Former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75 endorsed presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Thursday morning.
Gov. Donald Carcieri '65 announced his endorsement of John McCain later in the day at a rally the Arizona senior Republican senator held in Warwick.
"I've got to vote for Obama," Chafee told The Herald.
"The leading candidates are supporters of the war, and that's a major issue for me ... It would be a shame" to have only candidates who support the war as choices in November, he said.
As senator from Rhode Island from 1999 to 2006, Chafee was a Republican, but he left the party this summer after losing his bid for reelection in 2006 to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
"The biggest surprise (of Chafee's endorsement) is in terms of John McCain," said Darrell West, professor of political science. The two have a "warm personal relationship," and McCain held fundraisers for Chafee during reelection campaign.
Chafee's Obama endorsement is a "major slap at John McCain's Iraq policy," West said.
Still, "in general, endorsements don't count for that much," he said, citing Sen. Ted Kennedy's, D-Mass., endorsement of Obama before Super Tuesday. Despite that endorsement, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., beat Obama in Massachusetts.
Chafee is currently a visiting fellow in international studies at the Watson Institute for International Studies. He joined the Watson Institute last year.
