Lincoln Chafee

Lincoln Chafee

Lincoln Davenport Chafee (born March 26, 1953 in Warwick , Rhode Island ) is an American politician . From 1999 to 2007 he was the US Senator for the state of Rhode Island and served as its governor from 2011 to 2015 . After being a Republican until 2007 , Chafee was a Democrat from 2013 to 2019 and ran in their 2016 presidential primary. In 2018 he considered running for the US Senate again. He has been registered as a supporter of the Libertarian Party since 2019 .

Family, education and work

Chafee's great-great-uncle Henry F. Lippitt was the US Senator for Rhode Island in the 1910s, and his father John was the Governor and US Senator for the state. Lincoln Chafee attended public schools in Warwick and studied at Brown University , from which he graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies . He also attended Montana State University , where he took courses in farriery .

Chafee began his professional career as a farrier at harness racing tracks in Kentucky , Florida and Alberta ( Canada ) (1976-1983). 1983 worked as a planner at the defense company General Dynamics , from 1986 to 1990 at its subsidiary Electric Boat . In the meantime he was employed by the companies Cranston Print Works and Rhode Island Forging Steel .

Chafee is a member of the Episcopal Church of the United States . He is married and has two daughters, including the sailor and Olympian Louisa Chafee , and a son. He lives in Warwick, Rhode Island with his wife Stephanie.

Political career

Beginnings

In 1985, Chafee was a delegate to the Rhode Islands Constituent Assembly . 1992 to 1999 Chafee held the office of mayor of his hometown Warwick. He had previously been a member of the city council there from 1986 to 1992. Chafee resigned from mayor when he was appointed by Governor Lincoln Almond on November 2, 1999 to take the vacant seat of his late father, John Chafee, in the US Senate .

US Senator 1999 to 2007

Chafee was re-elected in the 2000 Senate election. In the Senate, Chafee often voted against the conservative majority within the Republican faction and against the policies of President George W. Bush . In 2002, he was the only Republican to be among the 23 senators who voted against the resolution authorizing President Bush to start the Iraq war . Since he failed to be re-elected in the 2006 Senate election , he was replaced on January 3, 2007 by the Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in the Senate.

From 2006 to 2008, Chafee was a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. In September 2007, Chafee left the Republican Party. In February 2008, he declared his support for the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama .

Governor 2011 to 2015

In November 2010, Chafee ran as an independent candidate in the gubernatorial election . He prevailed with 36.1 percent of the vote against the Republican John Robitaille (33.6 percent) and the Democratic Treasury Secretary of Rhode Island, Frank T. Caprio (23 percent), who was not supported by President Obama . Thus, in January 2011 he succeeded the Republican Donald Carcieri, who was no longer running for term restrictions .

On May 29, 2013, Chafee announced that he had joined the Democratic Party. In September 2013, Chafee announced that he would not run again in the November 2014 gubernatorial election. On January 6, 2015, he was replaced by the Democrat Gina Raimondo .

2016 presidential candidacy

On June 3, 2015, he announced that he was running for nomination as the Democratic candidate for the 2016 US President election . There, at best, he was given the chance of being an outsider for the party's top candidacy; it never achieved more than the low single-digit percentage values ​​in opinion polls. On October 23, 2015, he withdrew his application.

Withdrawn Senate candidacy 2018

Many observers considered Chafee's political career to be over after his presidential candidacy. In the spring of 2018, he expressed interest in a renewed bid for his former seat in the Senate of the United States in the election in November 2018 after supporters of the left Bernie Sanders him had asked. In May Chafee said the chances stood at 90 percent, that it in the code antrete the Democrats against the current Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Whitehouse had defeated the then Republican Chafee in 2006 with a more left-wing political orientation, while in 2018 Chafee was treated as a more independent and left-wing candidate - especially on foreign and security issues. At the end of May 2018, Chafee decided not to run after his call for sanctions to be relaxed against Russia drew criticism.

Change to the Libertarian Party 2019

In early June 2019, Chafee announced that he had registered as a supporter of the Libertarian Party in Wyoming (where he had purchased real estate) . He declared that he was and always was a libertarian - conservative in fiscal policy and left-wing liberal in social policy .

Publications

• Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President. St. Martin's Press, New York, April 2008, ISBN 9780312383046

Web links

Commons : Lincoln Chafee  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Lincoln Chafee in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Lincoln Chafee in the National Governors Association (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Lincoln Chafee's Biography at Vote Smart
2. ↑ Daughter of ex-presidential hopeful Chafee heads to Olympics , Feb 25, 2016, USA Today
3. ↑ Entry on Louisa Chafee on www.teamusa.org
4. ↑ ^{a b} Chafee Quietly Quits the GOP. In: Providence Journal , September 16, 2007.
5. ↑ Former Rhode Iceland senator Endorses Obama. In: CNN.com , February 14, 2008.
6. ↑ 2010 General Election. In: RI.gov , Board of Elections, November 17, 2010; Office of Governor-elect Lincoln Chafee Announces Plans for Inaugural. Press release. In: RI.gov.
7. ↑ Alexander Burns: Lincoln Chafee Switches Affiliation to Democrat. In: Politico , May 29, 2013.
8. ^ Governor Chafee of Rhode Island Won't Run Again. In: The New York Times , September 4, 2013.
9. ^ Lincoln Chafee Enters Democratic Presidential Field. In: Bloomberg.com , June 3, 2015.
10. ↑ Laura Reston: Americans Love an Underdog - Just Not Lincoln Chafee, Jim Webb, or Martin O'Malley. In: The New Republic , October 14, 2015.
11. ^ Reem Nasr: Lincoln Chafee drops out of 2016 Democratic presidential race. In: CNBC.com , October 23, 2015.
12. ^ Dylan McGuinness: Lincoln Chafee, a political enigma, eyes his old Senate seat. In: The Washington Post , May 13, 2018.
13. ^ John Bowden: Lincoln Chafee rules out primary challenge to Sen. Whitehouse. In: The Hill , May 29, 2018.
14. ^ Edward Fitzpatrick: Make that four political parties for Lincoln Chafee. In: The Boston Globe , June 4, 2019.