White House Brief: Things to Know About Lincoln Chafee

[KoKo]

AP: "White House Brief": Things to Know About Lincoln Chafee
WASHINGTON — Apr 10, 2015, 3:25 AM ET
By KEN THOMAS Associated Press



Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee made a surprise announcement Thursday that he was considering a Democratic presidential campaign in 2016. Key things to know about Chafee:

———

THE BRIEF

Lincoln Chafee has built a reputation as a contrarian in a career that has included holding office as a Republican and as an independent. In the Senate, Chafee often clashed with fellow Republicans during the administration of President George W. Bush, then left the party after he lost his bid for re-election in 2006. Elected governor in 2010 as an independent, Chafee found it difficult to build coalitions among the two parties in the statehouse and did not seek another term in 2014. His decision to explore a presidential campaign perplexed many Democrats.

———

RESUME REVIEW

Chafee hails from a prominent Rhode Island political family. His late father was a U.S. senator and governor and he has at least two other Rhode Island governors and a U.S. senator in his family tree. Chafee got his start in politics as a member of the Warwick, Rhode Island, city council, and later served as mayor during the 1990s. He was appointed to the Senate when his father, Sen. John Chafee, died in office, and the younger Chafee won the seat outright in 2000. Chafee was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in 2006, but he resurrected his career as an independent, winning the governor's office in 2010. Facing poor approval ratings, he became a Democrat in 2013 but opted not to seek re-election.

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PERSONAL STORY

Chafee grew up on an estate in Warwick, where he developed a love of horses and had an early introduction to politics — his father was elected governor when he was 8. As an 11-year-old, Chafee attended the 1964 Republican National Convention and watched Sen. Barry Goldwater claim the party's nomination. Chafee later attended Phillips Academy Andover, where he was a classmate of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. After graduating from Brown University, he worked as a blacksmith at harness race tracks in the U.S. and Canada before entering politics.

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CALLING CARD MOMENT

Chafee was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the war authorization against Iraq in 2002 and it could serve as a key distinction if he runs against likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who voted for it.

At the time, Chafee supported a more narrowly constructed alternative that would have committed the United States to working with the United Nations in disarming Iraq and would have required Bush to come back to Congress for a second vote if he decided unilateral action was the only recourse.

Announcing his presidential exploratory committee, Chafee said the war authorization was a "mistake" and should disqualify anyone who supported it. "I don't think the next president of the United States should have voted in favor of that mistake," he said.

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EARLY STATE ACTION

To date, none. Chafee's decision to explore a campaign came as a surprise to most. He said he intends to reach out to party officials in Iowa and New Hampshire, but he will explore the contest accompanied by a small group of former advisers with few ties to presidential politics. Chafee and his wife, Stephanie, own a home in Laconia, New Hampshire, according to ethics disclosures filed when he was governor.

More at.........

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/white-house-things-lincoln-chafee-30217191

[Bluenorthwest]

1. Compare to how Chafee presents himself, which has no mention of Andover nor the tens of millions...

"Chafee is a 1975 graduate of Brown University, earning a degree in the Classics. A four-year varsity wrestler, Chafee received the Francis M. Driscoll Award for leadership, scholarship and athletics. Upon graduation, Chafee attended Montana State University’s Horseshoeing School and for the next seven years he worked as a blacksmith at harness racetracks throughout the United States and Canada.

From 1983 to 1990, Chafee was employed in manufacturing, including stints at Electric Boat and Cranston Print Works. From 1991 to 1992, he was a professional advocate for clean energy and electrifying the Northeast rail corridor."
https://www.chafee2016.com/about/

Big fake poser.

[KoKo]

2. So...that info can be found on Wiki or a Search...What's the Problem?

Here's Page 2 of AP....

While he spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Chafee only became a Democrat in 2013. In his memoir, he derides a "parade of Democratic Bush enablers" who traveled to Rhode Island to campaign for Whitehouse in 2006, including senators such as Clinton, Harry Reid of Nevada and Chuck Schumer of New York.

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READING LIST

In 2008, Chafee wrote "Against the Tide," a memoir that was critical of the Bush administration and congressional Republicans. He revels in his outsider status, writing about his disillusionment with partisanship in the Senate. The book heaps blame on Republicans and Democrats alike and accuses them of putting party loyalty and ambition ahead of the public good.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. I'm saying his official bio leaves out the vast wealth and family connections, the Estate, schools

and position and paint him as a blacksmith and factory worker. Like GW Bush, the brush cutting rancher who went to college with a valet to attend him. Big fakes.

[KoKo]

4. Was George Bush a Farrier for 7 years?

????? No he was a nasty "Cut Up" who used his father to get him out of serving in Vietnam and bailed him out of his drunken escapades.

JFK's Father was Wealthy.....He served in WWII and he was a great President until assassinated.

