Senator Chafee is a "No" on Alito

According to National Review Online, my Senator, Lincoln Chafee, has decided, after much ponderous thinking, to vote "No" on Judge Alito's confirmation vote for the Supreme Court. The surprise would have been if he voted "Yes". The benefit of Chafee's membership in the Republican column is limited to his voting for the Senate Majority Leader. On every other substantive issue he is a liberal Democrat. His plea for lower spending, often pointed to as one of his 'conservative' and 'Republican' credentials, is nothing of the sort. If a hugely expensive spending bill came before him that had to do with one of his pet causes, such as environmentalism, Chafee would knock over Robert Byrd in his sprint to his desk to vote "yes".

In this particular case with Alito, Chafee's puppet-masters spoke, and Chafee listened. Last year Chafee was the head speaker at a NARAL convention. He has tied up the majority of the abortion lobby's monies in this year's Senate campaign - if he was honorable and voted for Alito, the money would go to his probable Democrat opponent, Sheldon Whitehouse. Chafee will probably make some statement about Alito threatening Roe v Wade, which is a canard. Even if Roe came back up, and even if Alito voted to overturn it, it would still be 6-3 to retain Roe based on previous votes and public statements by the other Justices. And even if Roe is someday overturned, it doesn't mean that abortion would be illegal. It just means that the decision on Roe would be sent back to the states to decide. If Chafee really took a close look at Alito's public record and statements, and his answers during his confirmation hearing, the only reason why Chafee would vote "no" is as a response to his paymasters.

As I've said before, I've met Chafee and like him. I know people who know him well. Lincoln Chafee is a good and honest man at heart. I'm certain he views himself as an enlightened liberal. He was a great mayor. He would be a great governor. But his liberal eccentricities (such as voting for Bush's father in the last Presidential election) does not translate well into deciding national issues in the Senate. I had high hopes for him, at the beginning. But you can't look at Alito's real record (not the talking points put out by People for the American Way, NOW, NARAL) without coming out with the feeling that Alito is about as apolitical a nominee as we've had. Alito has the highest rating from the ABA, which is hardly a conservative organization. And among his most vocal supporters, and those most disturbed by the allegations against Alito during the hearings, were his Democrat colleagues on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that he has served with since April 1990. If there were anyone who could see unfairness or an ideological bent to Alito or his rulings it would be them. And they came to the hearings en masse to support him. Chafee knows better than they?

I think this decision more than any other by Chafee (remember Chafee pleading with Secretary of State Rice to be nicer to Hugo Chavez during her confirmation hearing?) will get conservative money pouring into the Republican primary. Much of the Republican hierarchy in Rhode Island is made up of RINOs such as Chafee, so they won't be happy, and will fight back hard and dirty. The Providence Journal will cooperate with those Republicans, and they will try to destroy Chafee's challenger Steve Laffey. But Laffey's a tough guy. He's been attacked on a daily basis by Democrats on Cranston's City Council, and he's survived that fairly well. If Laffey gets his message out I think he will win the Republican primary for Senate in Rhode Island.

In a perfect world, that would mean that Chafee would congratulate Laffey and perhaps run for governor next time, or challenge Jack Reed for the other RI Senate seat (Chafee's father did the same thing - he ran and lost to Claiborne Pell, and then ran and won the other Senate seat). But I think that Chafee and his supporters think that Chafee's Senate seat is literally Chafee's Senate seat - he owns it. So Chafee will probably run as an Independent. That would mean that it would be a three way race - Laffey, Chafee, and Whitehouse. Chafee and Whitehouse would split the same vote - they would vote in the Senate virtually the same way, and Whitehouse can't tarnish Chafee as being a Bush supporter. It would be close, but in that scenario Laffey could win with a plurality of the vote (as Clinton did against Bush and Perot in 1992). If Laffey loses, I would recommend that he burnish his conservative credentials, try to reform the Rhode Island Republican Party by bringing into it some real conservative ideas, and run against Reed next time. That's if Laffey loses in the primary or in the general election. I would not recommend that Laffey run as an Independent. Unless, of course, he vows to declare himself a Republican post-election. But that could be too Machiavellian, even for conspiracysquirrels.com!