Senate primary fight reveals
deeper split in state GOP
The Brown Daily Herald - By
Jonathan Herman
The word of the night at the State Republicans'
Lincoln Day Dinner Feb. 19 in the town of Lincoln
was "healthy."
Competition is healthy, said many in the crowd of
longtime Republicans who turned out to hear Cranston
Mayor Stephen Laffey speak. They were referring to
the Republican Senate primary contest between Laffey
and his challenger, incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee
'75, which has only magnified existing divisions in
the Rhode Island Republican Party.
The party is small: just 10 percent of voters in
Rhode Island were registered Republicans as of
Election Day 2004, according to the Rhode Island
Board of Elections. 38 percent registered as
Democrats, and the remaining 52 percent of voters
did not affiliate with a political party in their
registrations for the 2004 elections.
There are substantial ideological gradations within
that 10 percent of Republicans, said Patricia
Morgan, chair of the Rhode Island Republican Party.
"It is a big tent, there is no doubt about it. We
have people who are very liberal and people who are
very conservative," she said.
Those differences often play out in the theater of
statewide Republican primaries. In 2002, the state
party endorsed James Bennett '79 in the
gubernatorial primary, but he lost to current
Governor Donald Carcieri '65.
Many discount Laffey's chances because they believe
he cannot win a statewide election. Conventional
wisdom says a Republican candidate must be moderate
to appeal to voters in a largely liberal state - the
Republican 10th of the electorate can only carry a
candidate so far.
"In the states in the Northeast, when a conservative
is nominated, they usually don't win. (Those states)
don't elect conservatives," said Sarah Chamberlain,
executive director of the Republican Main Street
Partnership, which has backed Chafee in his
re-election bid. "A conservative Republican cannot
win in Rhode Island," she said.
A Feb. 4 poll conducted by Professor of Political
Science Darrell West, director of the Taubman Center
for Public Policy, indicated that Laffey would do
poorly in the November general election against
either serious Democratic candidate, Secretary of
State Matt Brown or former Attorney General Sheldon
Whitehouse.
Supporters of Chafee say he is better positioned to
win the general election than Laffey, regardless of
how competitive the Republican primary may be.
Analyzing the recent poll, Ian Lang, Chafee's
campaign manager, said Laffey would have to carry
more than 80 percent of the unaffiliated voters to
win.
Laffey has positioned him-self as a political
outsider in his challenge to Chafee, echoing
Carcieri's campaign as a businessman not previously
involved in politics.
"I don't have a political career," Laffey told The
Herald. "Mr. Chafee said he wanted to end my career.
He thinks it's a career. I spent 15 years working my
way up in an investment-banking firm. That was my
career. This is public service. For him it's a
career."
Laffey said he is a believer in Rhode Island
Republicans, but he criticized the party, which
endorsed the incumbent Chafee for the upcoming
Senate race. According to Laffey, the state party is
disconnected from voters and has done little to
encourage more people in Rhode Island to vote
Republican.
"There really isn't any Rhode Island Republican
Party. It really hasn't done much this year. (The
number of) state-wide registered Republicans has
been going down (everywhere) except for Cranston,"
Laffey said, referring to his own efforts to
register voters in his city. "There are a great
number of people who are Republicans who are not
registered."
Laffey's dissatisfaction with the state party also
comes from his "excommunication" from the party and
its events, he said. Laffey said he and a backer of
his campaign, Robert Manning '75, who represents
Rhode Island Republicans on the national party
committee, were not invited to a December party
fundraiser.
But Morgan, the head of the state party, said
Laffey's claim is false, and Manning said he did not
recall whether he had attended the fundraiser.
"My goal is that I want a Republican senator to send
to Washington D.C.," Morgan said. "I think it's
important to have a Republican senator - it would be
better for Rhode Island if we had that. At this time
in the race, (Chafee) is the most electable
(candidate)."
State Republican parties in New England are caught
between two squabbling forces: the increasingly
conservative national party and the more moderate
local stalwarts. Rather than the social conservatism
that is fundamental to the national party's program,
Morgan said, fiscal conservatism is the foundation
of New England Republican parties. Both Laffey and
Chafee bill themselves as fiscal conservatives, but
to different degrees.
For his part, Chafee backs "a socially moderate and
fiscally conservative version of Republicanism which
is deeply rooted in the Teddy Roosevelt
pro-environment Republicanism," Lang said. Chafee's
voting record demonstrates his belief in reigning in
government spending to ensure that "future
generations are not burdened by debt," Lang added.
But others attack Chafee's voting record in the
Senate as fiscally irresponsible.
"Lincoln Chafee hasn't voted for any of the
pro-economic tax cuts and he shows no interest in ?
these in the future," said David Keating, executive
director of the Club For Growth. "If these
pro-growth tax cuts do not get (through Congress),
he'll probably end up voting for a tax increase," he
added.
The Club for Growth, a political action committee
that backs conservative Republican candidates who
support limited government and lower taxes, recently
endorsed Laffey in his candidacy for Senate.
Laffey raised taxes twice in Cranston during his
first two years as mayor, a move he said was
necessary but which critics have focused on in
attacking his claim of being an anti-tax candidate.
"The day I took office, (Cranston) was on the verge
of going broke," Laffey said. "It was running an
11.6 million dollar deficit. We raised taxes by half
as much as Warwick ? but we have also cut everything
else (in the budget) we can," he said.
Republican politicians must appeal to independents
for the state primary in September, since registered
voters who are not affiliated with either party can
vote in either party's primary. Independent voters
outnumbered Republicans five to one in Rhode Island
in 2004.
"The key in the primary is getting the independents
to vote," Chamberlain said. "We'll probably get some
Republicans out to vote for (Chafee), but we need
those independents," she added.
However, Manning, the Republican national
committeeman, said independents rarely sway the
results of the primary.
"You don't get a lot of independents. They have to
change their party affiliation on that day and then
change back," he said. "If you have any independent
action it will probably be towards the Democratic
primary."
Without a large turnout of independents in the
Republican primary, according to West, Laffey may
have a chance at unseating Chafee.
Conservative political action committees and
publications from around the country have had a
strong influence on the party in this election cycle
because of the national attention paid to Chafee's
re-election bid.
National Review, a conservative magazine based in
Washington, D.C. and New York, recently endorsed
Laffey in an editorial titled "Dump Chafee."
The editorial "expressed our disappointment with
Senator Chafee's performance as a senator," said
John Miller, a political reporter at the magazine.
"Chafee's vote against (then-Supreme Court nominee)
Sam Alito was really the last straw."
In addition to the Club for Growth, several other
town committees have backed Laffey.
"I wouldn't classify Mayor Laffey as a
conservative," Keating said. "I would classify him
as pro-economic growth. He is the only one who is
taking an outsider's view of Washington. Laffey is
against pork barreling and special interests lining
their pockets in Washington at the expense of the
average (citizen)," he added.
Backing Chafee is the
National Republican Senatorial Committee and the
Republican Main Street Partnership, as well as
Carcieri and other state officials. His supporters
have largely focused on the need to keep the Senate
seat for the Republican Party.
"If Chafee loses and Laffey wins the primary, then
the Republicans have lost the seat," Chamberlain
said. "This is one of the swing states that will
make or break the Republican Senate."
