Chafee to voters: "don't box me in"

Fresh from his defeat of Steve Laffey, our incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee is now starting to grasp that he's actually going to have to fight tooth and nail to defeat Democratic rival Sheldon Whitehouse and retain his Senate seat. While Chafee's status as Washington's top RINO hurt him with Republican primary voters, he's banking on using it as an asset against Whitehouse.

This is a predictable, if still shrewd, move, by Chafee to finally account for his tendency to talk and vote like a Senate Democrat when courting Democrat leaning voters at home, with the logic being 'I'm essentially a Democrat, and an incumbent to boot.'

Chafee's first campaign ads have been launched, and he's attempting to go straight down the middle of the road:

I was attacked by the right for being too liberal; now I'm being attacked by the left for being too conservative. That puts me in the middle, where I've always been, with you.

The Providence Journal (registration required) details how Chafee's neither-fish-nor-foul is attempting to throw a wrench into the attempts by Whitehouse's campaign to portray him as some sort of fire breathing right wing monster. This, of course, is gibberish. Sheldon Whitehouse wouldn't know a right winger if one came into his house and shat in his merlot. As a bonafide right winger, I can tell you that other right wingers here in Rhode Island and across America regard Lincoln Chafee as something of a leper. Granted, he's a leper that can help prevent Harry Reid from becoming Senate majority leader, but a leper all the same.