Bill and Hillary are now extremely wealthy along with their daughter and son-in-law.

So?

[pnwmom]

5. Don't anyone fall in love unless the idea of privatizing Social Security has great appeal.

With this Congress, if he were President we could count on it.

[OKNancy]

6. Voted to repeal Glass-Steagall

regrets it.

[KoKo]

7. At least that's an admission of mistake in retrospect.

I haven't kept track of what Bill & Hillary regret in their term. Is there anything?

[OKNancy]

9. yes, just like Hillary's Iraq vote, right?

surely you knew that? Oh and it was Bill's term. Not Hillary's.

[KoKo]

10. Bill and Hillary are a Political Couple...

If Bill & Hillary could admit that Bill's DLC support for NAFTA, the DeRegulation of Banking Regulations instituted under FDR, the Commodities Futures Trading Reform & Telecommunications Modernization Act that caused harm to the people of this country then I would be more pro-Hillary.

And, lets not forget "Welfare Reform."

Until then...I think many of us hope for someone who, like Elizabeth Warren will speak out about those issues. The current issue of Drones, NSA, prosecution of Whistleblowers, Militarization of our Police and how a new Dem Administration will deal with an out of control Pentagon and the mess we have made in the Middle East along with "Cold War II" with Russia need to be addressed, ASAP.

These are serious issues that go past "Electing the first Female President" and "Clinton Administration II" longing for the "Good old Days of Tech Bubble" that everyone remembers but, didn't realize that the explosion in growth of new technology was what gave us that great economy that we remember so fondly. The deregulation that was taking place would eventually come home to haunt us and hit the fan during Bush's term with the disaster of Bush/Cheney adding the Invasion of Iraq madly following the PNAC Plan which still seems in practice as we intervene heavily in the MENA quagmire.

If Hillary and Bill can look back and recognize their errors in policy and the ruinous policies that Bush Administration supported...then there would be a very strong case for giving them another chance.

[OKNancy]

12. you don't even know her stance

She was against NAFTA.
study up

[KoKo]

13. Robert Reich disagrees and he was there in the Administration at the time:

Hillary Clinton and NAFTA

Did Hillary Clinton oppose moving forward on NAFTA in 1993? Robert Reich tells what he remembers:

Hillary and Barack, Afta Nafta, by Robert Reich: Was Hillary Clinton really against NAFTA in 1993? I was in the administration then, and I remember her position quite precisely. And I'll get to that in a moment.

---snip

Get me? The Dems shouldn't be redebating NAFTA. They should be debating how to help Americans adapt to a new economy in which no job is safe. Okay, so back to my initial question. The answer is HRC didn't want the Administration to move forward with NAFTA, but not because she was opposed to NAFTA as a policy. She opposed NAFTA because of its timing. She wanted her health-care plan to be voted on first. She feared that the fight over NAFTA would use up so much of the White House's political capital that there wouldn't be enough left when it came to pushing for health care. In retrospect, she was probably right.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/02/hillary-clinton.html

[KoKo]

8. Lincoln Chafee was Co-Chair of Obama's Re-Election Campaign:

Lincoln Davenport Chafee (/ˈtʃeɪfiː/; born March 26, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 74th Governor of Rhode Island from January 2011 to January 2015. Prior to his election as governor, Chafee served in the United States Senate as a Republican from 1999 until 2007. That same year, he left the Republican Party and became an independent.[1] He was the first independent to serve as Governor of Rhode Island since John Collins, who served 1786–1790. On May 29, 2013, he announced he was switching his registration to the Democratic Party.[2] On September 4, 2013, facing low approval ratings, Chafee announced that he would not seek re-election to a second term as Governor.[3]

A Rhode Island native educated at Phillips Academy and Brown University, Chafee worked as a professional farrier for seven years before entering state politics in 1985. This seven year period shoeing horses, during which he became the most sought after blacksmith in his village, made him the obvious choice for delegate to the Rhode Island State Constitutional Convention, a member of the Warwick, Rhode Island city council, and later the mayor of Warwick. Chafee was appointed to the United States Senate in 1999 upon the death of his father, Senator John Chafee, and was elected in the 2000 Senate election for a full six-year term. In 2006, he ran for re-election but lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.

Chafee was a supporter of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential bid and was a co-chair of Obama's re-election campaign. On January 4, 2010, Chafee declared his intent to run for Governor of Rhode Island.[4] Prior to entering the gubernatorial race, he was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

On April 9, 2015, Chafee announced that he was exploring a possible run for President of the United States as a Democrat in 2016.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Chafee

[cali]

11. I didn't know Belichick went to Andover.

[PassingFair]

14. He's got my primary vote, if he runs.

If my choice is Clinton, O'Malley and Sanders, then
I'm voting for Chafee.

I think he would stand a better chance in the national election than any of the others.

[KoKo]

15. ...1