The Pat Toomey of 2006?

I certainly hope not - I would much prefer to see this (semi-)conservative challenger to a Rockefeller Republican senator triumph.

Let's get one thing straight: Cranston, Rhode Island Mayor Steve Laffey resists the descriptor "conservative," opposes any and all federal entitlement reform, and is a daffy environmentalist. But he is also pro-life, supports the Bush tax cuts and the war in Iraq, is an avowed foe of corporate welfare, a potential vote for a flat tax, and a free trader. Which makes him a vast improvement over incumbent RINO Lincoln Chafee, the aspiring Jim Jeffords disciple who refused to vote for his own president last November as a "protest" (wonder if he'd vote for Dubya now...), as well as the best that we're going to get from a state that, were it any "bluer," would sink beneath the cobalt waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is, in the newly established Bush template, already waging all-out war against Mayor Laffey's challenge at a level far exceeding anything Liddy Dole and the boys are throwing at the DisLoyal Opposition:

Earlier this year, before Laffey was a declared candidate for the Senate, national Republicans encouraged him not to run against Chafee. GOP chairman Ken Mehlman called. So did one of Karl Rove’s operatives. “They claimed that they weren’t interested in defending Lincoln Chafee,” says Laffey. “But they talked about party building and suggested that I run for lieutenant governor. In Rhode Island, the job of lieutenant governor is to ride a bicycle around the state and wait for the governor to die. I wasn’t persuaded. And now these ‘party builders’ are spending thousands to defeat me, a Republican.”...

That includes defending the corrupt public employee unions that Laffey had the balls to take head-on:

Yet the unions still seem to have a few friends. The NRSC’s latest attack on Laffey actually takes their side in a dispute. “Laffey spent thousands on spy cameras to spy on employees,” says the ad, suggesting that Laffey is some kind of sinister control freak. What the NRSC doesn’t bother to explain is that Laffey’s tactics caught members of the Teamsters, Local 251, literally napping on the job. This Cranston controversy, properly understood, isn’t about the act of taping snoozers but rather the inactivity of sleeping workers.

They also seek to depict Laffey as a "tax & spend liberal," which, coming in a defense of Lincoln f'ing Chafee (ACU lifetime rating: 41) ought to be an embarrassment, or would be if these people were still capable of shame.

Personally I find myself hoping Laffey takes Chafee out, even if it means losing the seat to either reportedly strong Dem challenger (former attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse or secretary of state Matt Brown). At least that way the liberal in that seat would have an honest party label, and there'd be one fewer Republican impersonator debasing the Senate's GOP pseudomajority.

One thing you can probably count on - if Laffey does give "Linc" the boot, Liddy and Chucky Schumer will join forces to make sure that nobody ever finds his political remains.

And ya gotta admit, having a "Senator Whitehouse" to kick around would be a lot of fun....