Chafee

How will he vote on Bolton? As Fred Kaplan from Slate said on Al Franken's show today, if Chafee torpedoes Bush's nominee the White House will make his life a living hell. That is probably a far greater concern for Chafee then picking off a few more liberal votes in RI. The fact is, if he doesn't have the support of the leadership of his party, he's never going to win re-election. However, as these hearings drag out things may change. These things have a tendency to crescendo, especially if more dirt comes out about Bolton and the more the evening news plays video of him saying in years past that the U.N. doesn't really exist.

I imagine Chafee headed into the hearings thinking he'd vote to confirm, but leaving himself enough wiggle room so that if Bolton bombs in the hearings has can vote against and not look like he shifted. At that point Hagel might start making noise and that should pretty much doom Bolton. But for now, we'll just have to wait and see.