Two days ago, on Sunday the twenty-ninth, I drove to the small, old town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where a veterans' society called the Varnum Continentals was holding a political "forum" on veterans' issues. This forum was hardly an enormous event -- it basically filled the auditorium to just under its capacity of around 250. But its headline was a face-off between the incumbent Republican senator Lincoln Chafee and his highly threatening Democratic challenger, Sheldon Whitehouse.
This is my first diary -- and I did not expect my first diary to be on such a topic, but so be it. Becuase however small and apparently minor the event, it became an intimate window into the peculiar dilemma that Rhode Island presents to liberal Democrats -- the almost certain demise of old-line liberal Republicanism.
[I apologize for the verbosity.]
Whitehouse's advantages in this race are so overwhelming, that Democrats have basically taken Rhode Island for granted as they count their expected Senate gains next week -- and we have completely overlooked that this race probably represents the imminent extinction of what was once a significant force in American politics; that along with Senator Chafee would go the last, meager foothold of northeastern liberal Republicans in that party's caucus; and that this fact, if ultimately necessary, still deserves to be reckoned with.
The Armory is a grand brick building with a high-ceilinged auditorium and a lower story of meeting rooms packed with ancient weapons and banners. East Greenwich seems basically like an old, rural, New England town, with some affluence and also some Italian and Prtuguese population. The crowd was overwhelmingly old, with mostly WWII veterans, some wives and widows, many of them Portuguese, some Vietnam veterans, and at least one very old woman wearing what looked like a WASPs cap. Before the speaking scedule started, many old friends seemed to be meeting and catching up.
When Whitehouse and Chafee finally arrived -- at about the same time -- they slowly and quietly made their way through the small crowds and rows of seats, smiling and shaking hands and they went. Whitehouse gave me a little wave, perhaps surprised to see someone so young (I am 22) sitting in the seats, rather than standing by the tables for campaign volunteers, where most of the few other young people were. What struck me, especially when the two of them got to the seats where they would wait to start their debate, was how nervous they seemed. Whitehouse seemed tense, always shifting his weight, putting his hand under his chin as if he didn't know what to do with it. And Chafee -- he is perhaps in his late fifties, with thinning gray-blonde hair -- he looked tired, pale, maybe a little sweaty, and his smile looked so tense that his upper lip might tear. It was strange that both of them seemed to be taking this little event so terribly seriously -- but I remembered that this is a close election in a very small state. Rhode Island is not the smallest state in population, but unlike smaller states such as Wyoming, Alaska, or Idaho, it is compact, and socially fairly close-knit. Even a small crowd, it seemed, could be pivotal enough for even the heavily favored candidate to want to win it.
Nevertheless, both of them were dignified and genial in their little debate. Whitehouse seemed to gain confidence and command of himself on the stage, while Chafee was still clearly tense. It was not a formal debate, but just a series of questions about veterans' benefits that each of them answered in turn, no rebuttal. Both of them said that they supported reforming the VA administration, giving better benefits, insuring more prompt medical treatment at VA hosiptals, etc. Interstingly, on many questions, when Whitehouse proposed the position that he would take, Chafee would then say that he ALREADY had taken that stand in the Senate, and could point to votes he had cast; and when the question came up of "concurrent recipience" -- veterans not being able to receive both veterans' pensions and disability benefits at once -- Chafee pointed out that he had co-sponsored the bill with Harry Reid that sought to allow concurrent recipience.
Most impressively, though, when Chafee was done quickly answering one of these repetitive questions, he took the time to say that the bigger problem was the we needed to make "a more peaceful world." We were going to war too quickly and too easily, producing thousands of veterans, many of them injured, that we then weren't even able to care for adequately. And more fundamentally, he believes that "a bad peace is better than a good war." He reminded us that he had voted against the authorization of the war in Iraq -- and, although he did not mention it, he was the only republican to make that choice.
