Rachel Maddow: Liberal Republicans Like Lincoln Chafee Are ‘Extinct’

“In 2004, when President George W. Bush was running for re-election as president there was one Republican U.S. senator at the time who said that even though he was a Republican and George W. Bush was a Republican and George W. Bush was running for re-election, he, the senator, would not support the election of George W. Bush. He said that, instead, he went to vote on Election Day in 2004, he would write in the name George H.W. Bush. He would cast in a write-in ballot for W’s dad, but not for W. And he was a serving Republican U.S. Senator at the time. As a Republican U.S. Senator he was also pro-choice. He was pro gay rights, pro marriage equality for same sex couples. He was against the death penalty. He supported raising the minimum wage. He supported higher taxes on the rich. He was against drilling in the Arctic. As a Republican U.S. senator, he not only voted against the fiscally disastrous George W. Bush tax cuts for the rich, he also voted in 2002 against authorizing the U.S. war in Iraq. He was the only Republican senator who voted against George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. He was, of course, Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee, who was the last known living specimen on earth of the liberal Republican. When he left the Republican Party in 2007, the whole idea of a liberal Republican went extinct.”