Boston Globe

12/05/05

Senator Lincoln D. Chafee hopped out of the driver's seat of his beige Toyota Prius -- a car with a dent on the side and 'I Am Electric' emblazoned across the back window -- and dashed through the rain. He'd forgotten his umbrella at the office, so he was soaked before he made it inside Meadowbrook Farms Elementary School. Then, for the better part of an hour, he talked with a classroom of third-graders about the importance of saving the rain forests. 'The challenge is to balance between the animals and our needs,' the Rhode Island Republican told the children. 'We're all part of the earth ourselves. We have to share it.' Chafee is the closest thing to a GOP flower child in Washington these days. He's a Brown University classics major who spent seven years shoeing horses before turning to the family business of politics. His liberal positions would be well-suited for a centrist Democrat. The ease with which he speaks of living in harmony with nature marks him as a product of the '60s, and a child of a household that always had a compost pile...

http://tinyurl.com/98zjv


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp