Governor Lincoln Chafee took the political world by surprise last Wednesday, announcing his decision not to seek reelection in the 2014 race for governor. Chafee began his career as a Republican, but in May of this year he formally affiliated with the Democratic Party after serving most of his gubernatorial term as an Independent. Most political commentators viewed his decision to affiliate with the Democratic Party as part of a strategy to improve his reelection chances. However, Chafee’s prospects in the Democratic primary were dim: throughout the summer he trailed competitors State General treasurer Gina Raimundo and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras in fundraising.
Chafee’s poor prospects and his decision to drop out of the race can be attributed to factors beyond his ideological footing, first and foremost being Rhode Island’s high unemployment rate and his low job approval ratings. However, the governor’s choice to “effectively [end his] political career,” as characterized by the New York Times, brings attention to the dwindling number of centrists in politics. The past decade of Chafee’s career provides ample evidence of the no man’s land that moderates must contend with in the current political atmosphere.
Chafee’s tenure as Republican senator from Rhode Island from 1999 through 2007 was an anomaly for today’s Republican Party, and it was his persistent incongruence with the GOP that drove him out of it. Chafee regularly deviated from the party line on the environment, taxes and foreign policy. According to the National Journal’s 2006 vote rankings he was the most liberal Republican in the senate – more liberal than Democratic senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. What was most distinctive of Chafee as a Republican senator was his stubborn criticism of President George Bush, particularly the president’s action in Iraq. Chafee was the only GOP senator to vote against the 2002 resolution giving the president authority to invade Iraq and he denounced Bush’s unilateral approach to the war.
Despite his regular policy disagreements with his party and the president, Chafee reconciled his label as a Republican by citing the similar voting patters of fellow moderate Republican senator, John McCain, and by arguing that Americans want centrist government.
Chafee’s time with the GOP eventually ran its course, however. As Bush’s first term came to a close Chafee criticized the president’s agenda of “energizing the far right-wing base,” and called Bush’s actions divisive. In November 2004 Chafee publicly considered leaving his party and did so in 2007, becoming an independent in his run for governor after losing his senate seat to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
What should be understood is that Chafee was not out of place in the GOP when he was first elected to office in 1986 to the Warwick, Rhode Island City Council. Growing up with today’s congressional politics, observers assume representatives will either hold a Democrat or a Republican party line position on major issues – the environment, gun control, oil. This rigid approach to legislation breeds for-or-against-politics and makes for poor governing because it drives out moderate legislators. Chafee did not fit the mold for the GOP of today, making his time in the Senate and his reelection campaign contentious. Republicans (like Chafee once was), and moderate Democrats are going to become rarer and rarer in politics as they are either ousted or become fed up navigating political waters that insist on conformity to party templates.
In 2005 Chafee was a member of a bipartisan coalition of middle of the road senators referred to as “the Gang of 14.” The group successfully negotiated an agreement that put an end to an organized Democrat filibuster of Bush judicial nominees and prevented a senatorial vote on the “nuclear option,” or the elimination of filibustering as a strategy to stop judicial confirmation votes. Like Chafee, a handful of both moderate Democrats and Republicans of “the Gang of 14” have struggled to keep their seats in the senate in recent years due to their moderate ideologies and voting records.
A Democrat member of the gang, Ben Nelson, announced his decision to retire in December 2011 instead of waging an uphill battle for reelection in red-state, Nebraska. Despite his popularity and having one of the lowest rates of voting with the Democratic majority when he left the senate, Nelson received flack from his conservative constituency for supporting Obama’s healthcare overhaul.
Mike DeWine faced similar struggles to Nelson when he ran for reelection 2006. After serving one term as Ohio senator and nearly two decades a representative in the House he lost his seat to Democrat Sherrod Brown. Though he lost to a Democrat, during his campaign DeWine was criticized for not being sufficiently conservative.
Joe Lieberman left his party to become an Independent after losing the Democratic primary for senate in 2006. The highly liberal primary electorate rejected Lieberman’s support of the Iraq War and chose anti-war Ned Lamont. “The old politics of partisan polarization won today,” he said following his loss to Lamont. Moderate Lieberman was successful with the voters of the general election, however, and retained his seat.
Republican senator from Maine Olympia Snowe chose to retire in 2012 despite high chances of reelection. Snowe is a moderate, liberal on social issues and one of the few Republicans to support abortion rights. She cited intense partisanship in Congress and frustration with take-it-or-leave-it showdowns as her reasons for retirement.
Lastly, Chafee’s circumstance for Senate reelection in 2006 also followed the disadvantageous pattern of many Senate moderates. Conservative Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey, challenged him in the Republican primary, and though Laffey’s chances of winning the general election were negligible, Chafee only won 54 percent of votes in the primary after a hard fought campaign. In the general election Chafee lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, falling victim to the trend of individual senators being held culpable for their political parties in national referendums. Chafee was more popular with Democrats than Republicans in Rhode Island and he was still ousted with a party he scarcely identified with.
In his speech announcing he will not seek reelection for governor, Chafee said he would rather devote the rest of his time as governor to the challenges facing Rhode Island, than focus on a time-consuming campaign. Perhaps Chafee’s stated dedication to governing over ensuring reelection demonstrates his position as a moderate – namely his distaste for trying to appeal to a party base in order to sustain a political career. The unfortunate paradox is that if moderates don’t start to pander more aggressively to voters – of both moderate and extreme ideologies – they will continue to disappear from public office.