PROVIDENCE -- With less than a week remaining in the Republican Senate primary contest, the TV airwaves are crackling with charges, countercharges and, in incumbent Lincoln D. Chafee's case, a newly launched parade of tributes from people his campaign refuses to identify.

From the Club For Growth, the conservative, Washington-based advocacy group backing challenger Stephen P. Laffey, one hears that Chafee is "so out of touch . . . he opposed a tax cut for you while he backed a pay raise for politicians." (The response from the Chafee camp: "Senator Chafee DID NOT vote for the most recent pay raise.")

From Chafee's backers at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, one sees the "wheel of fortune" for Cranston homeowners: "Three property tax increases . . . One increase of nearly $500 per homeowner." (Laffey says he rescued the city from the brink of financial disaster.)

And then came something completely new and different in the Chafee-Laffey race headed for a Sept. 12 finish:

In an effort to shed light on Laffey's "temperment," former Cranston City Councilman Randall A. Jackvony, along with Chafee's campaign manager, provided The Journal with a three-year-old voice mail in which Laffey uses profanity to yell at Jackvony for speaking out against him.

The release of the expletive-laced voice message -- at this stage of the campaign -- was denounced as irrelevant and "ridiculous" by the Laffey campaign. But the Chafee camp said the tape reveals Laffey as a mean-spirited man who trounces upon those who don't see things his way.

In August of 2003, Jackvony publicly criticized the mayor for hiring his 59-year-old former campaign manager as a summer intern, a move that Jackvony and other council members said circumvented their wishes.

After Jackvony's comments appeared in The Journal, Laffey apparently called Jackvony, leaving a message.

"Randy it's Laffey. I'm really [expletive] off. I'm calling you directly. I don't need [expletive] comments like that in the paper, at all. I never need them, on small issues like that. I need your [expletive] help."

Laffey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik had this response to the release of the tape: "Regarding Randy Jackvony, while only he can understand why he kept a voice mail for three years, we hope he's doing well.

"Regarding Senator Chafee," she said, "Senator Chafee is disgracing the office of the United States Senate by spending the last five days of his campaign digging through private conversations and throwing mud instead of talking about the real issues and real problems that people struggle with. Mayor Laffey only feels pity for him. We all await the next ridiculous attack."

Jackvony said he released the tape now because of the way Laffey presented himself during a recent televised debate.

"I don't go around thinking of ways to get back at people. I did this to show what kind of person Laffey really is," Jackvony said. "He's trying to portray himself as this calm, senatorial person.

"I think what you hear there is the true Laffey," he said.

In 2002, Laffey and Jackvony had campaigned together. But shortly after taking office they had a falling out. Two years later, a candidate backed by Laffey defeated Jackvony in a primary.

"He wanted somebody that was a yes-man on the council and I wasn't prepared to do that," Jackvony said yesterday.

Since his 2004 primary defeat, Jackvony, 32, has stayed out of politics but writes a column every other week for the Cranston Herald.

"Steve Laffey tries to portray himself as a person who is battling political bosses when, in reality, his behavior in Cranston was exactly that," Jackvony said. "He was trying to be a political boss by controlling the votes of the Republicans on the council."

Chafee's campaign manager, Ian Lang, added that the voicemail "speaks to his temperament and character."

"When he was challenged, when someone brought up that this was not appropriate, this is how he reacted," Lang said. "I think that speaks to his character that when someone is going to say: 'We're not going to agree with you' . . . he lashes out."

The warring TV ads are aimed at scoring points with undecided voters as primary day approaches.

The NRSC ad reminds viewers that Cranston taxes were raised three times during the mayoral tenure of Laffey, who has promised no new taxes at the federal level.

Earlier, the Republican committee said: "One of [his] first official duties as mayor was to raise taxes 12.8 percent, approximately $490 for a home valued at $150,000. . . . Unfortunately, for Cranston taxpayers, that hike was on top of an 11.5-percent increase property taxpayers had already seen that year."

In subsequent years, the widely distributed NRSC memo said: Laffey proposed budgets requiring additional tax increases of 3.5 percent and then 4.5 percent. The latter was whittled down by the Cranston City Council to 3.7 percent.

Overall property, motor vehicle and inventory tax dollars collected in Cranston rose from a projected $105.6 million before Laffey took office in Jan. 2003 to $144 million in 2005, according to documents provided yesterday by the state Office of Municipal Affairs.

Yesterday, Cranston spokeswoman Robin Muksian Schutt said: "The number collected went up because the base went up . . . i.e. number of homes taxed, number of homes improved, and that multi-families increased at a higher rate than single families during revaluations."

After a revaluation, Cranston is one of 12 communities dropping their tax rate this year; in Cranston's case from $23.23 to $14.58 per $1,000 of assessed value. With the rate cut, the tax levy is expected to drop from $158 million to $155.7 million.

The competing Club For Growth ads hit Chafee for voting against the Bush tax cuts, while voting in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to table U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold's annual efforts to block the automatic cost-of-living adjustments that raised Senators' pay from $145,100 in 2000 to $165,200 today.

Questions about those earlier votes went unanswered, but last night the Chafee camp issued this statement: "In 2005, Senator Chafee voted against giving members of Congress a pay raise, because he believed that under those fiscal circumstances a balanced budget was far more important."

Of the Club for Growth's oft-stated allegation that Chafee voted for "over a trillion dollars" in higher income, Social Security and gas taxes, a Chafee spokesman said: "First and foremost, in his seven years in the Senate, Senator Chafee has never voted for a tax increase." The accusations made by Laffey and the Club for Growth pertain to votes against tax cuts."

Late yesterday, Lang acknowedged Chafee's vote to raise the top tax rate by 1 percentage point over five years to pay for increased military expenditures in Iraq and said: "This minor increase would have applied to those making over $319,000. In a time of war and record deficits, Senator Chafee did not believe that all of the tax cuts could be maintained."

kgregg@projo.com / (401) 277-7078

smayerow@projo.com / (401) 277-7513