Former Republican Says No One Who Voted for the Iraq War Should Be President—Including Hillary Clint

[Jim Lane]

6. Why are you hostile to Chafee? I welcome him to the Democratic Party.

You write: "With people like Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee, switching parties, it shows that they think their ideologies fit with the New Democrats, the Third Way Wing of the Party."

No, it shows that they think their ideologies fit better overall with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party. That would be true of those who like the Third Way but also true of those who like the Warren Wing.

I don't know Chafee's stands on income inequality and other bread-and-butter issues. I do know that he's with us on social issues (favoring reproductive rights, gun control, marriage equality, and affirmative action, for example). The OP also notes that he was with us on the single most important foreign-policy vote of the last several years -- standing up to a President of his own party to do the right thing.

Yes, he was first elected as a Republican. He was a legacy Republican -- his father was a leading light of the now-defunct wing of the Republican Party that's often called "Rockefeller Republican" (mostly Northeasterners who would be far to the left of any Republican who can hope to win the 2016 nomination).

We on DU inveigh against Republican craziness, but we're preaching to the choir. When an actual Republican who's not crazy switches parties, that's the kind of thing that will turn the DU consensus into election victories.