RI Senate ’06
George Conway over at Reconcilable Differences continues to focus national attention on the RI GOP primary and has some good stuff. Last night, he discovered that the NRSC continues its campaign of taking down stories on its web site that contain anti-Chafee comments. He also pointed to another NRSC pro-Chafee story that could use some…
If Jim Baron of the Pawtucket Times thinks these numbers are worth reporting, then I am willing to accept that they have some meaning…U.S. Senate candidate Matt Brown says a new poll shows he has caught up with and passed his Democratic primary opponent Sheldon Whitehouse. The poll of 502 likely Democratic primary voters conducted…
I received a fund-raising letter last week from Senator Lincoln Chafee. Here is the paragraph to which my response vacillated between irritation and utter amusement at its words and tone: My opponent in the Republican primary, Stephen Laffey, is preparing to run a negative campaign because the only way he can win is to attack…
I recently posted about the angry comments being expressed by conservative Republicans in the “comments” section of an anti-Laffey story that was promoted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee on behalf of Sen. Chafee. Apparently, rather than deal head-on with discontent being expressed by their conservative base, the NRSC has instead “bravely” decided to remove…
Thinking aloud over at The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru asks, “What do conservatives gain if Chafee wins?” But first he makes a case for conservative retribution against Sen. Chafee: The more I think about it, the more important it seems to me that Steve Laffey beat him in the Rhode Island Senate primary. None of the…
In addition to being the only Republican Senator to vote against the confirmation of now-Justice Alito, Senator Chafee has opposed President Bush and–more often–conservative ideals on the following substantive matters. (All links are to data provided by ProjectVoteSmart. An index of Sen. Chafee’s complete voting record is here). Presidential Appointments: Voted against nomination of Judge…
Back in December, the National Republican Senatorial Committee–in support of Sen. Chafee–decided to try to undermine Steve Laffey’s conservativism by claiming he was really a tax-and-spender. Well, by reading the comments (select “View all comments” at the aforementioned page), you’ll find that a few people have tried to set them straight. Interestingly, the thread is…
To be honest, I’ve been a little surprised at the intense interest in Senator Chafee’s vote on Alito. From conservatives’ standpoint, the only intriguing turn of events would have been a “yes” vote on the nomination and the questions that it would have raised about whether Chafee might make further efforts to court us. What…
So asks NROs Ramesh Ponnuru: I haven’t thought this race held as much potential for conservatives as the Specter vs. Toomey race did in 2004. I thought Toomey had a greater chance of winning a general election than I think Laffey does now. But as Chafee’s Alito vote shows, the downside of backing the conservative…
On WPRO, Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey just said that he was “disappointed but not surprised” at Sen. Chafee’s decision. He said that Sen. Chafee had made himself irrelevant to the process again and that RI won’t be well-served by either Chafee’s decision on this particular issue nor on Sen. Chafee’s consistent inablilty to make a…
