After losing his November 2006 re-election bid to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee joined the Watson Institute for International Studies as a distinguished visiting fellow on Jan. 7. He spoke with The Herald on Monday about his new position at Watson, his experience as a blacksmith in Montana and Canada and speculation that he might run for governor of Rhode Island in the future.
The Herald: What are you most excited about this semester?Chafee: I think the chance to do something different ... I'll put 100 percent of my energy into it, but the pace is a lot different from political life where you don't get much of a chance to focus on a subject.
Will you start to miss the fast pace of politics?No, this is perfect. It's a perfect chance to switch gears a little bit.
Do you think your skills might be better suited for a job as a visiting fellow than as a senator?I'd like to think I was a good senator. There are very few votes I would do differently, even with the time to reflect back.
Of all the roles you've played - as a classics student and wrestler at Brown, as a horse-shoer in Montana, as the Republican mayor of the largely Democratic Warwick and as a moderate in a conservative-controlled Senate - which allowed you to accomplish the most?They're all different. The horse-shoeing and the mayor stand out. The horse-shoeing because it was a completely different life, working on the race track where I didn't know a soul. The people who had me shoe their horses were judging me solely by the quality of my work. It wasn't, oh, your dad's governor or senator or anything like that, they didn't know what it was, they didn't know where Rhode Island was. They judged me solely by the quality of the job I was doing, and that was very satisfying, to be able to first of all survive, and second of all to do well on my horses. My horses ran well, and I had some good stables I was shoeing for. One of my horses that I shod set the track record in Edmonton and that gave me a lot of confidence, which served well for future challenges. I can survive in a demanding atmosphere.Then mayor. Being an executive is so different from being on the nine-member city council or the 100-member U.S. Senate. Yes, you have to work with the legislative body. I had to work with a Democratic council, but I put together a team ... and that was fun. That was a great job.
Even now, do you miss that? Changing life for a small group of people rather than working nationally?I've never taught before, but I assume it's satisfying. I remember all my teachers. So this is perfect. It's doing something that's not changing to great extent anything in the world, but I think there's going to be a lot of satisfaction.
Are you considering running for governor in 2010?I know people are talking about that, but it's absolutely not something I'm considering right now. It's four years away, and I'll be focused on just this semester. I'm trying to do a good job with this.
Do you have any regrets about your campaign against Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse?I really don't. I knew what I was up against. I understood the dynamics right from the beginning, that this was going to be a referendum on the Republican leadership of the US Senate. I understood the dilemma Rhode Island voters were faced with.
You've said you think your loss will help the country move in a new direction. Do you think the Democrats are taking full advantage of this opportunity? It's too early to tell, but certainly with the presidential election starting so early, that's going to overshadow anything that Congress does because the candidates are coming out of Congress - McCain and Clinton and Obama.
So you think the 2008 presidential race will impede Congress' progress?Yeah, there's going to be different agendas, rather than focusing on what is in the best interest of the United States of America. There will be dueling agendas mixed in.
What do you think about President Bush's recent announcement to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq?To me it sounds as though he doesn't have the support of the military on this. This is a decision he's making as commander in chief. Certainly the military respects the chain of command and he won't hear from those in uniform. But the retired officers are those we'll be hearing from.
Do you have parting thoughts about the months ahead? It's great to be here, it really is. I'm very fortunate. I'm looking forward to my study group. I'm a little bit scared, but it's still good.
