Former Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee has filed to run for president as a Libertarian. Chafee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday to form the Lincoln Chafee for President campaign committee based in Wyoming.
The form also includes the website LincolnForLiberty.com, which urges visitors to donate to the campaign.
“Thirty Tears, Zero Scandals,” the website boasts. “Lincoln Leads With Truth.”
Chafee has spent most of his life as a Republican. He was nominated to his late father’s Senate seat in 1999 and then was elected as a Republican in 2000. He served only one term, losing to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in 2006, but then successfully ran for governor of Rhode Island as an independent in 2010 and became a Democrat in office. He didn’t run for reelection but mounted a short-lived run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2015.
Chafee is a son of the late Republican US Senator John H. Chafee, a former Navy secretary and governor whose name was synonymous with the Republican Party in Rhode Island for years. Lincoln Chafee was appointed to the Senate when his father died in 1999, and he won a full term in 2000. He soon bucked the Republican Party, opposing President George W. Bush’s tax cuts and casting the only Senate Republican vote against authorizing the war in Iraq.
“For too long, the Democrats and Republicans have been stuck in their partisan bickering while the real challenges of our time go unresolved. The Libertarian Party offers a fresh approach to deal with these challenges head-on.” Chafee said in a statement.
“Campaign will focus on fiscal responsibility, protecting our personal freedoms, ending these senseless and counterproductive wars, and making policy based on truth.”, he added.
The Libertarian Party will select its presidential nominee at its national convention May 21-25 ,2020, in Austin, Texas. According to the Federal Election Commission, So far, 53 people have filed paperwork to run for president as a Libertarian in 2020.
Pat Ford, chair of the Libertarian Party of Rhode Island, said Kim Ruff and Jacob Hornberger are considered the leading Libertarian contenders at this point. “I welcome Lincoln Chafee to the race,” he said, “with the caveat: Fasten your seat belts, it’s gonna be a bumpy night.”
