Projo Politics Blog

Is there a role for former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee in a Barack Obama Administration?

Might this title fit: administrator, Environmental Protection Agency?

So goes the speculation in one of the better-known political blogs, Daily Kos, which raised Chafee’s name earlier this week as a potential Obama cabinet member alongside speculation (wishful thinking?) that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would be Obama’s vice-presidential running mate; Richard Clarke, the former anti-terrorism adviser to the National Security Council who accused president Bush of mismanaging the “war on terror,’’ as secretary of homeland security; and former Georgia senator and Vietnam war veteran Max Cleland as secretary of defense.

Daily Kos describes itself as a daily weblog that provides “political analysis on U.S. current events from a liberal perspective.’’

A Rhode Island Republican-turned-independent, Chafee endorsed Obama two-and-a-half weeks before the March 4 primary. Asked this week if he had discussed a potential role as EPA administrator or anything else in an Obama administration, Chafee said: “No. Obviously there won’t be an Obama administration if he doesn’t win in November and that is what his team is focused upon.’’

But would he be interested? “Let’s see where everybody is in November,’’ he wrote in an e-mail.

Chafee, meanwhile, has been burnishing his environmental credentials with entries such as this May 2008 piece headlined “GOP Abuses The Environment At Its Own Peril’’ that appeared on the TPM Café web page.

It begins “Indeed, here we go again," with the Bush EPA weakening environmental rules on building power plants near national parks. The environment is a key issue for many Americans but you would never know it by how willingly the GOP genuflects before Old King Coal.’’

The author of "Against The Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President," Chafee is currently a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

-- Katherine Gregg, Journal State House Bureau

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