“As you know I have been campaigning on a platform of Prosperity Through Peace,” he plans to say today at a speech to the National Issues Conference of the Women’s Leadership Forum. “But after much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today. I would like to take this opportunity one last time to advocate for a chance be given to peace.”

Chafee, an unpopular but principled governor, didn’t gain many supporters in his longshot bid for the White House. He raised only about $30,000. The defining moment of his campaign came during the first Democratic debate, when he described himself as a “block of granite on the issues” even though he went from being a Republican, to an independent, to a Democrat – and then said he wished he had a “take over” on his vote as a US senator to overturn the Glass-Steagall Act. He made national news for his poor debate performance.

Chafee said domestic issues – “What’s happening in our inner cities, and with our middle class and the disparity of wealth,” he said – would be his first priority as president, when asked this question after his prepared speech. He said tax policy and public education are the best ways to address income inequality.

But his speech focused heavily on international affairs. He spoke strongly against George Bush and the neoconservatives who sold the country on a false premise for going to war in Iraq. Chafee railed against drone strikes and called to bring Edward Snowden home. He spoke favorably about the Trans Pacific Partnership, an issue that progressives vociferously oppose, as does the Rhode Island congressional delegation.

“For me waging peace includes negotiating fair trade agreements that set standards for labor practices, environmental protections, preventing currency manipulation and protection of intellectual property among others,” Chafee said. “The Trans Pacific Partnership has the potential to set fair guidelines for the robust commerce taking place in the Pacific Rim.”

Asked if he is a progressive, the former Rhode Island governor didn’t answer.

WPRI has video of the entire speech, including the Q&A after his prepared remarks (which is the most interesting part). Below that, is the full text of his speech.

Thank you for inviting me.  Mixing foreign policy and politics is an invitation I couldn’t pass up! It’s a pleasure to be here at George Mason University – which is named for one of the many great contributors to the best form of government on earth.

As prescribed by our Constitution, which George Mason helped write, we will be electing a new President in 2016. I enjoy challenges and certainly we have many facing America.

Today I am formally entering the race for the Democratic nomination for President.

If we as leaders show good judgment and make good decisions, we can fix much of what is ailing us.

We must deliberately and carefully extricate ourselves from expensive wars.  Just think about how better this money could be spent.

For instance, our transportation network is deteriorating and becoming dangerous. We should be increasing our investment and priority in public schools and colleges. This is especially important in some of our cities where there is a gnawing sense of hopelessness, racial injustice and economic disparity.

We can and should do better for Native Americans, new Americans and disadvantaged Americans.

Let’s keep pushing to get health care coverage to more of the uninsured.  We can address climate change and extreme weather while protecting American jobs.

I believe that these priorities: education, infrastructure, health care, environmental stewardship, and a strong middle class are Americans’ priorities.

I am also running for President because we need to be very smart in these volatile times overseas.

I’d like to talk about how we found ourselves in the destructive and expensive chaos in the Middle East and North Africa and then offer my views on seeking a peaceful resolution.

There were twenty-three Senators who voted against the Iraq war in October 2002.  Eighteen of us are still alive and I’m sure everyone of us had their own reasons for voting “NO”.   I’d like to share my primary three.

The first reason is that the long painful chapter of the Viet Nam era was finally ending.  This is my generation and the very last thing I wanted was any return to the horrific bungling of events into which we put our brave fighting men and women.

In fact we had a precious moment in time where a lasting peace was in our grasp. Too many senators forgot too quickly about the tragedy of Viet Nam.

A second reason was that I had learned in the nine months of the Bush/Cheney administration prior to September 11th, not to trust them at their word.  As a candidate, Governor Bush had said many things that were for the campaign only- governing would be a lot different.  For example a campaign staple was, “I am a uniter, not a divider”.  He said very clearly that his foreign policy would be humble, not arrogant.  And he promised to regulate carbon dioxide, a climate change pollutant.  These promises were all broken in the very first days of his presidency.

Sadly, the lies never stopped.  This was an administration not to be trusted.

My third reason for voting against the war was based on a similar revulsion to mendacity.  Many of the cheerleaders for the Iraq war in the Bush administration had been writing about regime change in Iraq and American unilateralism for years. They wrote about it in the 1992 Defense Planning Guide, in the 1996 Report to Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the 1997 Project for a New American Century and in the 1998 letter to President Clinton.

