“The relaunch of a top brand name in New England politics is quietly underway in a spare, anonymous campaign office that looks like it was furnished with items collected from the side of the road. ‘Have to keep our costs down,’ explains former US senator Lincoln Chafee, who is attempting a political comeback as a candidate for governor. ‘This is the stage that we’re in — raise money and don’t spend it.’ The Chafee political brand of moderate, Rockefeller-style Republicanism took a beating in 2006, when Lincoln Chafee, swept up in an anti-Republican wave, lost the Senate seat that had been in his family since 1976. But here in heavily Democratic Rhode Island, the brand has been refreshed to meet the changing market: Chafee now 100 percent GOP-free. … The incumbent, Republican Donald Carcieri, is term-limited and can’t run again next year.” (07/19/09)