it's funny that their names rhyme.

chafee is an anti-bush republican, like his father. besides the chafee name is a legacy in RI politics. unseating a chafee in RI would be like unseating a kennedy in MA.

and so the Wave builds. having the scarlet R next to your name is not a good thing right now.

Chafee is pretty far to the left, more so than quite a few democrats.

He was the only "R" to vote against the Iraq war, and also voted against the Patriot act.

Give credit where it's due. He's senator with more principle than, say, Kerry or Hillary. I'd be fine with him sticking around for another six years.

oh, i like the guy. but this is a very interesting race no matter which side you're on.

If we lose a good Republican, we had better not end up stuck with a bad Republican in his place. Chafee is a good and decent man whose party has run away from him like the tide.

Golob, on most of the left-right measures I've seen, the only Democrat more conservative than Chafee is Ben Nelson (and it's close). Yes, that puts Linc far away from the GOP's far, far right standard, but he's still way too conservative for Rhode Island and significantly more conservative than his father was.

Besides, by sitting on the R side of the aisle, he enables the likes of Frist, Imhofe, Santorum, et al. to control the floor, committees, and the entire Senate agenda. Whitehouse for Senate!

Chafee got an endorsement from NARAL but it was very controversial. He's good as far as Republicans go but far from perfect on many important issues and his voting record on choice is certainly not without blemish.

It's hacks, not wonks that would care.

N, I can see your point. I just don't think the dems have any real chance of picking up the senate, with or without Chafee. So the commitees are going to be mucked up no matter what.

I balance a reduced chance of a dem takeover of the Senate to the value of having a handful of republican defectors from otherwise party-line votes. There is a real power in "not even all the republicans can agree that the war/patriot act/Alito was right." Call it the Zell Miller effect.

And there is always the possiblity of a harried and tired Chafee pulling a Jeffords and going independent, giving the dems control anyways if the Senate is closely divided.

Chafee pulled a Lieberman & Cantwell by voting against Alito but ending chances of the Dems chance at a filibuster. What good does that do? Losers.

Chafee and Laffey don't rhyme.

There are more unaffiliated voters (over 300,000) than there are registered Democrats (about 250,000) and registered Republicans (about 25,000) in the state of Rhode Island. I am an unaffiliated Democrat, and have voted for Chafee in the general election twice, but I voted for Laffey today. All of the polling has shown that the likely Democratic nominee, Sheldon Whitehouse will slaughter Laffey, but doesn't stand a chance against Chafee. That's the system we have.

Man, I hope that works out. Strategically speaking, wiping out another of those "commie" New England Republicans will make the hard-liners even harder-line, which will make them drive into the ditch even faster. This is the opposite of the lesson they SHOULD learn, but kook Republicans have lost their brains. It would be a very, very nice Dem pickup.

Now, if Laffey wins, if there was only some way to get his picture taken with Katherine Harris....

BTW, that RI site has raw data available (look on the left), and I mean RAW -- it appears to be every single vote. I don't recall seeing anything like that before.

Looks like it's Chafee.