In a recent column titled "One-Letter Politics," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out that "this is a one-letter election. D or R, that's all that matters."
Krugman further argued that Republican abuses of power will only be investigated if the Democrats gain control of one or both houses of Congress. He's right. Around the country, few Democrats are tempted to vote against their party. At a time when our political parties are increasingly polarized, and a fresh GOP scandal seems to make the news every other day, urging Democrats to vote D rather than R seems redundant.
There are always exceptions, however. Rhode Island remains one of the few states where Democratic voters may face a genuine crisis of conscience when they vote tomorrow. Lincoln Chafee '75, Rhode Island's junior Republican senator running for re-election, claims that his values align with those of Democrats. Chafee's opponent, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, claims that re-electing Chafee would maintain the Republican majority in Congress, a notion unpalatable to most Rhode Island voters. Chafee's defense - the only feasible one in a state where President George W. Bush's approval rating is around 22 percent - is to highlight the issues on which he has publicly opposed the president.
Chafee has voted against the war in Iraq and Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, and opposes the president's positions on abortion and stem-cell research. The Chafee campaign is based on persuading Democratic voters that Chafee will represent their interests better than an actual Democrat will.
Even with First Lady Laura Bush campaigning for him, Chafee has joined other Republican candidates in putting as much distance as possible between himself and the president. He is perhaps better able to do so than anyone else, since his voting record and his past statements fully support the claims he is making now.
The trouble is that Chafee is a little like the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass," who has to run as fast as she can just to stay in one place. Though Chafee runs as fast and as far as he can away from President Bush, but he remains just where Bush wants him to be: in a Republican-controlled Senate.
To complicate the issue still more, Chafee is not just a maverick politician. He is an old-fashioned Republican, a dying breed. It was not by chance that when Chafee voted in the 2004 presidential election, he wrote in the name of George H.W. Bush. Chafee belongs to the past of the Republican Party, a past that has almost entirely vanished.
To vote for Whitehouse is to vote for a Democratic senate, but it is also to vote in favor of the further polarization of American politics. Chafee is one of the few threads connecting the Republican Party to reality. As such, he is resented and reviled by his fellow Republicans. In an Aug. 31 article titled "They Shot the Wrong Lincoln," Ann Coulter claimed that the Republican Party was "debasing itself" by supporting Chafee. Coulter calls Chafee a "half-wit," wonders if he was kicked in the head by a horse and says that his failure to switch parties is only due to his stupidity. Coulter's article may be an insane rant, but it does raise an important question. Why does Chafee remain in the Republican Party, where his presence provides support to policies he opposes, and where he is viciously attacked by people like Coulter?
To someone like Chafee, who believes in what the Republican Party once was, abandoning it must seem like fleeing a country for political reasons. Leave too early and you contribute to the problem, too late and you may not be able to save yourself. No one wants to be the rat deserting a sinking ship, but there's not much point in being the boy on the burning deck.
Chafee received much of his support during the primaries from Democrats, many of whom would probably like very much to vote for him for Senate. Unfortunately for Chafee, Krugman is right. This is a year in which Democrats simply cannot afford to vote for a Republican, however much they may prefer him to his opponent.
It will be sad to see Chafee lose the election, but perhaps losing will convince him that he cannot remain a Republican and remain in politics. As a Democrat, he can be a success again in Rhode Island. As a Republican, he can only sacrifice his political future to a party that has already abandoned him.
Katy Crane '07 will be glued to CNN tomorrow.
