Sen. Chafee Forced To Get Tough In Last Days Of Race
2006-09-08
Source: The Day.com
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rss feedRepublican Sen. Lincoln Chafee has cultivated a reputation for civility and diplomacy, working with members of both parties to craft compromises and avoid conflict. Painstakingly polite, he will clean up the table even when he is a guest for coffee.
But faced with tough competition from Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey in Tuesday's Republican primary - the first serious challenge he's had for his Senate seat - Chafee has shown a sharper edge. His TV ads describe his opponent as having an ego "the size of the state of Texas," and in a recent debate Chafee interrupted Laffey repeatedly before deriding him as a "one-man filibuster."
Laffey is known for being blunt, confrontational and sometimes sarcastic, but a similar show of aggressiveness from the normally courteous Chafee seems to have offended some voters, many of whom were drawn to Chafee because of his demeanor.
"Can you do me a favor and make your ads more positive?" one woman said to Chafee as he shook hands with prospective voters this week outside a supermarket here. Still, said the woman who refused to give her name, he had her vote.
Not so for Rajul Patel, 58, of East Greenwich. When Laffey knocked on her door during a recent campaign blitz, she said she was so turned off by Chafee's snappishness during the debate that she would vote for the conservative Laffey in the primary - even though she plans to support Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in the general election.
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