In R.I., a Feisty Conservative Challenges Sen. Chafee

COVENTRY, R.I. -- It was getting dark, but Stephen Laffey removed his cap, wiped his sweaty brow and sprinted across the lawn to greet one more voter.

Glenn Myers, stocky and middle-aged, opened the screen door to shake hands with the 44-year-old Cranston mayor. "I believe in you," he told Laffey, who was barnstorming the neighborhood with his wife and five kids and various high school friends. "And I hope you beat the pants off of Lincoln Chafee."

The Laffey-Chafee Republican showdown Sept. 12 is the next chapter in the turbulent 2006 election saga. A spate of primary upsets -- especially Ned Lamont's victory over Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut -- have signaled that no incumbent is safe in a year when voters are agitating for change. With his spirited campaign against Sen. Chafee, Laffey is trying to push that frustration one step further. He wants to turn his race into a referendum on personality and attitude.

Rhode Island is a solidly Democratic state, but it does elect moderate Republicans such as Chafee and his late father, the veteran GOP Sen. John Chafee. During his seven-year tenure, "Linc" has distinguished himself as one of the Senate's least partisan members. Modest and soft-spoken, he has broken with his party on tax cuts, judicial nominations and environmental issues, and he was the only Republican senator to vote against the Iraq war.

In terms of temperament and political style, Laffey is Chafee's opposite -- confrontational and impatient, a working-class kid who scoffs at his opponent's patrician pedigree. Laffey dismisses the senator's careful approach to legislating as a big reason Congress cannot get anything done.

"He's become irrelevant," Laffey said of Chafee in a recent radio debate. "I work hard at good relations with everyone," Chafee responded.

The son of a union shop steward and nurse, and the first member of his family to attend college, Laffey had a successful career as a money manager before running for mayor of his economically beleaguered home town. He gleefully and very publicly challenged Cranston's many entrenched interests, including its costly part-time school crossing guards, who received free health care and pension benefits and collected unemployment during summer break.

Laffey calls Washington "the Cranston crossing guards on steroids." But beyond his calls for tougher, more effective leadership, he is difficult to typecast. He supports the war and opposes abortion and embryonic stem cell research, positions that place him to the right of most Rhode Islanders. He applauds all of President Bush's tax cuts, although he raised taxes to save Cranston from bankruptcy. But he savages the GOP on health care, education and energy policy. Of Bush, Laffey says, "I respect him, but I think he's failed in a number of aspects."

"He's the anti-establishment populist . . . the ordinary man who just wants to fix the mess. And I think this is exactly the right year for that kind of message," said Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth. The group, which advocates conservative fiscal policies, is running ads for Laffey and has raised about $500,000 for his campaign.

Laffey's critics believe he is too coarse to win the general election against Democratic nominee Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general. "He's not warm and fuzzy, and he confronts his opponents," said Darrell M. West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University.

Only about 70,000 voters in Rhode Island are registered Republicans, and they are expected by many political observers to back Laffey by a wide margin. But about 340,000 independent voters are eligible to vote in the primary, and it's not clear how many will show up, or whom they will support. Public and private polls show the race is more or less even, with Chafee needing a big independent turnout to prevail.

One major uncertainty is the Bush factor. The president is deeply unpopular in Rhode Island. Although Laffey is closer to the White House and Congress's GOP leaders on key issues such as the war, Chafee is the candidate of the party establishment, receiving ample support from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and less polarizing administration figures, including first lady Laura Bush, who hosted a Chafee fundraiser.