A little over a month before the vote on the war I read an article in the Guardian by Brian Whitaker.  Listen to this:

“In a televised speech last week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicted devastating consequences for the Middle East if Iraq is attacked.

“We fear a state of disorder and chaos may prevail in the region”, he said.  Mr. Mubarak is an old-fashioned kind of Arab leader and, in the brave new post-September-11 world, he doesn’t quite get the point.

What on earth did he expect the Pentagon’s hawks to do when they heard his words of warning?  Throw up their hands in dismay? – “Gee, thanks, Hosni.  We never thought of that.  Better call the whole thing off right away.”

They are probably still splitting their sides with laughter in the Pentagon.  But Mr. Mubarak and the hawks do agree on one thing: War with Iraq could spell disaster for several regimes in the Middle East.

Mr. Mubarak believes that would be bad.  The hawks, though, believe it would be good. For the hawks, disorder and chaos sweeping through the region would not be an unfortunate side-effect of war with Iraq, but a sign that everything is going according to plan.”

It’s bad enough that the so-called neocons, most of whom had never experienced the horror of war, were so gung ho.  But worse yet, was that they didn’t have the guts to argue their points straight up to the American people.  They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction but wanted their war badly enough to purposely deceive us.

After reading the Guardian article, I asked for a briefing from the CIA. I said, “I have to vote on this war resolution in a few weeks, show me everything you have on Weapons of Mass Destruction”.  The answer, after an hour-long presentation out at CIA headquarters in Langley was: not much.  “Flawed intelligence” is completely inaccurate. There was NO intelligence.  Believe me I saw “everything they had”.

It’s heartbreaking that more of my colleagues failed to do their homework.  And incredibly, the neocon proponents of the war who sold us on the false premise of weapons of mass destruction are still key advisors to a number of presidential candidates today.

Without a doubt we now have prodigious repair work in the Middle East and North Africa.  We have to change our thinking.  We have to find a way to wage peace.  Let’s have a re-write of the neocon’s Project for a New American Century.  It is essentially the opposite of everything proposed in the original.  We will be honest and tell the truth. We will be a good international partner and respect international agreements.

The 70th anniversary of the United Nations is June 26th.  The preamble to the UN charter says, “to unite our strength to maintain peace and security”.  We can do that. “Unite our strength to maintain peace and security.  Let’s reinvigorate the United Nations and make the next 70 years even better.

As part of our efforts to wage peace in this New American Century let’s be bold. Some of our bravest and most patriotic Americans are our professional diplomats stationed all over the world.

This isn’t an easy career and they deserve the very best in support and respect.  As President I would institute a ban on ambassadorships for sale. That means no more of these posts going to big political donors.  I want the best-trained people doing this important work.  And it is critical that the integrity of the office of Secretary of State never be questioned.

I want America to be a leader and inspiration for civilized behavior in this new century.  We will abide by the Geneva Conventions, which means we will not torture prisoners.  Our sacred Constitution requires a warrant before unreasonable searches, which includes our phone records.  Let ‘s enforce that and while we’re at it allow Edward Snowden to come home.

Extra judicial assassinations by drone strikes are not working.  Many blame them for the upheaval in Yemen.  And Pakistan is far too important a player for us to antagonize with these nefarious activities.  They are not worth the collateral damage and toxic hatred they spread – let’s stop them.

For me waging peace includes negotiating fair trade agreements that set standards for labor practices, environmental protections, preventing currency manipulation and protection of intellectual property among others.  The Trans Pacific Partnership has the potential to set fair guidelines for the robust commerce taking place in the Pacific Rim.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, many of the former Soviet Republics – especially Ukraine – have been caught in a tug of war between Europe and Russia. I believe stronger efforts should be made to encourage Russian integration into the family of advanced industrial nations with the objective of reducing tensions between Russia and its neighbors.

To wage peace in our own hemisphere, I would repair relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.  As part of that rapprochement, let’s unite with all our experience to rethink the war on drugs.  Obviously eradication, substitution and interdiction aren’t working.  Let’s have an active, open minded approach to the drug trafficking that can corrupt everything from the courts to the banks, to law enforcement in our hemisphere.  Appropriately the United Nations is planning a special General Assembly meeting next year on this subject.

