Lincoln Chafee Doesn't Want to Eat Alone at Party
The Former Republican Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee is now running as an independent for governor of Rhode Island and has his sights set on a John Zogby prediction of a centrist third party. He thinks that’s what is motivating Evan Bayh’s retirement.
Has anyone ever in history predicted the emergence of a third party that’s not wholly representative of their own personal ideology? Though Bayh’s proposal for a monthly lunch of all 100 senators eerily recalls Chafee’s own lonely lunch room account he described to John Stewart.
Lunch must be the real problem for the moderate senator.
Bayh’s proposed reforms are a really odd mix. Ideas like a scheduled lunch reveal naive and unrealistic assessments about the power of deliberation and sit next to pro-majoritarian calls to make it harder to filibuster. But maybe the weirdest comment was the anti-democratic lament about how incumbent members of Congress just don’t try and help rival partisans get reelected anymore.
