Word: rhode
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...Nixon machine was clearly out for a fight as it unleashed its political clout on tiny Rhode Island with all the ferocity of a saturation bombing Secretaries Morton, Rogers and Richardson all blitzed the state stumping for their old pal Chafee. Finally, the weekend before the election, Weapon X was unveiled as Richard Nixon himself came in to campaign for Chafee...
...race had all the tragedy of a civil war as it pitched two Rhode Island bluebloods with exemplary public service records in a fight for their political lives. Chafee, a youthful looking 51, full of vigor and drive, was a popular three-term former governor of Rhode Island, who lost the gubernatorial race in 1968 when he advocated a state income tax that his opponent later instituted. If he won this Senate race it would show that he was still a viable political candidate; if he lost he was politically dead. Pell, at 53 an old-line Democrat, fully realized...
From the beginning, the race was hard-fought with heavy overtones of bitterness. Chafee relentlessly attacked Pell on his liberal stand on busing, and tried to tie the Senator to McGovern's military reduction proposals that would have devastated Navy-centered Rhode Island. In the early part of the campaign, Chafee's strategy paid off and by September he found himself ten points ahead of Pell in the polls...
Pell, an effective campaigner, managed gradually to neutralize Chafee's attacks by modifying his busing stand and denouncing McGovern's proposed defense cutbacks. Jumping quickly to the counter-offensive, Pell unsuccessfully attempted to get Rhode Island voters to link Chafee to Nixon's war policy. In his last campaign speeches. Pell also tried to make an issue of campaign disclosures, but the voters showed little interest...
...record on the Senate Education Committee, and both Muskie and Kennedy testified to his worth. Chafee maintained that as both a former state representative and governor he intimately knew the problems of the state, and thus would be tremendously effective in the Senate. The Republican-leaning Providence Journal-Bulletin, Rhode Island's largest paper, endorsed Chafee based on this issue. But the issue of effectiveness wasn't enough for Chafee, and as the subjects of busing and defense cut-backs faded to did Chafee's strength, and the last pre-election poll showed him trailing Pell by two percentage points...