Rhode Island's junior senator is feeling pressure from both sides: on Thursday, Democratic Secretary of State Matt Brown announced he will seek the Republican's seat.

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, February 5, 2005

BY JOHN E. MULLIGAN
Journal Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- In a possible preview of a tough reelection race next year, Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee has been targeted by a conservative TV advertising campaign meant to spur him to support President Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security.

The Club for Growth, a political organization that has attacked moderate Republicans and helped to defeat the Democratic leader of the Senate last year, will press Chafee to endorse Mr. Bush's proposal in an ad scheduled to cover the Rhode Island television market starting next week.

While announcing the ad campaign, aimed at Chafee and two moderate Republican House members, the group's leader pointedly opened the door to financing a conservative challenge to Chafee in the 2006 Republican primary.

"It has not escaped our attention that Senator Chafee has a reelection campaign coming up, and possibly a primary," Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, said as he announced the ad campaign. The ads are part of mounting efforts by the political left and right to influence lawmakers on Social Security.

Asked to respond to the advertising, Chafee spokesman Steve Hourahan said the senator will "keep an open mind" about the various Social Security plans, and work with a bipartisan group of senators and with the administration "to improve and strengthen Social Security."

Coming in the same week that Rhode Island Secretary of State Matthew A. Brown became a Democratic candidate in the Senate race, the Club for Growth's announcement was a fresh sign that Chafee's reelection race will be among the nation's most closely watched next year.

National Democrats view Chafee as one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for reelection. They have also indicated that they view the coming Social Security debate as a key battleground in their effort to recover from their political defeats last year at the hands of Mr. Bush and the GOP.

The Club for Growth campaign is not political attack advertising. The ad features cheery shots of a grandfather at a child's birthday party and a young construction worker. It argues that the way to preserve Social Security is Mr. Bush's proposal, with its plan for younger workers to put some of their Social Security tax into personal investment accounts.

The ad urges viewers to call upon Chafee to support Mr. Bush's plan.

The ad does not criticize Chafee. In fact, Toomey said he chose Chafee and the two representatives -- Joe Schwarz of Michigan and Sherwood Boehlert of New York -- because they have all declared "their willingness to consider" Mr. Bush's approach, but have also expressed some skepticism about it.

"We consider them persuadable and we want to persuade them," Toomey said. He added that the ads are also "a blunt reminder that the Club for Growth is paying attention to how members [of Congress] vote and how members weigh in on this issue."

Toomey was asked whether the Club for Growth would finance a primary challenge against Chafee if it judges that he has not supported Mr. Bush's initiative strongly enough. "Let's see," Toomey answered, adding that it is too early in the election cycle to decide such a matter.

That marked a significant shift for the group, which advocates tax cuts and other conservative policies. Last summer, its previous president, Stephen Moore, ruled out backing a primary run against Chafee on grounds that the relatively liberal senator is a better bet to back the club's free-market philosophy occasionally than any Democrat would be.

Last year, the group supported Toomey, then a Republican congressman, in his unsuccessful primary contest against Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter. Like Chafee, Specter is part of the dwindling band of GOP moderates from the Northeast who sometimes buck their party and Mr. Bush.

Toomey, who grew up in East Providence, made clear that he is aware of how Chafee angered Rhode Island Republicans last year with his public agonizing over his protest vote against President Bush on Election Day.

Daniel Keating, executive director of the Club for Growth, did not give a figure for the cost of the Chafee ad in what may eventually be a $10-million campaign on the Social Security issue. He said, however, that the ad will run for at least a week on leading television outlets in the Rhode Island market -- WLNE, WPRI, WJAR and WNAC -- and be seen 10 times by the average viewer.