Indeed, Chafee would not let us forget that he had stood "against the Bush agenda" time and again. Though he did not mention it, he was also one of a few Republicans to vote against Bush's tax cuts, against the confirmation of Samuel Alito, and many other landmark Bush travesties. He is pro-choice and environmentalist, and opposed the Marriage (or "Hate") Amendment. He has recently threatened to vote agaisnt confirming Bolton. All in all, he is the least cooperative Republican in the Senate, possibly in all of Congress; as many vote analyses have shown, is demonstrably more "progressive" than a number of lousy Democratic senators.
In terms of policy, Whitehouse has little to use against him -- but that did not stop the challenger from taking his one big, blunt weapon and whipping it out right at the beginning of the debate. In his opening statement, Whitehouse said that "the best thing that can be done for veterans is to put Jack Reed [the Democratic senior senator from Rhode Island] into the majority." Rhode Island is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and as the country has gotten sick of Republican domination, Rhode Island is perhaps the sickest. Bush's approval here has been running at 22% at best. And ultimately, as long as Chafee is in office as a Republican, no matter how maverick he is in his votes, he is propping up the Republican majority. And this year, that seems to be enough to do him in.
In other, tougher debates, Whitehouse has pointed out that Chafee has often voted in support of the Bush agenda on crucial procedural votes, and then cast a dissenting vote on the Senate floor as no more than a symbolic gesture; for example, on the judiciary committee, he voted to approve Alito for a floor vote, and then voted against confirmation. These examples perhaps only further highlight the impossible tightrope the Chafee has had to walk, between a rabid conservative leadership and an extremely liberal statewide constituency. Yet it is not only the Washington leadership that has Chafee on a tightrope -- in Rhode Island, he faced a serious primary challenge from Stephen Laffey, a social-conservative mayor. Laffey had some small grass-roots support, which was enough to make him a real threat in the miniscule Republican party of Rhode Island; the election became a virtual fight to the death when the Club for Growth backed Laffey, and then the NRSC swooped in to defend Chafee -- since the right-wing Laffey would have zero chance of winning the general. Chafee just barely pulled out a 52% victory -- and then had to stumble immediately into being far behind in the polls against the Democrat.
*
All of this calls into question, of course, why Chafee takes the positions that he does. Is he not just pandering to his left-leaning constituency? Or is he really so progressive-minded? To answer this, one has to consider his place in regional history. Chafee is from an old-line, blue-blood, powerful Rhode Island family. Providence is their home city, Brown University is their alma mater, and old-line, New England moderate Republicanism is their ideology. Chafee's father, John, and his grandfather, Zechariah, were also in politics; and Lincoln Chafee actually first gained his seat when his father died and he was appointed to replace him. All of the Chafee's have been cut from an old mold of socially moderate or even progressive, economically paternal, and militarily cautious conservatives. For a while, they were called "Nelson Rockefeller Republicans" after Ford's moderate vice president; they have had senators from Maine, such as Margaret Chase Smith, and congressmen and governors in New York. They have been crucial in giving some bi-partisan credibility to Suffragism, Civil Rights, and Vietnam War oppostion. They have had allies amongst the progressive Republicans from the West, going all the way back to the feminist and pacifist Jeannette Rankin of Montana -- but there greatest home base has always been New England. These are a faction of Republicans that look back to Henry Cabot Lodge, and who see constructive public service as a sort of duty of the privileged classes. And there is no question that the nervous, ingratiating Lincoln Chafee on the stage of that Armory was there, at least in part, out of a sense of duty.
As the primary fight with Laffey showed, however, the base for this kind of Republicanism -- the educated, progressive upper and middle classes -- has been largely going Democratic, and by now only hardcore social conservatives even feel welcome in today's depraved Republican Party. There is not much place for Republicans like Chafee -- apart from election season. And all of this only leaves the question: why on Earth is Chafee still with this party? Why not solve his electoral problems by simply going independent or Democrat? Considering the courage the James Jeffords of Vermont showed, I have often wondered why Chafee could not follow -- but then I remember what one Democratic member of the Rhode Island legislature told a committee of Brown's Queer Alliance: that Chafee owes his whole career to his family, and has a sense of duty to his late father, who was a loyal Republican. The current Senator is even named "LINCOLN" in honor of the party's first president. To Lincoln Chafee, leaving the party would be a selfish, disloyal political expediency. According to this member of the RI legislature, the only person who could possibly tell Lincoln that it was okay to leave the party would be his mother -- and she, apparently did not come through in time.
