The press won’t have Linc Chafee to kick around any more. (If you don’t that historical reference, go here for Richard Nixon’s legendary “last press conference” of 1962.)
Anyway, the tripartisan Chafee, a former mayor, governor and U.S. senator who during his career was elected as a Republican and an independent and this year sought the Democratic nomination for president, has acknowledged the obvious (that he will not be the nominee) and withdrew this morning from the race.
Chafee never registered in the polls, was barely noticed until the first Dem debate, after which he was mostly mocked. But I have to confess, I respect and admire what he did in his strange political career, which included being the one and only Republican to vote no on the resolution authorizing the Iraq War.
He was also mocked (although I don’t see why) for wanting to make a campaign issue out of advocating that the United States switch to the metric system. I also learn from this NPR piece covering his withdrawal press conference that after college he worked for several years as a farrier, which (I also learn) is a term for someone who shoes horses.
Metric System
//He was also mocked (although I don’t see why) for wanting to make a campaign issue out of advocating that the United States switch to the metric system.
The U.S. *should* switch to the metric system and join the rest of the world, but that likely runs counter to the idea of American Exceptionalism. It might also be a part of Agenda 21. It has to be some sort of plot……
He was probably mocked because it was a topic that would require people to think a little, to examine to pros and cons, to actually engage in an issue of relevance to the nation. That, of course, does not fit into the concept of how most media outlets cover election topics. If it cannot be sound-bite spoon fed, it cannot be covered. (Yeah, the rain is making me a little cynical today 🙂 ).
To Be Expected
Senator Chafee is a decent, honorable man, but I never quite understood why he was running for President.
Apparently
neither did he.
In a Different Era
Lincoln Chafe might have been a viable candidate,…
though even then, the party switch and his focus on what can only be described as fringe of the fringe issues,…
would have left party regulars disconnected from and likely suspicious of him,…
and regular folk scratching their heads wondering who he was and why he was in the race;…
much the same as today.
Shoeing horses
…is hard, often nasty work, since horses sometimes don’t take kindly to someone digging stuff out of their hooves before nailing steel plates to them. Chaffee gets points from me for doing that, even if his candidacy went nowhere. I’d be on board with going metric, too, even though I don’t use those units of measurement myself at present. Nothing wrong with learning a new system that’s more widely-recognized and precise. We ought to catch up to the rest of the industrialized world on that front.
I just don’t think …
… that he stepped up. He was certainly leaps and abounds above Jim Webb in his debate performance, but of the three lesser known candidates only Martin O’Malley proved he could hold his own onstage next to Sanders and Clinton. A candidate has to end a debate by leaving viewers and potential voters with a sense of his/her personality. I just don’t think we got that from him.
I did admire his honesty. Admitting he didn’t leave the Republican party, the Republican party left him took guts. Given recent GOP implosions, it may be time for the Republican party leadership to ask why moderates like Chafee no longer feel welcome there.