Lincoln Chafee Makes An Unexpected Comeback As A 2020 Libertarian Candidate

Lincoln Chafee visits FOX Business Network at FOX Studios on September 30, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)
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Lo, a presidential hopeful from days of yore has returned!

Former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee is taking another shot at the White House, this time as a member of the Libertarian Party.

Chafee, who switched party affiliation in June 2019, submitted his campaign paperwork to the FEC on Sunday. His website is stamped with the logo “Lincoln Chafee, Libertarian For President.”

“Thirty Years, Zero Scandals,” the site declares. “Lincoln Leads With TRUTH.”

According to a campaign press release provided to TPM, Chafee plans to formally announce his bid for the presidency on Wednesday.

Though his ill-fated 2016 campaign was but a blip in that chaotic election cycle, the former Rhode Island governor and senator briefly made headlines when he introduced his groundbreaking platform of switching the U.S. to the metric system.

“Earlier I said, ‘Let’s be bold,'” Chafee said in his announcement speech in June 2015. “Here’s a bold embrace of internationalism: Let’s join the rest of the world and go metric.”

“People say it’s expensive, but the economic benefits outweigh the cost of changing the signs and the light,” he argued the next day on CNN. “I think the chambers of commerce, the scientific community, the defense on metric, they’d agree with that.”

However, Chafee was forced to suspend his campaign several months later in October after falling kilometers behind Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

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Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for ur ur says:

    Message to ALL Third-Party candidates…GO AWAY!

  2. Avatar for erik_t erik_t says:

    Destructive fool. Pawn.

  3. … and the horse you rode in on

  4. Avatar for pshah pshah says:

    Sorry, Lincoln. The other Lincoln, who’s been dead for over 150 years, will get more write-in votes than you.

    Not part of a major Party, not a billionaire, and probably without significant corporate backing nor enthusiastic grassroots support equals no chance in today’s politics.

  5. However, Chafee was forced to suspend his campaign several months later in October after falling kilometers behind Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

    :raised_hands:

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