Chafee: A "Cocky Wacko" On The GOP Ticket

Former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, who left the GOP after being defeated for re-election in 2006, called Sarah Palin a "cocky wacko," but admitted that she has told a Washington audience Tuesday that while Sarah Palin has revived a "lackluster McCain candidacy," the AP reports. (To see the video, click here).

Speaking to the New American Foundation, Chafee was asked about Palin by an audience member and he responded by saying that her candidacy has "thrown this firestorm, this tornado, into the whole presidential election." Chafee, who is supporting Barack Obama, said that he speech to the GOP convention also energized Democrats. "People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, 'I just sent money to Obama, I couldn't sleep last night' – from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there."

In an interview with the AP Thursday, Chafee said that he "found much of Palin's convention speech objectionable, particularly her 'mocking' assertion that Obama was overly concerned with al-Qaeda terrorists getting" their rights read to them. That "got to the core of everything wrong with the last eight years," said Chafee. "I consider that wacky, and certainly her tone was very, very cocky," he added.