A formal announcement by the 49-year-old former attorney general and U.S. Attorney is expected Monday.

01:00 AM EST on Friday, April 1, 2005

BY KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island's former attorney general and U.S. Attorney Sheldon Whitehouse advised close family and friends earlier this week that he has decided to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Lincoln D. Chafee.

Barring the unexpected, Whitehouse's long-anticipated entry into the closely watched Senate race guarantees the spectacle of a two-man fight for the Democratic nomination to take on Chafee in November 2006.

A formal announcement by the 49-year-old Whitehouse is expected Monday, but he signaled his decision in a series of e-mails in which he foresaw that U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy would pull himself out of the running before the week was out.

Whitehouse advised these supporters on Tuesday he had already opened a campaign account and hired well-known Washington political consultant Mike Donilon.

"We are down to days, perhaps hours, from Patrick Kennedy's decision, and I am prepared to enter the Senate race very shortly after that," he wrote.

"I anticipate having the active and energetic support of both congressmen," he said of Rhode Island's two Democratic U.S. Representatives Kennedy and James Langevin who cleared the field for him by announcing, one after another, that they would not seek the seat themselves.

Facing a potentially costly primary contest against Secretary of State Matthew Brown, the only announced Democratic candidate for Chafee's Senate seat so far, Whitehouse also took the occasion to state the obvious: "I will have to become a fundraising demon in the new quarter, which will bring you expensive requests for contributions, contacts and so forth."

On Wednesday, he gave his supporters the go-ahead sign with an e-mail that said: "Dear All. Patrick called me this morning to let me know he would not be running and to express his support. Avanti!! Sheldon."

Whitehouse was unavailable for comment yesterday, but David Preston, his interim spokesman and former colleague in the administration of former Gov. Bruce G. Sundlun, confirmed Whitehouse's plans to formally announce his decision on Monday.

When asked whether the Washington-based Donilon, a top adviser to Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign who also worked on the Rhode Island campaigns of U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, was already on the Whitehouse campaign payroll, Preston said: "Mike would be part of any Whitehouse campaign team."

(Preston said the Rhode Island race would be one of two high-profile races for Donilon, who has also signed on to work for the reelection of one of the national GOP's top Democratic targets in '06, freshman Florida Sen. Bill Nelson.)

As U.S. Attorney, Whitehouse was the top federal prosecutor in Rhode Island. At different times, he was also the state's top business regulator, legal counsel and policy director for Sundlun, an assistant attorney general and chief of the unit within the attorney general's office that deals with utility regulation and rate issues.

In 1998, he beat out two Democratic competitors to become the state's attorney general, but did not survive a three-way primary when he ran for governor four years later. He trailed former state Sen. Myrth York by 926 votes, with then-Rep. Antonio Pires placing a distant third.

Looking back on that September 2002 defeat a month later, Whitehouse blamed himself for taking the race for granted. "I had the sense that it was my destiny to win that race," he said ruefully.

He went into private practice but said, after years in public service: "I'm no longer doing what I believe I was raised and trained and basically bred to do."

More recently, he has worked out of leased office space in the Holland & Knight law firm.

Without formally announcing, Whitehouse already has the backing of many in the state's political elite, including Kennedy and Langevin, who have both publicly urged the 35-year-old Brown, who is midway through his first term in office, to get out of the race.

Yesterday, Kennedy spokesman Sean Richardson said: "I know that the congressman would like to avoid the primary as most people would in Rhode Island. . . [because] they recognize how bad that hurt the Democratic nominee in 2000. But I think the congressman believes that the primary at this point may be unavoidable."

He referred to the expensive 2000 Democratic primary fight between then-U.S. Rep. Robert A. Weygand and former former Lt. Gov. Richard Licht.

Weygand beat Licht 51,769 to 38,281, but emerged bruised and financially drained and the victory ultimately went to Chafee in his first run for the seat to which he had been appointed by former Gov. Lincoln C. Almond a year earlier after the death of his father, the late U.S. Sen. John H. Chafee, on Oct. 24, 1999.

Faced with a choice of Brown or Whitehouse for the Democratic nomination, Richardson said, Kennedy's "with Sheldon because he believes he's the candidate that has the right experience to beat Linc Chafee. . . He's run statewide twice. He's a former attorney general, U.S. Attorney. He understands the issues and he [Kennedy] believes that he [Whitehouse] is the best person to carry the mantle for the Democratic party and not only beat Linc Chafee but take it to Washington and fight for the priorities of Rhode Island's working families."

As one who urged Whitehouse to run, House Speaker William J. Murphy, D-West Warwick, said: "I told him if he announces his candidacy, I would be there behind him." When asked, House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, also cited Whitehouse's experience and gravitas as reasons for supporting him over Brown.

Sundlun said Whitehouse "will outwork him [Chafee] which he is capable of doing and he will have an advantage because Sheldon will be in the state and Linc Chafee will be in Washington." But he said it would be wrong to underestimate the amount of money the GOP will pour into Rhode Island: "Linc Chafee will win the Iraq war for us if that's what they have to do to win the seat."

Brown campaign spokesman Matt Burgess said the secretary of state has no intention of leaving the race, and "looks forward to a thorough and thoughtful discussion of how to best solve the problems people in Rhode Island are facing everyday."

Burgess also sought to minimize the significance of Whitehouse's high-wattage political backing, saying: "This race is going to be decided by people in Rhode Island -- not a handful of political insiders and politicians. It just doesn't work that way anymore."

But state Democratic Party Chairman William Lynch said: "It's never a good thing to have primaries."

"I think the world of Sheldon and Matt Brown. I think they both would be great senators, but there is only one spot and obviously. . . I would rather have us with one candidate to focus on. . . [because] then the focus of the race could be on why Senator Chafee should not be in Washington."