In this New American Century, let’s join the many countries who have banned capital punishment.  Congratulations Nebraska for your leadership here! Earlier I said,  “Let’s be bold”.    Here’s a bold embrace of internationalism: let’s join the rest of the world and go metric.  I happened to live in Canada as they completed the process.  Believe me it is easy.  It doesn’t take long before 34 degrees is hot. Only Myanmar, Liberia and the United States aren’t metric and it will help our economy!

In this New American Century it is very important to continue to have a ready and strong military.  The eagle in our Great Seal holds both arrows and an olive branch.  Let’s lead responsibly with a commitment to our unwavering defense and our peaceful purposes.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.”  He asked, “where do we go from here – chaos or community?”

Our challenges are many and formidable.  Let’s wage peace in this New American Century.

Thank you!

Chafee, who would launch his political career two years after Walton’s failed bid to become the president, hopes to capture the Democratic nomination in 2016. He’ll presumably outperform Walton, who won 240 votes in Rhode Island that year. But the progressive Chafee needs to best isn’t Richard Walton. It’s Bernie Sanders.

“The first obstacle Chafee faces is not Hillary Clinton, it’s Bernie Sanders,” Larry Sabato told Rhode Island Public Radio.

A fiercely unapologetic leftist, Sanders is tough competition for anyone seeking the progressive vote. He has a track record of implementing progressive reform – and winning free market converts and economic improvement in the process – as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont.

Sanders is as tough as they come in addressing America’s wealth gap, which remains an unaddressed issue that most voters are united against. Chafee, for his part, isn’t well-situated to steal any income inequality thunder from Sanders. As governor of Rhode Island, he resisted raising taxes on the rich and instead focused on broadening and lowering the sales tax.

But perhaps Chafee has an edge on national security and international diplomacy. They both oppose the war in Iraq, but Chafee did so as a Republican and won oodles of respect for doing so. NPR this morning called him, “the last liberal Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate.”

Yesterday Chafee tweeted in regards to the USA Freedom Act, “Congratulations to Congress for standing tall for civil liberties! Now let’s bring Snowden home. He has done his time.” Sanders, for his part, hasn’t gone quite that far on Snowden.

Maybe there’s a way for Sanders, the fiery populist, and Chafee, the principled moderate, to form a ticket together?

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Interestingly, we all seem to agree that delegating pension reform to then-treasurer-now-Governor Gina Raimondo served the reform effort well but didn’t serve Chafee well. This is, for some odd reason, known as a loss in politics.

This is a letter that will be made public. You should know that as you read it.

I doubt that you have been really pleased with the performance of the Rhode Island economy during your term. I do not think anyone has been all that pleased.

You probably do not remember the meeting we had in the spring of 2010 when you were running for governor. I explained where I thought the economy was going and why. You looked absolutely frightened by what I told you and were in no mood to even consider that I might have been correct in my understanding of what Rhode Island faced. You were going to stick by the traditional grow the economy standbys despite the fact that they were designed for a vastly different economy than we face.

I know much more than I did 4 years ago, and have watched the Rhode Island economy continue to struggle. My regret is that if you had been willing to understand what RI faced you could have devised a much better strategy and RI would be a more prosperous place than it is now.

What I told you was that the RI economy was not going to grow much and that we needed to be smart about how to shrink it rather than thrash around for growth. You have given yourself over to the business climate fanatics with the growth plans that no longer work if they ever did. The data is rather clear. You should read the report from Kansas Inc, the Kansas version of the RI Commerce Corporation. http://www.kansasinc.org/pubs/working/Business%20Climate%20Indexes.pdf

Business climate is a meaningless concept created by the pr firms that told us tobacco does not cause cancer and that there is no climate change, or if there is climate change it is not man made. You know better about the climate, even if you have done much too little to help RI prepare for climate change rolling disasters such as the drought in California threatening the food supply. But you have swallowed hook, line, and sinker that if we did what the business climate maniacs want us to do, then growth would follow. You followed the party line. There are still fewer jobs than 6 years ago. The reason RI lags the national job growth averages are inherent in old post industrial places with few fossil fuel and hard metal resources in a world in which resources are limited, sinks are failing, and what growth there is needs to end up in the hands of the poorest, not the richest, if communities are to thrive. There is nothing in the prescriptions offered by the business climate quacks that address our situation. The increases in inequality that cutting taxes on the rich and speeding up destruction of ecosystems brings in an era of job shrinkage due to computers are part of the problem, not the solution.

