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Monday, December 12, 2005

RI-Sen: Club for Growth Endorses Laffey

Posted by DavidNYC

Our goal of taking back the Senate just got that much easier: The Club for Growth has endorsed conservative Cranston, RI Mayor Steve Laffey over incumbent Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee in the RI senate race. If you'll recall, the Club for Growth came just one percentage point away from derailing Arlen Specter in a primary last year - Specter won by just 51-49. And the man Specter faced, former Rep. Pat Toomey, is now the head of the CFG.

Oh, this should be good.

Posted at 12:22 PM in 2006 Elections - Senate, Rhode Island | Technorati

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Comments

When is the RI primary?

I think the primary is more likely to be Chafee's Waterloo than the general election, considering his approval rating among Democrats and Independents. Truth be told, I'd prefer to keep Chafee around the Senate than certain Democrats like Ben Nelson and possibly even Lieberman. But alas, the numbers game is more important than ever and Chafee has to go.

Posted by: Mark at December 12, 2005 01:22 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I completely agree, Mark -- he's going to be more difficult to beat in a general election than many seem to think. And he hasn't been a bad senator, but as you say, the numbers game is more important than ever. Reminds me of a couple of elections ago, I had colleagues who live in suburban DC in then-Congresswoman Connie Morella's district. While they really liked her as an individual member of Congress, and at times had voted for her, they knew that the most important vote she cast every session was for Speaker of the House. Chafee is certainly moderate-to-liberal on some of issues a lot of us care about -- but with a Republican majority you can kiss those issues goodbye. If he survives the primary, that's the message we need to get to Rhode Island voters. And if the Club for Growth wants to do some of that work for us -- they have more money and are nastier than most of us, so (somewhat regretably), go to it ...

Posted by: IndianaProgressive at December 12, 2005 01:38 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Problem is, I think few voters EVER think about things like "party control" or "casting a vote for speaker." It almost always seems to be that the most "moderate" Republicans are the most popular - eg, Snowe and Collins in Maine.

Posted by: DavidNYC at December 12, 2005 02:16 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

The RI primary is in September, so basically if there's an open wound, it's not going to be closed in 2 months.

Posted by: RBH at December 12, 2005 02:49 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

That's good -- but remember, Arlen Specter still won re-election.

Having a right-wing, Club-for-Growth-funded opponent only helps us if we have a strong Democrat ready to win in November.

Arlen Specter may have been hurt by Pat Toomey's challenge, but I never heard a peep from Joe Hoeffel after the September primary (granted I don't live in Pennsyvlania.) Even the AFL-CIO endorsed SPecter over Hoeffel.

So let's not gloat about the Rightwing taking on Lincoln Chafee. Let's focus more on having a strong credible Democrat ready to win against whoever the Republicans nominate.

If Laffey wins the primary, great. We can easily run against him.

But assuming Chafee wins the primary, we gotta be ready to take him on -- and take him on strong -- right after he's barely survived a bruising primary.

Posted by: Paul Hogarth at December 12, 2005 07:16 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Specter had 5 months to campaign and seal any wounds, as opposed to 2 months for the nominee in RI.

Posted by: RBH at December 12, 2005 08:14 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment