Requiem For Moderate Republicans?

(CBS)  By CBSNews.com's Amy Sara Clark.

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The war in Iraq has cost Sen. Lincoln Chafee dearly — twice.

First, the Rhode Island Republican infuriated his party's conservative base by voting against the war. This led to a bitter primary fight against Stephen Laffey, the conservative mayor of Cranston. The primary forced Chafee to trumpet his Republican credentials in what is perhaps the bluest of blue states. It also cost him badly needed campaign cash and resources.

Now, in the general election, the Iraq war is slamming Chafee again.

Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse has managed to effectively harness anti-war sentiment against Chafee despite a painful irony: Chafee opposed it.

Whitehouse has delivered one major message, and he's stuck to it for dear life: Chafee's voting record doesn't matter because the most important vote he'll cast will help to decide which party controls the Senate.

"Chafee's first vote will be for a Republican Congress," one ad runs. "Bush needs Chafee in the Senate. Doesn't that tell us everything we need to know?"

"He's had a consistent theme and it's a simple theme: 'I'm a Democrat and it's a time for change,'" says Wendy Schiller, who teaches political science at Brown University in Providence. "He's been doing it since June. Candidates usually shift messages, but he hasn't and it's worked for him."

It sure has.

With Rhode Island's approval rating for Mr. Bush hovering around 22 percent — the lowest of any state — Whitehouse's campaign has been surging ahead. Less than a week before the election, some polls show Whitehouse with a double-digit lead. A new Reuters/Zogby poll, for example, shows Whitehouse with a comfortable 53-39 percent lead over Chafee.

A Dying Breed?

A Chafee loss could sound the death knell for an increasingly rare creature: the moderate Republican.

Chafee has a well-deserved reputation for being most liberal Republican in the Senate. Not only was he the only GOP senator to oppose the war, he also opposed President Bush's tax cuts, supports abortion rights and favors the legalization of gay marriage. He didn't even vote for Mr. Bush, casting his ballot instead for the president's father.

In fact, Chafee's platform is so similar to Whitehouse's that Laffey ran an ad in the primary entitled "Two peas in a pod."

"Lincoln Chafee's major offense is that he has an 'R' next to his name. That's about it, but it may be enough to beat him," says Larry Sabato, who directs University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

It's not just Chafee. Moderate Republicans are struggling across the country, especially in the Northeast: Longtime Republican House moderates Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons are facing tough challengers in Connecticut; five-term Republican Rep. Sue Kelly is facing a tough challenge from Democrat John Hall in New York; and Democrats have been waging a tight race against moderate GOP Rep. Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania, to name just a few.

The era of the so-called Rockefeller Republican could be coming to a close, says Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. "There was a time when you could look all up and down the East Coast — Jacob Javits in New York, Mack Mathias in Maryland — and see a variety of moderate and even liberal Republicans. That is a disappearing breed."

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[pakaal]

bkd47, you missed part of recent political history. You ended at '72 and what you refer to as "leftist zanies" taking over the Democratic party. You left out the part about 1991, when (to apply attributes in the same way) "right-wing neo-colonial, big-government-spending, pro-pork, neo-con loonies" took over the Republican party, turning it into the Fascist Party of the USA. Now that they've alienated most of the Center-Right as well as the Religious Right, things aren't going so well.

Or perhaps you see this as a good thing - get rid of both the moderate and religious elements and you'll be able to do better. Yeah, good luck with that.

[vwchick]

We cannot simply bring the troops home. To do so would be a morally unconscious act on our part and would put us in a more vulnerable diplomatic state than where we currently are. What we need is a change in strategy, one with defined goals and outcomes that are obtainable in the current climate in Iraq. These also need to be goals and outcomes that will resonate with the Iraqi people, not ones that simply meet the needs of the American military. The Administration sounds the trumpet that they liberated the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator, but it seems that they too often forget the needs of the Iraqi people in the day to day fighting and long-range planning.

[semegram]

The story re: Chaffee of Rhode Island was excellent. Would like more from reporter Clark.

[bryankdonnelly]

The GOP has no need of RINO's like Chaffee. Just as glad he's likely to lose.

We genuine Republicans here in the new dynamic (economically and demographically growing) part of our nation, the sunbelt (in my case FL), are just as happy to see RINO's (Republicans In Name Only) like Link Chaffee losing. We don't need 'em! It is difficult to tell his political affiliation from his voting record which is much closer to that of bloated drunken Teddy Kennedy or that hopeless left wing fool John Kerry in neighboring MA.

In 1964 the Republican party became the CONSERVATIVE party of the USA and in 1972 when the leftist zanies took over the Democratic Party became the Socialist Party of the USA. "Noblesse oblige" particians like Chaffee belong with their fellow collectivist/pacifits nut cases in the latter political coalition. We don't need 'em.

The northeast (with the possible exception of New Hampshire) is in economic and population decline relative to the south and west. We Republicans will control both houses of congress and the White House for most of this century as a result of this. We may lose the house this year, though that is no forgone conclusion. But after two years of kooky socialist nitwit "Speaker Pelosi", we'll pick it back up along with the White House in '08.

There are plenty of good genuine anti statist, anti tax, pro military Republicans in our party. Traitors like Chaffee need not apply.

[vwchick]

shingles1:

I forgot to answer your question. Unfortunately I am not a member of Biden's staff. I'm always up for a career change, though. :)

[pakaal]

Hey, I know! Let's trade Chaffee for Lieberman, that way both guys get into the party they're supposed to be in anyway!

[pakaal]

I sure hope the Republicans don't become marginalized the way Democrats have been until recently. That forces them into a corner with the fringes, and lessens the chance that they'll be an opposing force to a Democratic majority. Our government relies on power-sharing to maintain balance. The fact that we're out of balance now (one party control of Executive and Legislative branches) and the problems that have risen because of it should be proof enough that we need to have a more balanced government, and more dialogue/discussion between the parties. I'm a realist; I can't imagine the Democrats will be more successful in the long term in not succombing to the corrupting influence of power than the Republicans have been.

[vwchick]

One_American:

I think the Iraqi government is open to hearing some sort of solution. Biden's plan calls for a decentralization of Iraq, giving regional authority to the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis in their own territories with a federal/central administration overseeing border security, distribution of the shared oil revenues, etc.

You said you didn't see much difference between this and what the Bush Administration was currently pursuing. The Sunnis do not receive any oil revenues now. Biden's plan almost guarantees Sunni support by guaranteeing them a proportionate share (according to their plan, appx. 20%) of oil revenues. Biden's plan would ask economic assistance of the Arab Gulf states and create a jobs program. I don't see any semblance of this coming from the Bush Administration.

This is a real solution to a chaotic civil war that our invasion served as the catalyst of. We need to be responsible and committed to rebuilding this country, not tucking our tails and running, or continuing on a path that has proven unsuccessful.

[vwchick]

shingles1:

Sorry for attaching One_American's comments to your name. My sincerest apologies.

[shingles1]

One_American - no, its more like a 'dividend'; I said "socialist" just to get a rise out of you.