Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in his office following his news conference where he talked about his defeat to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in Tuesday’s election. Chafee did not rule out a run for governor, or possibly leaving the Republican Party.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / Mary Murphy

Sen. Lincoln Chafee talks to the media yesterday. He said that the win for the Democrats was “good for America,” but said that losing his seat was a “kick in the guts.”

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / MARY MURPHY

PROVIDENCE — In his first interview since losing the Republican U.S. Senate seat that has been in his family for three decades, Lincoln D. Chafee yesterday said a lot of people had been coming up to him “and saying, ‘We’re sorry you lost, but glad the Congress switched’ ” from GOP to Democratic Party control.

Asked if deep down, despite his personal disappointment about the outcome of Tuesday’s election, he felt the same way, Chafee looked into the TV cameras and said: “To be honest, yes.”

“When you enact a divisive agenda, don’t talk to the other side, I don’t think that’s good for the country,” Chafee said. At least now, “I think the president is going to have to talk to the Democrats. I think that is going to be good for America.”

But he admitted that on the most personal level, “losing is traumatic. … It’s a kick in the guts … mostly because you’ve vested so much time and energy. You hit the point of exhaustion and then boom, the numbers aren’t there.”

In a free-wheeling interview, a serene Chafee did not rule out a return to the political arena at some point; half-joked that he now has a house in Providence that would enable him to run for mayor there if an opening presents itself. He also left the door open, again, to possibly changing his party affiliation.

He almost laughed when asked if it might have been helpful to him and other Republicans across the country if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had resigned before — rather than a day after — Tuesday’s political tsunami.

Chafee, who so famously cast the only Republican vote against authorizing the Iraq war, never joined his opponent’s call for Rumsfeld’s resignation, saying the decision was the president’s. Yesterday, he admitted wishing “it had happened two or three weeks earlier,” but said he doubted “it would have made any difference” in his Rhode Island race in a year of built-up anger over his party’s divisive national agenda and handling of the war.

His only bit of advice for the Democrat who bested him by 26,726 out of 383,822 votes cast, former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse: “Do not fall into the pack mentality.”

He said he regretted nothing he said about Whitehouse in the final weeks of his bare-knuckled fight to keep his seat. He was polite, but icy in response to questions about what Rhode Island should expect now from Senator-elect Whitehouse: “I wish him well and I honestly hope he does a great job for Rhode Island.”

Does Whitehouse have what it takes, a radio reporter asked. “There’re different definitions of a good senator.” Does Whitehouse fit any of them? “We’ll see,” said Chafee. “I wish him well.”

Did he have regrets? About his campaign, no.

His only flashes of anger at the collision of local and national currents that swept him from the office he has held since 1999 were directed at his September primary opponent, Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, who “chose for his own self gratification to oppose a sitting Republican,” making the GOP’s chances of holding the seat “a whole lot harder,” and now has the “gall” to try to take control of the state Republican Party “and criticize us for not doing enough.”

“It’s just exactly what this party does not need,” he said.

Instead of going after any one of the openings on the party slate for a new state treasurer or a GOP challenger to U.S. Rep. James Langevin, whose seat went unsought by a Republican for the first time in 149 years, Chafee said Laffey forced him into an expensive primary that cost him $3.2 million and ultimately “was part of costing the Republican Party this seat which we’ve had for 30 years.”

Asked for comment later, Laffey issued this statement: “Everyone suffers setbacks differently, and we should be understanding of that. But let me be clear. I am not seeking the chairmanship of the State Republican Party nor have I said anything to that effect. If Senator Chafee truly wants to unify and grow the party, today’s statement was not a good first step. I wish him and his family nothing but the very best.” Chafee also fretted for the future of his party if moderates, like himself, are attacked — as he was — by the far-right flank of their own party as he described the Washington-based Club For Growth, which decided he wasn’t conservative enough on purity-test issues and poured a bundle of money into Laffey’s campaign.

Reliving the moments that still irk him, he recalled meeting face to face with Pat Toomey, the former Pennsylvania Republican congressman who heads the group, and saying, “I hope you are not going to come in and make it harder … and he told me to my face, ‘We won’t get into an election if we don’t think we can win the general.’ That was a flat-out falsehood…. They came in here with no chance of winning the general and a ton of money against me.”

Chafee wondered aloud “if the Club for Growth is happy that Whitehouse is in there; that, yes, we cost that RINO [Republican-in-name-only] Chafee a seat.… It’s America. Anybody can run. The money that [gets] poured in, that’s the difference.”

“If I am going to lose, let’s just hope that the people [who] are there are going to pursue the things I care about … fiscal responsibility, environmental stewardship, aversion to foreign entanglements, personal liberties. This is the Republican Party that I represent.”

As for his own future, he said he doesn’t want to “encourage” or “discourage” the inevitable talk about him running for governor when incumbent Governor Carcieri ends his second and last term in 2010. But he said he really hasn’t thought much beyond next week when he returns to Washington.

At that point, he said he will oppose the president’s stalled nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “On Tuesday, the American people sent a clear message of dissatisfaction with the foreign policy approach of the Bush Administration. To confirm Mr. Bolton to the position of UN Ambassador would fly in the face of the clear consensus of the country that a new direction is called for,” Chafee said in a statement yesterday.

“I have long believed that the go-it-alone philosophy that has driven this administration’s approach to international relations has damaged our leadership position in the world. Mr. Bolton does not demonstrate the kind of collaborative approach that I believe will be called for if we are to restore the United States’ position as the strongest country in a peaceful world.”

Will he remain a Republican? “I am going to look at where I am and my plans for the future.” Question: So, “you are saying you are looking where you belong and it may not be the Republican Party?” His initial answer: “That’s fair.”

But he also described himself as a “loyal Republican” who, like his father — the late Gov. and U.S. Sen. John H. Chafee — spent years trying to build “a two-party system” in Rhode Island, so “I don’t want to communicate that I am all of a sudden flying the coop.”

Yesterday morning, Chafee said, he did something he hadn’t had a chance to do in a while. He and his wife, Stephanie, went to a parent-teacher conference at his 12-year-old son Caleb’s school.