Lincoln Chafee has always been a very moderate voice in the Republican party. It has caused him to be a victim of harsh criticism from some on the political right. But, after Tuesday’s election Lincoln Chafee finds himself short of a Senate seat after losing to Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse.

It would be a fairly convincing argument if one said that Chafee lost Tuesday’s election simply because of that “R” that comes after his name. But, Chafee’s voting record has tipped to the left very often. In fact, Senator Chafee was the only Republican to vote against invading Iraq, tipping to the left of a significant amount of his Democratic colleagues.

But because of the Republicans trying to rally the conservative base in campaign season, some moderates like Chafee found themselves without Senate seats and others in very great danger of losing a Senate or Congressional seat. It was simply a case of guilty by association or guilty by the same party name.

Chafee was asked by a reporter if he would possibly be switching to a Democrat or Independent status, at the possibility of considering that he replied “that’s fair.”

But it goes to show that people really did want Democrats in power, even a maverick Republican like Chafee could not win. Same goes for Tom Kean who, like Chafee, had the family legacy name and the “maverick” status.

Republicans, no matter where they stood on the issues, lost this year simply for one reason. They were Republicans. The Republican party was associated with Bush and the problems that have come with his administration costing moderate voices in the party the election, even if they did not agree with Bush on many issues at all.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 12:36 am and is filed under Senate, Republican Party, Election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.