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11.8.2000 01:29
Chafee drubs Weygand  Lincoln Chafee wins in his own right the Senate seat to which he had been appointed when his father, John H. Chafee, died last year.
By KATHERINE GREGG Journal State House Bureau To keep the seat he has held since Republican Governor Almond appointed him, on Nov. 2, 1999, to serve the 14 months left in his late father's term, Linc Chafee needed to beat 2nd District Congressman Robert A. Weygand. And the 47-year-old Brown University-educated, blacksmith-turned-mayor of Rhode Island's second-largest city, did that easily. Chafee was leading Weygand, who gave up a relatively safe House seat to enter the race, 57 percent to 41 percent, according to unofficial tallies. For Weygand, a 16-year political career that began with his 1984 election to the state House of Representatives, had come to a halt. Looking out over a roomful of fellow Democrats at the Biltmore hotel last night, a tear staining his right cheek, Weygand congratulated Chafee on "a fine victory." "There are many things that he and I disagree upon on the issues. But the two of us agree very strongly that Rhode Islanders need vision and leadership in Washington that will put the interests of Rhode Island working families first and foremost," Weygand said in a concession speech. "You have raised me up with many hands," a beaming Chafee said when he took center stage at a GOP victory party for him at the Marriott Inn a short time later. To the independent-minded Rhode Island voters to whom he attributed his victory, he said: "You have recognized, as always, that great decisions will be shaped and forged at the center, and that is where I will be." To Weygand and his wife, Fran, he offered "the wisdom of one of my heroes, plainspoken [Union] Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, when he reminded his cheering troops at Appomattox Courthouse: The war is over, the rebels are our countrymen again. So let us come together to do what we can for the state we love." Any chance the Democrats had of winning the seat that Republican John H. Chafee held for 23 years evaporated when the 77-year-old senator died unexpectedly from heart failure on Oct. 24, 1999. The elder Chafee had already announced, the previous March, that he would retire when his Senate term ended in January 2001. The opening in a state where U.S. senators tend to hold onto their jobs for decades set off a feeding frenzy among ambitious politicians, and made Rhode Island one of the early battleground states in the Democratic drive to regain control of the chamber, dominated 54 to 46 now by Republicans. At that point, Weygand may have looked like a good bet against the lone Republican in the race: Linc Chafee, who was then in his fourth term as mayor of Warwick, but had never run outside his home city before. Weygand had been a state lawmaker, lieutenant governor, and two-term congressman who made a name for himself, in 1991, by wearing a hidden listening device that helped the FBI nab then-Pawtucket Mayor Brian Sarault soliciting bribes in exchange for city contracts. In other circumstances, the handsome and articulate Weygand, with an honorary award from the FBI on his political r sum , might have been the easy favorite. But the elder Chafee's death -- and the subsequent appointment of his son to his U.S. Senate seat -- instantly bestowed on Linc Chafee the mantle of incumbency. "This is an obvious attempt to help Mayor Chafee's campaign," state Democratic Party chairman William J. Lynch complained at the time. Chafee's own reaction: "I'm a Republican in a heavily Democratic state. I can't ever imagine a Republican having an advantage in this state." But there was no question Chafee had a revered Rhode Island name, which he capitalized on openly with his "Tradition of Trust" campaign slogan. And he instantly acquired one of the chief advantages of incumbency: the presumption that voters need a good reason to oust an incumbent. And Weygand had other problems. Before tackling Chafee, he had to beat the preferred candidate of his own party leaders -- former Lt. Gov. Richard A. Licht. Before their brutal and expensive primary fight was over, Licht had spent more than $1.1 million pounding Weygand's antiabortion views and branding him a "hypocrite." Weygand won the primary, but emerged battered and broke. Over the next several weeks, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee unleashed a big media blitz on Weygand's behalf. But party leaders back home were slow to endorse Weygand, who had ruffled many feathers over the years and displayed what some partisans considered the ultimate disloyalty with his vote to launch the Clinton impeachment inquiry. Weeks went by before Weygand's fellow Democrats -- U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy -- publicly endorsed him in Rhode Island. Kennedy gave Weygand $1,000. As recently as last week, however, Kennedy stood at Linc Chafee's side -- at an event organized by Save the Bay -- and talked about how proud John H. Chafee must be "looking down today" on a son "who is carrying on his legacy in the Senate and his work on the environment." Weygand tried to expose smudges on Chafee's record as mayor; separate him from the legacy of his father; link him to the right-wing fringe of the national GOP; and paint him as a pawn of certain anti-consumer groups, such as the pharmaceutical industry. But none of the charges seemed to stick to Chafee, not even -- to Weygand's great frustration -- his discovery of a $6,000 discretionary account that Chafee had used, as mayor, to buy presents for the children of city employees at Christmas, make contributions to charities; and buy tickets to tributes to other politicians. Weygand tried to make the case that education financing, Medicare coverage of prescription drugs -- and many other popular programs -- hinged on the election of Democrats like him to Congress. But it was a hard sell against Chafee, who had already voted against his own party for some of the same things. Chafee and his national GOP backers scored with a series of TV ads accusing Weygand of "embroidering the truth" about his Labrador retriever taking the arthritis drug Lodine to make a point about drug prices. But Weygand had an even more basic problem. He had support and money from organized labor, but many of the interest groups that traditionally rally around Democrats were on Chafee's side, including the League of Conservation Voters and the abortion rights lobby. And polls conducted by Brown University for The Providence Journal found Chafee leading Weygand among union members in the trenches. As Election Day neared, the Republican National Committee picked up the bill for the mailing of thousands of over-sized postcards of Chafee shoulder-to-shoulder with the GOP winner of Rhode Island's presidential primary: Arizona Sen. John McCain. . Supporters, closer to home, mailed thousands more get-out-the-vote postcards. Among them: Susan Story, a Republican candidate for a seat in the state House of Representatives, who didn't seem to think much of legislators. "We need someone who understands the complexities of running a city government, not someone who is just another legislator," she wrote. Weygand was the beneficiary of a $50,000 mail campaign, financed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to encourage Election Day turnout for all of the Democrats at the top of the ticket. With little doubt the vice president would take Rhode Island easily, it said: "Al Gore needs more than your vote. He needs a Democratic Congress." The state AFL-CIO also came through, in the final weeks, with a series of mailings. With the little money he had left, Weygand played his last card. He ran a final-week wave of paid TV commercials urging voters to watch the three back-to-back debates the final week of the campaign. He did well. But the debates were not enough to turn the race. By the third week in October, Weygand had raised $2.2 million and spent $2,041,476, more than half of it on his primary race against Licht. Chafee amassed $2.3 million -- including $300,000 in personal funds -- and spent at least $1.6 million: the lion's share after the primary. Surrounded by his family and campaign posters, Weygand told his audience that he didn't know what he might do next. "Governor!" a supporter yelled. It caught on. "Go, Bob, Go!" -- With reports from staff writers Peter B. Lord and Jennifer Levitz
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