Chafee Not Voting for Bush; Gregg Comforts Him
By Thomas Rains
WASHINGTON, SEP. 5 –At least two of his fellow New England Republicans aren’t ready to write Sen. Lincoln Chafee out of the GOP despite the Rhode Island senator’s announcement last week that he would not vote for President Bush on Nov. 2.
Chafee said he would instead write in the name of another Republican, possibly the first President Bush, as a symbolic protest.
In an interview, Tuesday Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire responded to Chafee’s announcement by calling the Republican Party a “big tent” that has room for different views. He added that Chafee’s fiscal conservatism aligns him with many Republicans. This “big tent” characteristic does not apply to the Democratic Party, Gregg said, quipping that Democrats do not allow anyone in who does not support abortion rights.
Chafee supported Bush’s election bid in 2000 even though he disagreed with many of Bush’s policies. Since then Chafee has voted against opening a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to development, opposed authorizing force in Iraq, and voted against. Bush’s 2003 tax cut.
While Chafee has sided with Democrats on many issues, Gregg called Chafee a “strong Republican” and does “not at all” think the he will defect like Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, who moved from Republican to independent in 2001.
Jeffords, however, may have something to say about that.
“I understand the feelings he has,” Jeffords told The New York Times on Monday. “I’m going to be talking to him, so I’m not going to say any more.” Jeffords was unavailable for further comment Tuesday,
Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine said she respects Chafee’s decision but does not agree with him.
“Sen. Chafee’s decision is his own,” said Antonia Ferrier, communications director for Snowe, whom Ferrier described as having a “good, strong friendship” with Chafee.
Like Chafee, Snowe frequently votes with Democrats on cultural issues and some economic ones, but she has typically voted with Republicans on foreign policy and defense issues.
“Sen. Snowe is firmly behind the president’s re-election campaign,” Ferrier added.
According to Gregg, Chafee is simply in line with the views of his constituents in Rhode Island. New England, Gregg said, has gotten “more liberal” over the years, while the Republican Party has become “more western and southern” in its geographic representation.
Chafee is the only Republican member of Congress from Rhode Island, which Al Gore carried in 2000 with 61 percent of the vote. The state’s other senator, Jack Reed, has one of the most liberal voting records in the senate, according to The Almanac of American Politics , while the state’s two representatives have similar voting records.
But, loyalty runs deep in the Grand Old Party, and Chafee has a history with the moderate wing of the Republican Party.
His father, John Chafee, was a Republican governor and senator from Rhode Island who named his son after President Abraham Lincoln. At age 11, Chafee went with his father to the 1964 Republican National Convention and has said he remembers the hostility supporters of Barry Goldwater directed at more moderate Nelson Rockefeller supporters.
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