There are a lot of dim bulbs in the Senate, and there's a lot of competition for the dimmest (Patty Murray, Babs Boxer, Jim Jeffords, Susan Collins come immediately to mind, and I'm sure that there are others), but my impression from every interview with him that I've ever heard is that Lincoln Chafee is not qualified (in Jonah Goldberg's famous quip) to be a spell checker in an M&M factory. The Conways have a roundup of his political prospects this fall, including some other oatmeal-brained commentary from him:

Laffey described Chafee's views on the region as "two standard deviations outside of American and Rhode Island thought." In an effort to make the point, he quoted Chafee's own words questioning the legitimacy of what the senator termed American "gripes" with Iran's nuclear program...Chafee, he said, "doesn't get it at all" that "there are some really bad people in the world."

They're upset that the National Republican Senatorial Committee continues to support him against the much more conservative Laffey, presumably on the assumption that he's the only Republican (to the infinitesimal degree that he is) that can win Rhode Island. But here's where the dim bulbedness comes into play. According to them, if even with the support of the NRSC, he loses the nomination, he'll run as an independent.

But that would seem to me to result in a Republican win, because an independent (and liberal) Chafee would split the liberal vote with the Democrat candidate, whereas the Republicans would coalesce around Laffey. So this really is a fight worth waging, and it not only doesn't necessarily risk a Senate seat for Republicans, but it might be an opportunity to replace Chafee with a real Republican, and provide a lesson to the other RINOs.

Chaffee got the senate post by inheriting it from his father. Shows what the old excess of blueblood inbreeding will give you

It isn't clear that Chafee would only get liberal votes. He'd probably get a lot of the "I'm not a mean Repub" votes. Chafee's primary campaign would probably create a lot of them.

With that split, why would libs vote for Chafee when they could win with a real lib, one who won't vote for a Repub majority leader?

Even if Laffey won the Republican primary (definitely possible because of the low number, around 25,000, of expected GOP primary voters), he'd still likely lose in a 3-way race against Chafee and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. Republicans make up only 11% of registered voters in RI, compared to 38% for the Democrats, and 51% as Independents (very similar to Massachusetts).

Even if Laffey got half (the minimum he'd need) of the Independents and all of the GOP, he'd barely have enough to win, assuming Chafee and Whitehouse split the remaining voters evenly.

Now, most Rhode Island independents are fairly moderate to liberal like the states around it (MA, CT, NY), and if they had the choice between Laffey, Chafee, and Whitehouse, few would pick Laffey over those two.

Bottom line: Even in a 3-way race, it'll either be Chafee or Whitehouse representing RI in 2007.

The statement above me is correct...I'm guessing the writer of the original post is not from Rhode Island, otherwise he'd know the solid Republican vote is negligible and would have little impact in his ridiculous scenario. Chafee will sweep the GOP Senate primary in September because most Rhode Islanders view it as the only contested race now that Brown dropped out and endorsed Whitehouse. It's true Chafee has more support from Independents than registered Republicans, which is exactly why he will defeat Laffey.

The statement above me is correct...I'm guessing the writer of the original post is not from Rhode Island, otherwise he'd know the solid Republican vote is negligible and would have little impact in his ridiculous scenario. Chafee will sweep the GOP Senate primary in September because most Rhode Islanders view it as the only contested race now that Brown dropped out and endorsed Whitehouse. It's true Chafee has more support from Independents than registered Republicans, which is exactly why he will defeat Laffey.

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