The Hiss of a Slowly Deflating Tire

Nothing like a sloooow leak...

R.I. Senator May Leave Republican Party

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Two days after losing a bid for a second term, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he would remain a Republican.

Chafee lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in a race seen as a referendum on
President Bush and the GOP. On Thursday, he was asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or become an independent or Democrat.

"I haven't made any decisions. I just haven't even thought about where my place is," Chafee said at a news conference. When pressed on whether his comments indicated he might leave the GOP, he replied: "That's fair."

Chafee, 53, is a lifelong Republican who has represented Rhode Island for seven years. His father held the same seat for 23 years before that.

He is the most liberal Republican in the Senate and was the sole Senate Republican to vote against the war in Iraq. But that was not enough to prevail against Whitehouse, who shared many of Chafee's views but was a Democrat in a heavily Democratic state.

Now that they don't feel they need to immediately knuckle under to Bush's every whim, and when the Republican higher-ups are jumping ship left and right, I think we're going to see quite a bit of this from other Republicans in the upcoming weeks and months.

Sounds like steam escaping....

(I swear on a stack of Futurama DVDs that this is cross-posted.)