Bernstein on politics: Lincoln Chafee and dynastic politics

A note on Lincoln Chafee. He said Friday that he was dropping out of the presidential race. I’d say that he finally admitted that he wasn’t really running in the first place. He campaigned a bit more than his fellow ex- candidate Jim Webb, but never enough to deserve to be treated as a real candidate.

I’m trying to make a distinction, but I’m struggling to get it right. The problem with Chafee wasn’t that he had no chance of winning (though that’s also true), but that he wasn’t doing the sorts of things that presidential candidates do. Contrast that with, say, Martin O’Malley, whose odds of winning are probably zero, but who really is running.

At any rate, Chafee deserves to be remembered for giving perhaps the single worst answer in the history of presidential debates when he disavowed a vote he cast in the Senate by saying that he was a really new senator at the time. Suggesting a campaign slogan: “Chafee: Ready From Day … Let Me Get Back To You On That One.”

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