I also want us to push back the drum beat on regulatory reform and how regulations are supposed to be holding us back. Beyond the simple minded attack on the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act that underlies all of the anti regulatory fervor in America we have to remember how often it is the citizens of RI uniting to stop BAD projects that were presented to us as economic nirvanas that have prevented ever greater disasters. You know quite well that if Rhode Island had had a full open discussion of 38 Studios we would not be out $100 million. You might also want to remember that if the public had been shut out and the Mega port at Quonset had been built, it would have opened just as the global economy tanked and cost us $1 billion.

The point you never made, and should have, is that if we are to make permitting easier, everyone wants simple easy to read and fill out forms, we need to make it easier for communities to defend themselves as well. Easy permitting can not be an attack on the environment or our health and safety if it is to actually help our communities achieve prosperity. We have to remember how to subtract as well as add when pondering the economy we want.

You are not the only elected official I have had this conversation with. Several years ago I sat with Speaker Fox and Leader (now Speaker) Mattiello and told them what I knew that day. I did not get the impression that Speaker Mattiello could remove his ideological blinders about the role of ecology and justice in prosperity any better than you. His public statements do not give me much hope.

I helped organize a meeting between Governor elect Raimondo and a number of the leading environmental thinkers in our state about a year ago. Several of us made the point on the importance of ecology and justice in prosperity in an age of shrinking economies in the old industrial west. The next Governor wanted to talk about storm water and solar power, but needs to continue to evolve on Full Cost Accounting, the need for the public to be fully engaged in decisions about economic development in the community, and how climate change changes everything. Food Security may just be the best lens for examining economic development policy under the circumstances.

I had a similar conversation with Mayor Elect Elorza when his campaign was beginning. I hope he remembers that Providence needs to grow 20 times as much food as it is now and that this is a key to our future economy. And using real estate speculation as a stand in for actual economic development in a city that already is too expensive to live in only serves the rich.

I expect you will do some very interesting things once you leave office. I think your best work may be ahead of you. And we all know there is much to do.

But the law that put the question on this year’s ballot violates Rhode Island’s Constitution by granting regulatory power to the General Assembly, .

“…the Act contains an unconstitutional intrusion into the power of the executive to which I must object,” . “Requiring the Division of Lotteries to obtain regulation approval from a committee made up entirely of legislators is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.”

The intrusion, said Chafee’s legal counsel Claire Richards, amounts to one sentence on page 13 of a 17 page bill. Here’s the bill and here’s the offending sentence:

“The amended master contract shall also provide that, following completion of the investment requirement, NGJA or its successor shall maintain Newport Grand in a first class manner pursuant to regulations adopted by the division and approved by the permanent joint committee on state lottery.”

Richards said she’s confident the legislature will remove the offending language next session. “We have plenty of time to fix this. If not the next governor will have to decide if they think that section is void. We would give it no legal weight. In other words, we would not do it.”

No comment from House and Senate spokesmen.

But John Marion, of Common Cause RI, agrees it’s a separation of powers problem.

“The casino legislation clearly violates the Separation of Powers that we fought so hard to put into the Rhode Island Constitution,” he said in an email. “The legislature clearly does not accept the new order ten years after voters amended the Constitution. On top of violating SOP the legislation creates a rather contorted referendum process that has been the subject of a lawsuit. It is too bad that Governor Chafee didn’t see fit to veto the defective legislation.”

“When I served on ’85-’86 convention, it was run by the speaker,” Chafee said in a phone interview today. His first elected office was as a delegate to the last concon 30 years ago.

“The trouble is that the delegates’ districts mirror House (district) boundaries,” he explained. “They just have a whole apparatus behind them. They have people to call in every district, that they call every two years. Sure you can beat the machine, but it’s hard.”

During the ’85-86 concon, Chafee said he saw firsthand how House leadership exerted power during the convention. Rep. Matt Smith, of Providence, was speaker at the time.

“It left me wide-eyed,” Chafee said. “We would have a long discussion, looking at what other states did, and after all that input one of the speaker’s loyal votes say Madame Chair, I move the question, and it would get voted down.”

He also said a concon in today’s political atmosphere could be too easily influenced by outside spending. “A new phenomenon since I served is all the money that comes on these issues.”

