The Regrets of Lincoln Chafee, Failed Presidential Candidate [View all]

For 142 glorious days in 2015, the possibility of a Lincoln Chafee Administration flickered in the heart of, at least, Lincoln Chafee. Lincoln who, you ask? The 2016 election has dragged on for so long that it's easy to forget some of its earliest players. The former governor and U.S. Senator from Rhode Island was one of just four candidates to challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination: He announced his candidacy by saying, "I enjoy challenges," and his ill-fated campaign certainly was one. He withdrew on October 23, just ten days after the first Democratic debate, when a poll found that 57 percent respondents had a less favorable view of Chafee than before the debate started. We caught up with Chafee, who is currently on a "sabbatical year," to see if he has any regrets about his quest to win the White House with a platform that included bringing Edward Snowden home from Russia, ending extrajudicial drone assassinations, and converting the United States to the metric system.

Looking back on the primary, are there things you wish you did better?

I guess the big mistake—I went back and forth on including the metric system angle. I was just crossing my fingers there would be some intellectual approach to the various proposals I put out in my announcement speech, which kind of covered the gamut, from ending capital punishment, to bringing Edward Snowden home. Also, I was for TPP. Unfortunately, my crossed fingers didn't work, and it just turned into more of a joke about metric, not "let's look at the bigger picture." I think, and it's a trend, there's just less of a Walter Cronkite, I call it, approach to the news. It's entertainment. Donald Trump, early on, said: I'm just going to push every possible emotional button I can. I don't care! And he crushed the nomination.

The metric system seems like it works everywhere else.

Canada had it. And I was there when they were doing the transition to it. It's no big deal!

It could be our undercurrent of anti-European sentiment.

Yup. I was saying, should I put it in or not? My wife said, no, it will be misunderstood. And she was right.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49513/lincoln-chafee-interview/