--- title: Lincoln Chaffee Picks Up His Campaign's Gas and Hotel Bills description: Turning heads not for how much he's raised, but for how little. canonical: https://time.com/3955397/lincoln-chafee-campaign-clinton/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-13T14:49:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:47:14.221Z article:section: Politics og:title: Lincoln Chaffee Picks Up His Campaign's Gas and Hotel Bills og:description: Turning heads not for how much he's raised, but for how little. og:url: https://time.com/3955397/lincoln-chafee-campaign-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6b60ffc80f34b8f8/69885364a988ca32716b2e68/lincoln-chafee-selfie.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Former Rhode Island Governor Chafee poses for a selfie with a student after announcing he will seek the Democratic nomination to be U.S. president during an address to the GMU School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs in Arlington og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lincoln Chaffee Picks Up His Campaign's Gas and Hotel Bills twitter:description: Turning heads not for how much he's raised, but for how little. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6b60ffc80f34b8f8/69885364a988ca32716b2e68/lincoln-chafee-selfie.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Lincoln Chaffee Picks Up His Campaign's Gas and Hotel Bills > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=d40d0b90-2c53-4077-91b8-e91fcc0c5a4c&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Jul 13, 2015 2:49 PM UTC  Lincoln Chafee, Former Rhode Island Governor, poses for a selfie with a student after announcing he will seek the Democratic nomination for president in Arlington, Va. on June 3, 2015. Lincoln Chafee, Former Rhode Island Governor, poses for a selfie with a student after announcing he will seek the Democratic nomination for president in Arlington, Va. on June 3, 2015. Jonathan Ernst—Reuters by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Jul 13, 2015 2:49 PM UTC Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has been buying his own campaign gas, using his own credit card to pay for his Facebook account and picking up the bill on a hotel stay. The reason is necessity: In an age of mega-donors and billion dollar general election campaigns, his campaign is turning heads not for how much he’s raised, but for how little. The long-shot Republican-turned-Democrat’s campaign against Hillary Clinton raised just $28,387 from donors in its first month, with the candidate chipping in more than 13 times that — all while footing many of his own travel bills, [according to a filing](http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00579706/1013400/sa/ALL) with the Federal Election Commission. It’s the latest development in Chafee’s quixotic presidential bid. He was a Republican Senator until 2007, an independent who suffered from unpopularity during his single term as governor. During his announcement speech he endorsed moving the U.S. to the metric system in order to show the world that the country wants to strike a new posture on the international stage. Chafee loaned his proto-campaign almost $164,000 in January, and another $200,000 on June 19, just two weeks after announcing he was challenging the former Secretary of State. 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