Chafee said during the ’85-86 convention, he was pushing for the same issues during the ’85-86 concon that he thinks still needs to be reformed about Rhode Island’s governmental structure: executive powers. That year, he helped implement 4 year terms for governor, though the legislature also won four year terms through the convention, he said. But they didn’t manage to pass a line item veto, something that he feels is still a critical reform for Rhode Island.

“The spotlight and the heat are on the executive, meanwhile the executive branch doesn’t have any power,” he said. “The speaker and the Senate president can fly under the radar. If all the focus is on the executive, give them some power.”

Chafee said such unbalanced powers between the executive and legislative branches surely plays into the state’s frequent turbulence. “If you want to know why Rhode Island lags the country in so many ways, look at our structure of government,” he said.

When he fought for more executive powers at the ’85-86 concon, he said his motives were more political. “It was mainly because Republicans could get elected governor,” he said, noting that he was a GOP member at the time. He said Gov. Ed DiPrete gave him a $100 donation, and he spent about $1,000 campaigning as a delegate. “The minimum is you need something with your name on it to leave with people. It costs $300 to print a palm card.”

The governor acknowledged previously supporting the idea of another constitutional convention. “I might have said I was in favor of it but not until we change the way we elect delegates.”

If there were to be one, he said he would push for a line item veto, as well as a unicameral legislature, which he said could work efficiently in a state of Rhode Island’s size. He said he wouldn’t likely campaign to be a delegate. “Been there, done that,” he told me.

Current Governor Linc Chafee won a three-way race in 2010 with just 36 percent of the vote – almost twice as many people voted against him as for him. In the Democratic primary this year, Gina Raimondo won 42 percent of the vote while 58 percent of voters opted for someone else. In this year’s general election, Republicans fear Bob Healey will peal votes away from Allan Fung, making it even harder for him to compete against Raimondo.

So on NBC10 Wingmen this week, Justin Katz, Bill Rappleye and I debated the merits of instant run-off voting – an electoral system in which voters can prioritize their choices in a field of more than two candidates. Watch our conversation about IRV and then lean even more about it here.

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After Governor Linc Chafee voted for the first time in a Democratic primary, he explained in further detail why he voted for Clay Pell.

“We’ve got a lot of momentum in this state after a lot of hard work,” Chafee said. “Clay Pell is the person to continue that momentum. No divisiveness, labor peace, working with federal partners, local partners, unions, business leaders, that’s what we need in this state.”

He said he wasn’t certain who he would vote for at the beginning of the campaign but said he “had a feeling” it would be Pell.

“Like all citizens we watched the campaigns, you always keep your options open, but I kind of had a feeling who was best to keep the momentum going,” Chafee said.

The governor, who lives in the Potowomut neighborhood of Warwick, voted at Potowomut Country Club this morning. He would not share who else he voted for. His mother, Virginia Chafee, also lives in Potowomut, and the governor picked her up in his state car and the two were among the first voters at the posh polling place this morning. Mrs. Chafee, widow of the late Senator John Chafee, voted in the Republican primary.

On July 17th, in a move hailed by immigration and civil rights groups, Governor Chafee signed an executive order mandating that Rhode Island’s Department of Corrections “no longer honor federal immigration detainers without a warrant.”

Unfortunately, it seems the Rhode Island Division of Sheriffs did not get the memo. Last Friday the Sheriffs detained Gustavo Torres at the courthouse after a judge ordered his release. Gustavo has been in this country for 15 years and is married to Amanda Torres with whom he has three children. He now runs the risk of being deported.

On Thursday the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, in collaboration with the We Are Arizona Coalition, held a rally at the State House  which culminated in an emotional meeting between Kenny Alston, Governor Chafee’s chief of staff, and Gustavo’s wife, Amanda Torres. With Torres were her three children. Though there was no immediate resolution to the crisis, Alston did assure the thirty people at the rally and Gustavo’s wife that the Governor’s office was doing everything it could to bring this situation to a just and speedy resolution.

And watch Chafee chief of staff Kenny Alston address the group in this video:

Representatives from groups such as Jobs with Justice, English for Action, Fuerza Laboral, SEIU, Immigrants in Action Committee, American Friends Service Committee, Providence Youth Student Movement, Unitarian Universalist Association, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church and the Brown Student Labor Alliance were also in attendance.