Lincoln Chafee Joins Erich Prince: Lessons from Running for President

“In my opening statement I said, ‘In thirty years of public service, I never had a scandal.’ The murmur of boos in the audience—I guess they saw that as a dig at the other candidates.”

Lincoln Chafee served as Mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island, a United States Senator from Rhode Island, and later Governor of Rhode Island. Senator Chafee was one of the five major Democratic candidates to enter the 2016 presidential primaries, and he emphasized his past opposition to the Iraq War as a contrast to Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2003 vote in favor of the Iraq Resolution. His campaign also prioritized a ten-point plan for foreign policy, which included calls for “No warrantless wiretapping,” “No drone strikes,” “Reduce Tensions with Russia,” among other priorities. Senator Chafee suspended his campaign on October 23, 2015. In this interview, he rejoins Merion West editor Erich Prince to deliver his firsthand account of what it’s like to run for president, the role of fundraising and debates, and general thoughts on the Democratic field as primary season approaches.

Senator Chafee, always a pleasure to speak with you. To get started, I wanted to draw your attention to some of the numbers that have come in for campaign contributions in the first quarter of 2019. In that period, Bernie Sanders led the pack at $18.2 million, followed by Kamala Harris at $12 million, and Beto O’Rourke pulled in $9.4 million in just eighteen days. With the big conversations going on in the Democratic Party right now about the role of money in politics, is money the ballgame when you’re running for president? Is it more important than charisma, debate performance? Is it the most important thing?

Glad to speak with you again, Erich. What I found, not just in my own presidential run—but in all the races—is that your competitiveness is judged by your money raising. With competitiveness comes the free media; they invite you onto different shows, and they are so important. And for those who aren’t raising a large amount of money, they depend on the free media. So it’s a giant catch-22. The people with the money are going to get the exposure anyway. They’re going to be running the ads. When the media freezes out the people that aren’t making gobs of money, it makes it that much more difficult. If you’re unknown, you need the free exposure.

So, it’s kind of self-fulfilling—the people who have the money are getting free coverage, and vice versa? It’s like the rich get richer.