Abel Collins would have been a great addition to WPRI’s CD2 debate last night, but how he handled his exclusion also gives voters a good glimpse as to how he might govern.
He organized a fantastic grassroots effort to petition the station to change its mind and include him on the stage. He also came up with a smart idea to effectively add himself to the debate by using free internet technology to stream live his debate answers after WPRI had spent probably tens of thousands of dollars to prerecord their debate.
In Collins’ live-streamed response, he spoke mostly of doing more for the middle class, government gridlock and holding Wall Street barons, like his Republican opponent Mike Riley, accountable for the damage their industry has inflicted on the working class. So did Jim Langevin. On big picture economic issues, he and Langevin are not that all that far apart – which makes them several universes removed from Riley, who’s more akin to Ron Paul than John Chafee.
He not only talked the talk of sticking up for regular Rhode Islanders, Collins also showed he knows how to walk the walk and use people power and proletarian tools to take on corporate interests.
That said, his campaign delivered their more than 1,100 signatures to WPRI after it held the debate, which took a some air out of the rally’s sails. And his live-streamed response was at best clunky (thanks in no small part to its media partner on the project – me!). It looked, as it was, homemade (so did Riley’s campaign productions in his pre-TV days). And his staff forgot to record his response, so there is no evidence of it.
Collins is perfectly in pitch with the progressive platform, and his would be a fantastic voice for Rhode Island in Congress, but he might not be ready for prime time. His energy and ideas would have been better used on a run at a State House seat.
Proletarian: It’s a nasty word; an argument starter; a thought-ender.
Look, times get hard and people of differing interests and levels of sophistication rise up for justice and a social life and a decent, alive time in their lives.
Don’t mess it up with stereotypes; lifelike images of a gaudy, romanticized past. Dead puppets.
Make it as new as someone talking to another in a meadow bright with high barometric air and sun.
Righteousness Through the Hard Times of the Republic.
Belief in the intrinsic power of goodness, restraint, balance, and daring.
Belief in being more aware.
(Hands up!! Drop those puppets immediately!!)
“you’re not gonna lose this one,
you’re not gonna cut and run
i think you can choose to love and what is more,
that is how you’ll survive the war.”
–Weepies