RI-Sen: Primary Results

Looks like liberal Republican senator, Lincoln Chafee (RI), will hold onto his party's nomination. Chafee was challenged in the Republican primary by archconservative Stephen Laffey. Given Rhode Island's bright blue, election-map hue, a win by Laffey would have virtually guaranteed the Rhode Island seat for Democrats.

As is, the Democratic challenger, the auspiciously-named Sheldon Whitehouse, has been tied or narrowly leading Chafee in the polls. We still have a very decent chance at taking this seat, only we will have to fight for it. Had Laffey won the Republican nod, the Republicans had already said they would abandon the seat (polls showed him losing to Whitehouse by 30 points).

Chafee is a liberal on most issues - he is an Iraq War opponent (only Republican in the Senate to vote against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002) and didn't even vote for this President Bush in 2004 (he wrote-in George Herbert Walker Bush). Unfortunately, his state's Democrats view him as ineffectual. He has no positive impact in his caucus and, as such, the biggest vote that matters is his vote for Senate leadership. And here Chafee votes lockstep. It's unfortunate that someone like Chafee is being squeezed out, but in the current political climate, there is little choice. There are very few Republican moderates left in Congress and, like Chafee, most that are present are thoroughly ineffectual.

Chafee's Democratic challenger, Sheldon Whitehouse, will vote as liberal as Chafee (probably more so) AND will vote for Democratic leadership in the Senate. Majority leadership in the Senate is extremely important. Without it, a party's ability to introduce legislation, launch inquiries, and steer committees is extremely limited. It may seem harsh, but that's the reality of today's politics - a reality that Democrats didn't want but have seen forced upon them by the lockstep Republican Caucus.

UPDATE (9/15): The center-left (in truth, a little uncomfortably neo-Conish) opinion journal The New Republic has an editorial up calling for the ouster of Moderate Republicans from Congress. The article is available with free registration, but I'll post a few choice bits here:

When GOP moderates appeal to the spirit of bipartisanship or claim they can influence their leadership, they are recalling a bygone era. For the longest time, U.S. parties lacked ideological
coherence. Northern liberals voted Republican and Southern conservatives voted Democrat, with the result that party affiliation meant less in the United States than in nearly any other democracy. In this world, it made sense to evaluate your senator or representative less on party affiliation than philosophical convictions.

...

From the moment they took power in 1995, Republicans made it clear that they would act differently. Those Republicans who wanted to head committees had to pledge their loyalty to the
party agenda. Republicans saw themselves less as a traditional U.S. political party--with diffuse power and independent personalities--than a parliamentary majority working in unison. From a standpoint of effectiveness, the GOP's record of winning floor votes and clinging to a majority in support of an often-unpopular agenda is impressive.

Of course, maintaining that majority has required Republicans to win the votes of many Americans who don't support their agenda. That's where the GOP moderates come in. Unlike the
moderate wing of the old Democratic majority, they seldom do anything without the tacit consent of the leadership. GOP moderates are allowed-- indeed, encouraged--to publicly scold their party leaders, because that's how they hold onto their districts.

But these displays of independence are a sham. Republicans have invented, or perfected, numerous methods of projecting the fake image of intraparty dissent. One trick is something they privately call "catch and release," whereby they let members from vulnerable districts vote against the leadership--unless their vote is decisive, in which case they are pressured to recant. Last year, for instance, Pennsylvania Representative Jim Gerlach reversed himself and provided the decisive vote for a refinery bill.

...

At best, moderate Republicans have been hapless dupes. At worst, they've been co-conspirators. In either case, they have done almost nothing to alleviate the radical or corrupt tendencies of Republican Washington. Extinguishing the moderates at the polls this November is not a vote for mindless partisanship. It is simply a vote for transparency.