Rhode Island: Chafee will likely run for Governor, Laffey and Cicilline out

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Lincoln Chafee will run for the governorship as an independent in 2010. His path is pretty clear right now, as prominent Democrat David Cicilline (mayor of Providence and easily the best candidate the Democrats could have run) has bowed out to run for re-election, as has conservative firebrand Steve Laffey who almost knocked Chafee out in the primary in 2006 before Chafee lost his Senate seat in the general election. The Democrats will be stuck with a machine hack, and the Republicans will nominate a nobody.

I'd have to put this race at at least Lean Independent. I must say I'm looking forward to a Chafee governorship.

http://www.wrni.org/blog/ian-donnis/chafee-verge

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He could win over 50%. With Chafee in, the Republicans clearly stand no chance, so the battle is all the Democrats against Chafee. This means all but the really diehard conservative Republicans (the sort who voted for Laffey in the 2006 primary, but even some of those will switch) will vote for Chafee instead of their own candidate.

But Chafee has an absurdly high approval rating for someone who lost re-election, so it's hard to see him doing worse than 45% or so, which is almost certainly enough to defeat the Democrat (looking like Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts at this point).

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Anybody knows, who are the surviving Republicans in the legislature?  Are they more of Chaffee types, or are they the real thing? If the former, then Chaffee might be able to create some political organization, which these could join. I am just salivating to see a state with the two-party system different from the US one.

Disclaimer: nothing against the Republicans here: I just want to see a rare political event

Six of the 75 members of the House are Republican, and four of the 38 members of the Senate are Republican.

Senate 'Pubs
Dennis Algiere (Minority Leader)
David Bates
Leon Blais
Francis Maher

House 'Pubs
Lawrence  Ehrhardt
John Laughlin
Brian Newberry
John Savage
Joseph Trillo
Robert Watson (Minority Leader)

Well, the numbers I knew, and the names are easy to find. But what are they? Any potential Chaffeestas?

None of the Senators, by their voting records. Didn't bother with the state reps. Rhode Island never really had a liberal Republican tradition anyway; Chafee only came to prominence because of his father, and his father, while not a hardline conservative, was certainly not liberal in the same way Linc is.

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Why doesn't a Chafee run open the door for the Republicans?  I don't get it.  Chafee is a liberal independent who will mostly compete with the Democrat for votes.  Why doesn't this create a void where a Republican could win with 35-40%?  Is it because Rhode Island Republicans think Chafee is actually good?  Or is it because The Republicans don't have a candidate that could get 35-40% in a three way race?

Certainly a bit more than half of them like Chafee (maybe a bit less than half and a few supported him on electability) considering the 2006 primary result. That reduces the maximum Republican percentage against him to about 20% (30% if he ran as a Democrat, but he won't).

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Why doesn't a Chafee run open the door for the Republicans?  I don't get it.  Chafee is a liberal independent who will mostly compete with the Democrat for votes.  Why doesn't this create a void where a Republican could win with 35-40%?  Is it because Rhode Island Republicans think Chafee is actually good?  Or is it because The Republicans don't have a candidate that could get 35-40% in a three way race?

Certainly a bit more than half of them like Chafee (maybe a bit less than half and a few supported him on electability) considering the 2006 primary result. That reduces the maximum Republican percentage against him to about 20% (30% if he ran as a Democrat, but he won't).

Your assuming that republicans run a real candidate. They have no bench in the state. More incumbent legislators lost last year than were elected total. They have 6 seats in the house out of 75. Without Laffey, and with Chafee in the race, its likely you will end up with a freeper.

Well, exactly. That's why I said earlier that the likely result is Chafee: 50%, Generic Dem hack: 40%, Crazy Right-wing nutjob: 10%. 20% is just the maximum, say, if Laffey had run.