Lincoln Chafee Presidential Campaign, 2016 (The More Things Changed)

Lincoln Chafee, the 74th Governor of Rhode Island, former United States Senator from Rhode Island, and former Mayor of Warwick, formally launched his 2016 presidential campaign on June 3, 2015 at a speech at the George Mason Center for Politics & Foreign Relations in Arlington, Virginia. His campaign marked the first time a candidate from Rhode Island had sought the nomination of a major party.

Background
Chafee's father, John Chafee, was the senior United States Senator from Rhode Island; he had intended to retire, and not seek reelection in 2000, and Lincoln had intended to run to win his father's seat the same year. On October 24, 1999, however, John Chafee died, and Republican Governor Lincoln Almond appointed his son to fill the vacancy. Due to the proximity between his appointment and the scheduled election in 2000, no special election was called. Chafee was elected to his seat outright with a 57% majority against his Democratic opponent, U.S. Representative Robert Weygand.

Chafee was seen as the most liberal Senator of his party, and faced a tough primary battle against Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey in 2006, which he won by a 55 to 45 percent margin. His battle with Laffey in the primary significantly drained his campaign funds, and Chafee lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, one of six Republican seats lost when Democrats regained their majority in the midterm elections of 2006.

After his Senate loss, Chafee left the Republican Party, saying, "it's not my party anymore". After a hiatus from politics, he announced his candidacy for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2010 election; in a seven-way race, Chafee won the governorship with 36 percent of the vote. Having previously indicated the possibility that he might run for re-election for Governor as a Democrat, Chafee officially joined the Democratic Party in February 2012, shortly after being named one of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign co-chairs.

He chose to run for re-election in 2014, and faced a tough primary fight against Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. After winning the primary, he won the general election with just over 45% of the vote against the Republican nominee, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, and Moderate Party nominee Robert J. Healy.

Ten Points for Prosperity through Peace

 * No Ambassadorship for Sale
 * No Torture
 * No Warrantless Wiretapping
 * Bring Edward Snowden home
 * No Drone Strikes
 * Fair Trade Agreements
 * Reduce Tensions with Russia
 * Repair Relations with Latin America and End the War on Drugs
 * Ban Capital Punishment
 * Go Metric

Governor Chafee's campaign was often centered on foreign policy, and consistently took more strident antiwar positions than his primary opponents. He initially outlined his "Ten Points for Prosperity through Peace" as the basis of his campaign.

Fundraising
Governor Chafee's campaign relied heavily on small donors. However, three SuperPACs supported his candidacy:, which was founded by CGeneral Campaign Chairman Lawrence Lessig and led by anti-corruption advocate Cyrus Patten, Honesty PAC, led by longtime Chafee staffer and advisor Kenny Alston, and.

By the time Chafee suspended his campaign on March 6, he reported $13,418,135 in receipts.

Caucuses and Primaries
Immediately following his announcement at George Mason, Chafee attended a pre-scheduled event with local Democrats in Grafton county, New Hampshire. Because of his longstanding New England ties, and proximity to Rhode Island, New Hampshire became the crux of his campaign's strategy over the Iowa caucuses, where he finished in a distant 5th place.

In the February 9th New Hampshire primary, the three top-polling candidates in the state - Governor Chafee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and New York Congressman Bernie Sanders - finished in a near-tie. The results of the primary were not certified until the following afternoon, where Chafee finished in 2nd place, behind Sanders and ahead of Clinton by only a few thousand votes.

Chafee's campaign did not significantly contest the Nevada caucuses or the South Carolina primary election, despite winning delegates in each, choosing instead to focus on the Super Tuesday contests in Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Colorado, where he and his staff believed they had a greater chance of victory.

After being unable to replicate his the success of his near-win in New Hampshire and failing to carry a single state in the March 1st Super Tuesday contests, Chafee won the Maine caucuses on March 5th, giving much-needed lift to his campaign. Encouraging preliminary results from the Democrats Abroad primary - later confirmed as a win - further bolstered his campaign, which he sought to capitalize on with publicized international foreign policy trips. Chafee suspended his campaign on April 26th, following the Acela primary contests and failing to carry his home state of Rhode Island.

Foreign Policy
Chafee was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against authorization of the use of force in Iraq. On June 22, 2006, he was the only Republican to vote for the Levin amendment calling for a nonbinding timetable for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Chafee voted against the Kerry-Feingold amendment calling for a binding timetable.

In November 2006, immediately following the midterm elections, Chafee joined key Democrats in opposing President Bush's renomination of John Bolton as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. On December 4, 2006, the White House announced that Bolton would no longer seek the appointment, and would resign within a matter of weeks.

Chafee has been a consistent critic of what he termed the prevailing attitude of arrogance and recklessness on matters of war and peace that characterized those years [of the Bush administration.]

Despite being a frequent supporter of free-trade agreements, he has stated that he would have the Trans-Pacific Partnership re-negotiated, particularly to lessen the restrictions on copyrights and patents.

International Trips
From March 10th through 14th, March 27th through April 3rd, and April 10th through April 13th, Chafee underwent a Lincoln Chafee International Trips, 2016 (The More Things Changed)series of international trips to bolster his foreign policy credentials. The three legs of his trips were focused on Latin America, Israel and the Middle East, and on Europe.

"The Chafee Corollary"
During his March 10th speech at Rafael Landívar University, he gave what was he termed the "Manifest Obligation" - dubbed the "Chafee Corollary" by members of the press - that called for a focus on Latin America and the obligation of the United States to protect and aid the rest of the Americas, stating: "'Under the Monroe Doctrine, first articulated over 200 years ago, the United States claimed the Americas were our own domain to protect or conquer this continent as we pleased. We then claimed a Manifest Destiny, to claim land as though it were a divine imperative. In the past century, neoconservatives claimed wars of intervention, for the sake of supporting brutal anti-Communist dictators as though it were a humanitarian imperative. It was not true. In this new century of progress and openness, we have an obligation to wage peace in our hemisphere. It is our own imperative for this new century.'"

Domestic Policy
While serving in the U.S. Senate, Chafee was characterized as a "moderate Republican." Later, as governor of Rhode Island, he pursued a centrist agenda that alienated special interests on both the left and right, "from unions to the state's Roman Catholic bishop." On domestic issues, he advocated for a general policy of pragmatic fiscal conservatism and liberal social policies.

'''Citizen Equality Act of 2017
The Citizen Equality Act was the centerpiece of Chafee's campaign finance and electoral reform program, largely crafted and promoted by senior advisor Lawrence Lessig. Among its provisions, the act would:
 * Restore and strengthen voting rights (including automatic registration and making election day a holiday);
 * End gerrymandering by replacing current single-member districts with independently determined, multi-member districts in which ranked choice voting is used to achieve better representation of all citizens' views;
 * Establish "citizen-funded elections," in which each citizen is given a voucher to distribute public funding in a decentralized way, with matching funds for small donations out of pocket as well; and
 * Put strong limits on the revolving door between government work and lobbying.