Many on the left were outraged when NARAL provided moderate Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee an early and important endorsement. Now, as Jackie Kucinich reports for The Hill, Chafee might have just squandered the endorsement.

Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I) has said that he will vote for John Roberts’s nomination to the Supreme Court, a move that could jeopardize his endorsement from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“Absent anything unforeseen,” Chafee told The Hill last week, he would vote for Roberts to succeed the late William Rehnquist as chief justice of the United States. The senator reaffirmed his support of Roberts yesterday.

Although Chafee voted against the nomination of U.S. Circuit Court Judge Priscilla Owen, NARAL President Nancy Keenan blasted him June 8 for voting to confirm Janice Rogers Brown’s nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

“Given our recent conversations with Senator Chafee, this vote is surprising and extremely disappointing,” Keegan said in the release. “We’d like to know what pressure the Republican leadership put on him. We will be watching closely his future votes on judicial nominees, including William Pryor and those for the Supreme Court.”

As the article indicates, one of Chafee's top selling points in the overwhelmingly "blue" state of Rhode Island is that he is moderate and independent. An aye vote on Roberts, and more importantly the loss of NARAL support, could make 2006 very difficult for Linc.