The last of the liberal Republicans?

The one "no" vote
During votes on the Senate floor Chafee is often an isolated figure on the Republican side of the aisle. He stands a bit tentatively, not joining in the backslapping and exuberant chumminess of the other male Republican senators.

On the high-profile votes when 54 out of the 55 Republicans vote “yes” and one Republican votes “no,” the one “no” is almost always Chafee.

Last January, when 54 Republicans voted to confirm President Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, Chafee was the sole Republican dissenter. Likewise on the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use military force in Iraq.

Just last week it was Chafee again voting “no” on a package to cut the estate tax and raise the minimum wage.

Only Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio joined Chafee in opposition, while 53 Republicans voted for the measure.

Call Chafee eccentric, or call him a man of principle.

But what exactly is the principle?

Philosophy and the numbers
Chafee explained his fiscal philosophy this way as he campaigned in Little Compton: “Those tax cuts (in 2001 and 2003) were too deep… Once we cut our revenue and didn’t do anything about spending and, in fact put the subsidies back into the farm bill, put another benefit on to Medicare, and got ourselves into an expensive war, we have deficits and we’re not cutting our spending. I ‘m also concerned about the growing disparity of wealth. Without a doubt most of these tax cuts help the wealthy and the middle class is finding it harder.”

In part Chafee’s stances might be a matter of survival: in Rhode Island, which voted for Democratic candidate John Kerry with nearly 60 percent of the vote in 2004, conventional wisdom holds that only a liberal-to-moderate Republican such as Chafee can win.

Laffey disagrees. “This state voted for (Republican) Don Carcieri with 65 percent; he’s a pro-life governor,” he said. Laffey favors restrictions on abortions. Chafee was one of only three Republican senators to vote against the 2003 bill banning the procedure known as partial-birth abortion, which even liberal Democrats such as Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont voted for. Laffey said he’d have voted for the ban.

The Laffey-Chafee contest bears a resemblance to the Connecticut battle between Democrats Sen. Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont. Republicans and independents say they admire Lieberman and many will vote for him if he’s on the ballot in November; in Rhode Island it is often Democrats who are most articulate in their support of the Republican Chafee.

A Democrat, Carolyn James, walked up to Chafee at the Little Compton barbeque, telling him, “I think you’re a good man. I do agree with your positions 90 percent of the time, but even when I don’t, I respect it.”

“I’ll take 90,” Chafee replied.

“You vote with your conscience and that’s very rare,” James told him.

“There’s more support for Laffey than many of us anticipated,” she said later.

She voted for Chafee in 2000 and is inclined to do so again. She called Laffey “a dangerous guy, an extremist, not a compromiser.”

Independents can vote in the Republican primary, but Democrats can’t.

Retired banker Charles Rice, an independent, said he’ll vote for Chaffee. “He’s his own man, he isn’t necessarily a Republican, he votes his conscience, he reflects a lot of the good things of his father.”

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