Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island has left the GOP and is now a registered independent.
There isn't any major political angle to this. Chafee was the ultimate RINO, not even voting for President Bush in the 2004 elections. It was well known that he only was maintaining his GOP membership out of respect for his father, one of the great Rockefeller Republicans, and had he pulled a Jeffords at any time during his tenure in the Senate, he easily would have kept his seat. I don't think this is a precursor to a political comeback, either; while Chafee did not dislike being in the Senate, it never really was his passion, and I don't think he has any desire to engage in another tough war with current Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (who now has the advantage of incumbency in uber-blue RI).
Still, I thought it was interesting that he finally made the jump. I wonder what finally pushed him over the edge?
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