The GOP’s ShameA Review of Mayor Steve Laffey's Primary mistake

Primary Mistake: How the Washington Republican Establishment Lost Everything in 2006 (and Sabotaged My Senatorial Campaign), by Steve Laffey
(Sentinel, 212 pp., $26)

The positions staked out by Lincoln Chafee during his eight years in the US Senate could inspire enough well-deserved rebuke to fill hundreds of these pages. Alas, a small sampling will have to suffice. On abortion: Chafee misses no chance to tout his 100% rating from the despicable National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). On the role of government: “the reason America’s at the top of the world is our great social programs.” On terrorism and foreign policy: “a bad peace is better than a good war.” Well how do you do, Neville Chamberlain? As a Senator, Chafee actively opposed President Bush and the Republican Party on very nearly every high-profile issue, and famously refused even to vote for the President’s re-election. The “R” next to Chafee’s name (until he ditched the designation this past summer) was always more aptly seen as an inherited title than as a reliable indicator of his worldview.

It is no small wonder, then, when Chafee found himself fighting for his political life in last year’s Republican senatorial primary, that luminous Republicans from across the country could find very little to say on behalf of his qualifications. Chafee’s opponent was one Steve Laffey, then-Mayor of Cranston, and notorious statewide for very public run-ins with public-sector unions and paralytic party hacks.

Laffey is nothing if not a colorful character: blunt, ambitious, funny, capable, and sometimes abrasive. His tenure as Mayor saw a complete turnaround in the city’s finances: junk-bond ratings improved to investment grade, deficits and unfunded liabilities turned into surpluses, and most famously the end of a school crossing-guard program that paid its unionized members 129 dollars per hour for their services. Having fulfilled his pledge to Cranston’s taxpayers, Laffey turned his attention to the national political scene and found a ripe target in Lincoln Chafee.

This is the picture the national Republican Party found itself confronted with in the summer of 2006: an accomplished Mayor, well within the mainstream of his party, challenging an embarrassing and uninspiring incumbent Senator who was considerably to the left of many Democrats. They could have sat tight and waited for a nominee. Or, they could have nominally supported Chafee on the basis of his incumbency, while preserving the option of endorsing the voters’ choice in the general election. Instead, they committed what can only be described as one of the most titanic lapses in common sense and general decency in the history of Republican senatorial politics.

After failing to convince Laffey not to run, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), under the leadership of Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), poured upwards of 2 million dollars into Chafee’s re-election bid. Their strategy was designed with the intent of destroying Laffey’s reputation through means so dishonest and obfuscating as to be insulting to the intelligence of any informed voter. Given that they shared virtually no common ground with Chafee on policy issues, straightforward affirmations of the Senator’s positions were out of the question. Hence, the Chafee campaign carried a vapid and listless air throughout the election season. From Dole’s message to Laffey and his supporters (”we’re not here to defend Linc Chafee”), to the campaign’s own tepid slogan (”Keep Chafee”), it is no small wonder that Chafee lost his seat to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in the general election. As Mayor Laffey would point out, “so much for electability.”

The behavior of the NRSC was so risible that Laffey’s book almost writes itself. Some would suspect sour grapes, and Laffey would certainly be justified in harboring some resentment against an organized broadside that was disproportionate in scale and ludicrous in content. Still, Primary Mistake does not read as a raving screed, but rather as a series of amusing vignettes about a party organization gone terribly wrong, and those who would try to set it right. One of the good guys is the Spectator’s very own Brian Bishop, who hosted numerous conversations with the Mayor on his weekly radio program. Laffey’s description of these on-air adventures is priceless.

One small quibble: Laffey’s final chapter attempts a rather brief analysis of the political woes facing the GOP along with his own policy prescriptions, which he believes would reinvigorate its flagging electoral outlook. Most of these observations are insightful and spot-on target: for example, school choice, border security and competitive reforms in the health insurance market. However, they are altogether too superficial and not entirely comfortable within the scope of the book. Furthermore, Laffey’s justification for such reforms seems to derive almost entirely from economic pragmatism, a stance that seemingly ignores the fact that the GOP’s electoral bread and butter is in the realm of social issues. Americans like visionaries, not technocrats.

Nonetheless, Primary Mistake is a delightful and quick read, sure to entertain, amuse, and enrage the discerning conservative reader. Steve Laffey is a bundle of ideas, energy and talent, and he most certainly has a bright future in politics, should that be what he desires. Let’s hope that next time we do not miss such a perfect opportunity to advance principle over power.