A Zell Miller for the Republicans

Democrats are still seething over the very public defection of Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator from Georgia who endorsed George W. Bush and trashed John Kerry at the G.O.P. Convention. Now Republicans have a defector of their own to worry about: Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island's moderate G.O.P. Senator, who told home-state reporters two weeks ago that he probably won't vote for Bush in November. The Senator has opposed the President on such issues as tax cuts, the decision to go to war in Iraq and Bush's refusal to press for renewal of the assault-weapons ban. "We have so many differences," Chafee told TIME, that a vote for Bush is "very difficult to justify." Instead, Chafee says he will write in the name of the first President Bush who "was right on many of the issues" he supports, such as strengthening environmental controls and reducing the deficit.

The Senator says President Bush hasn't called him but that intermediaries have told him that Administration aides wish he would "just keep quiet." Senate Republicans could retaliate for example, by denying funds for projects important to Chafee's constituents in Rhode Island. But as angry as they might be over Chafee's defection, G.O.P. Senators are well aware that their slim majority in the Senate could be jeopardized if he were to switch parties, as Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords did three years ago. Chafee says he has no plans "at this stage" to bolt the party. But Republicans know that if they turn up the heat, it's a short walk to the other side of the aisle.