Mitt Romney and Lincoln Chafee have surprisingly similar family
backgrounds, both the product of prominent Republican households. Their
fathers governed states as Rockefeller Republicans—George Romney in
Michigan, John Chafee in Rhode Island—then served together in Richard
Nixon's cabinet. The sons followed their fathers' molds as moderate
Northeastern Republicans to great success a decade ago. Romney became
the governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and Chafee replaced his father in
the Senate, each serving one term in their respective roles.
From
there they split. Romney, of course, disavowed his moderate image to
run for president in 2008, sticking to his severely conservative mantra
up until the final month of this year's presidential campaign. Chafee,
on the other hand, disavowed his party after he lost his Senate seat to a
Democrat in 2006. He endorsed his former Senate colleague Barack Obama
during the 2008 Democratic primary and ran for governor of Rhode Island
in 2010 as an independent, winning a three-man race in which president
Obama declined to endorse the Democratic candidate.
Chafee is repaying Obama's favor on the 2012 campaign trail.A new Lamp shade
is a quick and easy way to bring a fresh look to your home. He offered
the apostate's address at the Democratic Convention in September and has
been hitting the trail to assist the president. I caught up with Chafee
Sunday afternoon at an Obama field office in Henrico, Virginia, a
booming suburb just outside Richmond that voted for Bush in '04 but
flipped to Obama in '08.
"When I left the party I made the
decision that the party wouldn't swing back to my traditional Republican
values," Chafee told me in a hallway outside the Obama office before he
spoke to the volunteers, "which are fiscal responsibility, not letting
deficits grow,King′s Chandelier has offered fine Chandelier
and sconces made in North Carolina of Swarovski and other European
crystal. taking care of the environment,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet
to choose from for your storage needs. women's rights, and just general
liberties, letting people live their lives as they see fit, leaving
people alone. Not getting into foreign entanglements.A new Lamp shade
is a quick and easy way to bring a fresh look to your home. Traditional
Republican values that have changed over the last decade or so. They
don't care about the environment, don't care about personal liberties,
fiscal conservatism or the deficit, and getting us into all these
quagmires overseas. I made the decision to leave because I didn't think
it was coming back."
Befitting his moderate policies, Chafee
keeps his critiques relatively polite, but he has few kind words for
Romney's candidacy. Chafee doesn't buy Mitt Romney's recent feints to
the center one iota. "The first decision was to choose Paul Ryan as the
vice president," Chafee said. "If they really wanted to tack to the
middle they would have chosen Olympia Snowe, or somebody else to be the
VP. Governor Romney couldn't have gone more far right, Ryan is a foot
soldier for Dick Cheney and the agenda that got this country in such
trouble. All the bad decisions—the war, the tax cuts,Find the best iPhone headset for you at Best Buy. the prescription drug benefit, bad environmental policies."
A
press aide pulled Chafee away before I could get any further thoughts
on the extinction of the northeastern Republican. A crowd of 30 Obama
volunteers—a young, diverse group—crammed into the office's entry room
to listen to Chafee and Katherine Waddell, a former Virginia state
representative and fellow renounced Republican, boost the Obama cause.
"It was very cathartic to walk into my board of canvassers and
disaffiliate from being a Republican five years ago," Chafee told the
volunteers. "I'm an independent and proud to be here supporting my
colleague in the Senate—Senator Obama was in the Senate when I was, we
overlapped for two years and served on two committees. No surprise that
he was going places, even then. He's been a great president and he's
going to continue to be a great president." With that the crowd
dispersed. Chafee and Waddell headed into a back room for a brief
canvass training and then hit the road to go door knocking for Obama in
Henrico.
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