MI-07 = Bad News for Chafee?

Another primary I followed with whatever attention wasn't devoted to Lamont/Lieberman and McKinney's meltdown last night was up in Michigan's 7th District, where moderate Republican incumbent Joe Schwarz was offed by his conservative challenger, Tim Walberg, who had the support of Michigan Right to Life and the Club for Growth. There's a little on it from Hotline blog here. But my point in bringing up Schwarz's defeat was its parallels for another embattled moderate, namely Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. To me, the defeat of two relatively popular incumbents (Schwarz and Lieberman - I'm not counting McKinney on this list) verifies the oft-cited argument about unpopular incumbents - to a point. While I'm still not ready to concede an anti-incumbent spirit on the general level (still don't believe a large number of seats will flip), there is clearly a measure of intraparty anti-incumbent sentiment.

This of course is not a good omen for Lincoln Chafee, a moderate's moderate, a Senator who epitomizes the idea of a Rockefeller Republican. Not only is Chafee locked in a hard-fought political battle with insurgent mayor Steve Laffey, he's losing ground to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, who's up 6% in the latest Rasmussen poll. This was at one point Chafee's to win, but now that he's finding himself occupied with trying to maintain the party's nomination, I think Whitehouse has the momentum.

Of course all of this presumes that Chafee slips past Laffey in a year that's seen pissed off partisans on both sides, and one Club for Growth candidate already triumph. Again, I don't like taking bold positions on elections (not enough experience to do that yet) but I have a bad feeling about Chafee's chances on this one; a Chafee defeat on September 12th will probably mean the Democrats only need to take four seats to tie up the Senate (or five to give themselves true control).