This guy is contemptible. The NRSC bent over backwards for this ungrateful jerk pouring money into his campaign that we needed to spend elsewhere and destroyed Steve Laffey in the process, and for what? Every step of the way, he stuck his finger in our eye hinting that he might not be a Republican much longer, and refusing to let John Bolton's nomination through even after he lost his re-election. I agree on the need to accommodate and support the less conservative wing of the GOP in areas like New England, where you can't win with folks like Tom Coburn or Jim DeMint. But with friends like Lincoln Chaffee, we don't need enemies.

Ken

The liberal/independent Brahmin-type Republicans are what they are and have been useful when adding another "R" to the caucus count determining majority or minority status of the Republican Party in Congress. That ain't small potatoes.

Yes, Chaffee is already out of office, but his putting off his party membership is the result of his being the target while IN office (once Bush was ensconced as Leader of the "Permanent Majority", post-2001, and got big-headed and Chaffee's Usefulness fulfilled), of a tactless and bizarre Groupthink Enforcement campaign aimed at loyal dissenters ("R"). Of course, carried out (or instigated?) by the usual coterie of chickenhawks, girly-men, closet cases, and Y-chromosome women the world has come to know and loves to ridicule.

So instead of open-handedness in good times, Bush let his inner child run amok to the wreck of his own hopes. Bush got arrogant, Bush blew up the party that Reagan re-built.

Bush had not the princes' most valuable quality:
"The Government of Himself". Still doesn't.

And now the New England Brahmin-types, who have been Republicans since "republicans" were Whigs, are leaving...

Worst President Ever. Certainly, the worst Republican president.

Ken I certainly hope you didn't mean to suggest that Rhode Island was going to vote for Laffey. Because that's as utterly ridiculous as suggesting that Connecticut was going to vote for Lamont. The guy had zero name recognition, and was way too far out of the mainstream for a state like RI. Chafee, while a RINO, adequately represented his constituents, which was his job. It was not his function to be a water-carrier for the party.

My complaint isn't that Linc failed to "carry water" for the national GOP or the Senate GOP or the Administration. Rather, I believe everyone always knew he wasn't his father, and that his voting would be mainly with the Democrats.

I find fault, though, with the RSCC plowing so much of their limited resources into both the primary and general camapaigns for a guy who never has been a team player. About the only thing we could ever count on Chaffee to vote with the GOP on was "organization" of the Senate. Beyond that, he was almost always on the other side.

There used to be another nor'easter like him - Jeffords of Vermont. In the end, he switched (I know he didn't "become" a Democrat, but voting for Democratic organization combined with his overall voting record made him indistinguishable from the real thing). If Chaffee had won, he would have done the same thing.

It's the waste to which I object.

Waste water closet
For Miss Moffett's tosset.
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