WASHINGTON—The decision of Senator Chafee to delay – and perhaps sink – the confirmation of Ambassador Bolton as the American envoy at the United Nations may backfire on the senator amid his effort to win another term in the upper chamber.

The decision of the senator from Rhode Island, a Republican who often sides against the administration, is likely to emerge in the next few days as a central issue in his fight for the Republican nomination in the Senate race in Rhode Island. His opponent for the Republican nomination, the mayor of Cranston, Stephen Laffey, told the New York Sun in an interview Friday that Mr. Chafee was too indecisive to hold on to his seat.
“If you ask someone about John Bolton, whether they are unaffiliated or Republican, they can not come up with a reason why he should not be the U.N. Ambassador. My opinion is that democratic senators did not like him because George W. Bush liked him. They don’t have a real reason though. But for me, it’s not about John Bolton per se. The issue is that in this state Rhode Islanders open the front page of the newspaper and see a U.S. Senator who does not know what to do, standing on the sidelines.”

Mr. Chafee often bucks his party on key votes, as he did when he voted against the confirmation of Justice Alito. Mr. Chafee declined to endorse President Bush in 2004. But on the nomination fight over Mr. Bolton, the senator from Rhode Island has been particularly maddening for the White House. When Mr. Bolton’s name was forwarded to the Senate in 2005, Mr. Chafee did not endorse him and, at the last minute, allowed his nomination to clear the Senate Foreign Relations Committee only without recommendation.

This time around, his decision to postpone a vote on Mr. Bolton came as a surprise to the White House, which thought Mr. Chafee had followed the lead of Senator Voinovich, an Ohio Republican who initially opposed the Bolton nomination but changed his mind last month based on his performance at Turtle Bay.

In lieu of voting for Mr. Bolton, Mr. Chafee sent a series of questions to Secretary Rice that questioned the pro-Israel bent of American foreign policy. On Friday, State Department spokesman, Shaun McCormack, said Ms. Rice would get back to Mr. Chafee by phone or by letter. “She absolutely thinks that he is the right man for the job. She fully supports this nomination and she thinks that John is doing an extraordinary job up there in New York,” Mr. McCormack said.

But Mr. Chafee’s hold could spell doom for Mr. Bolton’s ambassadorship. To start, Mr. Chafee is running for re-election in a liberal state. Some pro-United Nations organizations have already begun campaigning against Mr. Bolton in Rhode Island. While a vote for Mr. Bolton would likely assuage Republican primary voters in Rhode Island, the Senator has nothing to gain politically from a Bolton vote after the Tuesday primary.

If the Senate fails to confirm Mr. Bolton by the close of the session, the president could still appoint him again to be his ambassador in Turtle Bay. But Mr. Bolton would have to accept the job without compensation in the form of a salary or even travel expenses.
Mr. Laffey is hoping that Mr. Chafee’s wavering ways and weak stance on Israel will cost him his Senate seat. “We made the issue on Israel a big issue in this campaign,” he said. “Chafee is one of four U.S. Senators who does not vote for sanctions on Syria. He does not sign the letter to the European Union asking to place Hezbollah on the terrorism list.”

Mr. Laffey added, “I read his letter to Secretary of State Rice. I don’t think he understands that John Bolton is an ambassador and does not make the policies he doesn’t like. I actually think he does not understand that. I read the letter. People of Rhode Island are stupefied by that letter.”

Mr. Chafee’s hold on the Bolton nomination has also worried some GOP insiders in Washington. “John Bolton has been among the greatest ambassadors to the United N Nations that this country has had,” the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Clifford May, said. “It is extraordinarily disappointing that Lincoln Chafee fails to understand and this, and it raises very serious questions about his judgment.”