Senator’s supporters want others to act in a “spirit of moderation”, then at some point the Senator has to show some moderation too. A good start would be pulling back from the distinctly immoderate suggestion that America’s UN ambassador should be fired for not sufficiently undermining administration policy.

Rino (to answer your last comment from the previous post),

We know that’s how Senator Chafee feels. From the start, his campaign has taken the position that if his party’s voters don’t like his brand of Republicanism, he’ll find new voters. At the very least, we wish them well as they ride off together to take on Sheldon Whitehouse.

But if Senator Chafee’s version of Republicanism (environmentalism, civil liberties, fiscal responsibility defined as raising taxes high enough to cover unlimited spending, and avoiding foreign entanglements that support allies or resist aggressors) is true Republicanism, isn’t Ralph Nader a true Republican too?

Yes, I can't wait for us to be collectively stabbed in the back on Bolton either. It will make not voting for Chafee that much easier.

As for Anthony, the reason Laffey apparently did not win his own area was due almost entirely to a flood of Democrat and left-leaning independent voters voting against him in the Republican primary.

Don't expect a united party coming into November, after the sleazy, personally negative campaign that you backed. I really don't care if the GOP retains control of the Senate in November. They've shown that they don't care about principles, and therefore, I don't care about them. They've made their RINO bed, now let them lie in it. I think there is a better than even shot of Whitehouse winning in November. If that is the only way to eliminate Chafee from the RI Republican scene, so be it.

Rinny,

You don't get it. Making us eat humble pie should not be the goal. Many of us will not currently vote for your guy, because he ran a nasty, toxic campaign, and if we don't come around, he'll lose. It was his arrogant contempt for the mainstream of his party that created this mess in the first place, and can anyone really be confident he'll vote for a Republican Majority Leader next year? I'm not. I see no reason to vote for either Linc or Sheldon. Writing in John Chafee seems like the principled move, and I'm sure Linc would understand the need to cast a principled vote, not one motivated solely by blind partisanship.

So if I were an ardent Chafee supporter, I'd be out of arrogant gloating mode and I'd be thinking about how to get the party reunited so your guy isn't shoeing horses at this time next year. Recovery begins with a recognition that it's a major problem, not a major victory, to have lost the confidence of at least 46% of your party in a tight race.