01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, December 2, 2003

I wait to see what Rhode Island gets from Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee's decision to side with the White House and Senate leaders on a key procedural vote on Medicare last week. When the GOP needed him, Chafee was there to help keep the bill alive even though, on final passage, with the result foregone, he voted against it.

I also wait to see if Chafee's 2006 Democratic foe hits him on this. If seniors have concluded that the complicated Medicare bill was a fraud and didn't really help pay for their drugs, a TV ad like this could be lethal:

Video of the Senate. Words flash on screen: Nov. 24, 2003.

Voice: On a crucial vote, Republican Lincoln Chafee snubs seniors and sides with the fat cat pharmaceutical and insurance industries. He thought you wouldn't find out. Show Chafee you're too smart for this. Show Chafee the door.

Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy says the Medicare saga shows a Chafee knack for voting correctly on bills but aiding Republicans on important parliamentary moves: "It's the procedural vote that counts and, often, the procedural vote is hidden from the public view because all people can identify with is, 'Are you for the bill or you're against the bill?' "

Rhode Island Democrats say the bill provides little real help to seniors yet jeopardizes the future of Medicare and blocks the federal government from negotiating lower drug prices.

Rep. Jim Langevin says, "I am confident within a very short time we're going to be back to repeal this bill." Chafee may think obliging his fellow Republicans is a smart strategy for the long run, but Langevin says, "An elected official is judged by those decisions he or she makes on difficult issues. Ultimately, it's up to Rhode Islanders to judge the senator, but on this one it would have been more helpful if he had stuck closer to the seniors."

The GOP won the procedural vote, a rules issue, 61 to 39. If Chafee went the other way and nothing else changed, it still would have carried, 60 to 40. But you can argue that if he were a determined and skilled dissenter, he could have helped swing another vote around and the bill would have died.

Chafee concedes he was not certain how the tally would go, but insists he had good reason to believe the votes were there to keep the measure alive and then pass it. So, he says, he was smart to side with the Republicans on the parliamentary issue because he won assurances that Rhode Island would not be host to an experimental competition between Medicare and private insurers to take place several years from now in several metropolitan areas. Chafee says other senators were getting their states exempted and that Rhode Islanders would have criticized him if he failed to get Rhode Island exempted.

Chafee had voiced support for drug-cost relief. But he balked at this bill's $400-billion tab: "We have tax cuts and a war now. I wouldn't have had the tax cuts, and I wouldn't have rushed into an expensive war."

Chafee says Democrats may decide by 2006 not to attack him on the Medicare bill because it has several good features and "could turn out to be more beneficial than people think." Of course, if that happens, a critic could whack him for voting no on final passage.

As for what dividends we might expect from his helping the GOP last week, Chafee said a coming transportation bill has "tremendous" promise, such as more money for the Warwick train station project and a new Sakonnet River bridge.

I don't equate these with an effective health bill. But it's also true that, in terms of elections, many a pol has survived on a diet of pork. It's tangible, not obscured by procedural gobbledygook, and it makes it looks like you're doing your work.

M. Charles Bakst, The Journal's political columnist, can be reached by e-mail at mbakst@projo.com