Chafee's re-election effort is, therefore, the last stand of his clan and of his faction. Some might say, but there are also Arlen Specter, and Olympia Snowe -- but while those Republicans may not be as depraved as the party leadership, they have not actually stood their ground against the leadership the way Chafee has (think, for example, of Specter's NSA bill). Their moderation is more just a vague distaste than actual, concrete policy positions.
So if Chafee goes down, then we will really know that liberal Republicanism is no longer a viable political force in the country or in the party. I consider myself a Leftist who supports the Democrats for public office, and so is in effect a Democrat. I would love to see the Republican Party smashed at the polls, and I will do my part. I will vote Democrat, without shame. Sheldon Whitehouse, the attorney general of Rhode Island, has been honest and effective. (Ironically, he is also from a powerful Rhode Island political clan, who have long been friends of the Chafees, but who fall on the other side of the partisan line.) I also plan to canvass and GOTV for Whitehouse this weekend. But at the same time, I can't help but regret that out of all the Republican incumbents in the country to work against, it must be this one. I belive that soon in this country we will have a working Democratic majority, and the question of who our allies will be is only secondary.
*
I went to the Varnum event largely because it was organized, as part of her job, by a friend of mine -- another young Brown alum living in Providence -- whom I will call Lee. Lee greeted and directed all the arriving politicians, and she also sang the national anthem as the event opened. Lee is smart, beautifual, and a brilliant singer, and will likely pursue opera. She is from central Massachusetts, raised in a long-time Republican family. She has mentioned such ideas as "slow change" as being central to the Republicanism she's known -- although she considers herself basically apolitical. She usually avoids politics amongst friends, and was particularly evasive during the tense days leading up to the 2004 election. Yet she invited me to come to her event, knowing that I am obsessed with politics. In the break after the Chafee-Whitehouse debate, we agreed that it was very interesting to see these faces in person. I said that was surprised that they had both seemed so nervous, and she volunteered that Chafee seemed especially stricken, while Whitehouse was very articulate and effective. I said that Whitehouse had used the majority-control issue very aggressively. She commented, smiling, that the event had "rocked her vote." I could not exactly tell if that meant that it made her decide to vote, or if it had made her decide FOR WHOM to vote. If indeed it was the latter, then I think that she actually decided to vote for Whitehose, since he was visibly more confident and effective in the debate. And if on Sunday, Chafee lost Lee, it's hard to see exactly whom he could have gained.
A little while after the Senate debate, the candidates for governor came up -- Carcieri, the incumbent Republican, and Fogarty, the Democratic challenger. Carcieri was fun and ebullient, remaining animated even as he repeated fairly boring content. I wanted him to screw up, yet still enjoyed his performance. Fogarty, on the other hand, was dull as watching a plant grow. He seemed so unenthused, I couldn't listen to anything he said, and mostly just mused at the bizarre size of his forehead. Kos has previously pointed our that while Chafee sinks in the polls, Carcieri remains cery strong -- but here, I realized that in fact, Carcieri's opponent is clearly a terrible campaigner, allowing him to use his incumbency to great effect. The governor has a charisma that Chafee badly lacks. And again, in such a small state as Rhode Island, that matters a lot.
This observation, along with Lee's cryptic remarks, made me realize that Chafee is in a position he is not suited for. He is an underdog trying to make a last stand for a dying breed. And he does not bring much drama to that position. He is no fighting hero. He is a genteel moderate -- and one who does not seem to undertand the political situation crashing down on him. It may be that liberal Republicanism had to end -- but it is remarkable that it should end so ignominiously.