The Weakest Linc Survives

...After Lamont-Lieberman, Laffey-Chafee was already the second biggest Senate primary of 2006...

...He also rebuked the White House...

...Toomey agrees, which is why the zealously anti-tax Club for Growth PAC endorsed Laffey anyway...

...They have absolutely disgraced themselves," he said of the NRSC...

...One poll released in late August found Laffey trailing White-house by more than 30 points...

...Though he denies any partisan interest, McElroy is here at the Crowne Plaza Hotel supporting his hometown mayor, Stephen Laffey, who over the past year has waged a grassroots challenge to incumbent Lincoln Chafee, the most liberal Republican senator...

...Moreover, Laffey signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, while Chafee refused...

...When our judges are going through next cycle," says Nick, "conservatives will be happy about that...

...He wound up winning by 54 percent to 46 percent...

...Perhaps the most disingenuous carped about Laffey's tax increases in Cranston...

...Maybe...

...He also makes an interesting point: What if the NRSC and the RNC had spent their money attacking White-house instead of Chafee...

...He favored the invasion of Iraq but also suggested that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resign to ensure "accountability" for the war's mishaps...

...Boosting turnout was Chafee's strategy: He encouraged Democrats to register as "independents" so they could back him against Laffey...

...Always full of bluster, Laffey vowed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, wean America off foreign oil, fortify the Mexican border, and rein in spending...

...This meant little to the NRSC, which savaged Laffey as a dishonest tax hiker...

...The RNC pumped over $400,000 into voter-mobilization drives, which, along with the NRSC-funded TV blitz, helped drive up Laffey's negatives and may have been the deciding factor...

...Yes, and by a comfortable 8-point margin...

...Still, Rhode Island Republicans are not an especially conservative bunch, and Laffey managed to reach 46 percent despite the scorched-earth tactics of national GOP officials...

...Polls show the two running about even...

...And he was pro-life, which is not an automatic dis-qualifier in Rhode Island, as witness the success and popularity of Republican governor Donald Carcieri (who supported Chafee in the primary...

...By that point, however, Laffey claimed he didn't want any NRSC aid...

...He cannot think of another primary where a Republican faced such an onslaught from the national GOP...

...Rhode Island remains one of the most heavily Democratic and anti-Bush states in the country...

...As it was, the anti-Laffey TV barrage ballooned his negatives...

...And Chafee will help Senate Republicans stay in the majority...

...by Duncan Currie Warwick, Rhode Island "It's been a filthy race," says Jim McElroy, a UPS driver from Cranston, as we await the results of the Rhode Island GOP Senate primary...

...As the mayor credibly points out, the city was on the verge of bankruptcy when he took over...

...Others claimed Chafee was the canary in the coal mine: His fate would be an early warning for other GOP moderates in the Northeast...

...Laffey won endorsements from both the Club for Growth PAC and National Review...

...In a year when control of the Senate hangs in the balance, and when Republicans expect to lose a few seats, the NRSC's robust defense of Chafee makes sense...

...Raising taxes was a virtual necessity...

...It will now be easier for Democrats to paint him as a facilitator of the "radical" Bush agenda...

...The mayor says he also received personal checks from Arthur Laffer and William F. Buckley...

...But if Chafee votes against another Bush Supreme Court pick, conservatives will howl even louder...

...Many conservatives viewed him as the 2006 version of Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania congressman who tried to wrest a GOP Senate nomination from incumbent Arlen Specter in 2004...

...The fact that the White House, the NRSC, the Republican National Committee, and leading GOP senators went all-out for Chafee may not help him in November...

...On the other hand, the manner in which Chafee cut down Laffey reflects a well-oiled GOP turnout machine...

...Some observers portrayed it as a battle for the soul of the Republican party, though that was too sweeping...

...There was no fiscal crisis in Warwick, as there was in Cranston...

...The mayor frequently zinged Chafee as indecisive and "irrelevant," while peddling his renovation of Cranston, a city long plagued by budget woes and corruption...

...The character assassination plan that they executed was really unprecedented," says Toomey, now president of the Club for Growth...

...Media coverage invariably dubbed him the "conservative" challenger, but the mayor eschewed that label, preferring "reformer...

...A few days prior to the September 12 primary, the NRSC announced that, should Laffey win, it would pull out of Rhode Island and concede the general election...

...Voter turnout, at over 62,000, made history for a GOP primary in Rhode Island, topping the previous record (of around 45,000) set in a 1994 gubernatorial race...

...When I spoke to him on Monday night, just hours before the polls opened, he had one message for the committee: "Stay the heck out of Rhode Island...

...This race needed no extra hype...

...Toomey disputes the NRSC charge that Laffey was "unelectable," though he admits Chafee is more likely to defeat Sheldon Whitehouse...

...Washington is a real reformer like myself...

...Contrast that with Chafee, who not only voted against the two big Bush tax cuts but also jacked up taxes while he was mayor of Warwick...

...I can guarantee conservatives will like a Senator Chafee more than a Senator Whitehouse," says Nick...

...That's ridiculous," says McElroy...

...Would he survive...

...The Club for Growth PAC did its best to buoy the challenger, spending over $500,000 on anti-Chafee ads and contributing another $730,000 directly to Laffey's campaign...

...But at least he didn't vote to filibuster, says the NRSC's Brian Nick...

...Laffey even compared himself to Rudy Giuliani...

...Chafee also refused to support Justice Samuel Alito...

...On the one hand, Chafee emerges from a bruising primary and must now face a strong Democratic opponent, former state attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse...

...But Democrats were clearly rooting for a Laffey victory, stresses Nick, even running attack ads against Chafee during the primary...

...Would Laffey have won...

...In a series of TV ads it ripped the mayor on everything from taxes to security to immigration...

...Toomey lost by only two points...

...It might be most accurate to call him a center-right populist...

...NRSC spokesman Brian Nick respects Toomey's gripes, but insists that Laffey simply had no chance in November...

...The last thing that Karl Rove and his buddies want in Duncan Currie is a reporter for The Weekly Standard...

...The chief mud machine was the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which spent $1.2 million trying to derail Laffey...

...He is hard pressed to name issues where Chafee has supported Bush and Senate Republicans, citing the John Roberts nomination and the CAFTA vote plus a few others...

...He sounded upbeat about his prospects but bitter about the way he'd been treated...

...The outcome sends a warning for both parties...

...Steve Forbes held a fundraiser for him in Manhattan...

...Rhode Island lets independents vote in party primaries...

...As the Washington Post noted last Thursday, "Chafee's performance—combined with reports of late-starting organization and internal bickering on the Democratic side—suggest that the Republican advantage on turnout may remain intact even as many other trends are favoring the opposition...

...If so, argues Toomey, Whitehouse would have been weakened and Laffey might have had real momentum...

...But many of its ads were risible...

...These are mean, vicious people...

...McElroy is right: This campaign was among the nastiest Rhode islanders could recall...