And so as Act 2 of the pension reform drama heats up, Raimondo finds herself on the wrong side of cooperation – as well as political and legal logic – as she effectively argues against keeping open lines of communication with organized labor over the pension war she stoked with its members. That’s not only a bad tack to winning over hearts and minds, it’s at best a counter-intuitive way to kick of a campaign for governor in Rhode Island.

(Read our post from Tuesday about the brewing disagreement over pension reform talks between Chafee and Raimondo)

According to an informative Mike Stanton piece in today’s Providence Journal, Chafee suggested to Raimondo on November 13 that the state try to negotiate a settlement with labor. According to Stanton, Raimondo replied, more than two weeks later, ““On advice from our counsel, it is not appropriate to pursue the matters you raised.”

Chafee, and many others, disagree.

The governor told Stanton, “I don’t see any downside to talking.”

Here’s a potential downside for Raimondo: the folks over at EngageRI wouldn’t like it very much, and it is these upper income corporate sympathizers who can help a rookie general treasurer amass over a $1 million in her campaign coffers two years prior to the election.

Still, it seems most of the other 2014 gubernatorial candidates agree with Chafee. Ernie Almonte told WPRO this morning he thought the state should be talking to labor and Angel Taveras had similar words for RIPR yesterday.  Anyone want to see what Mayor Allen Fung thinks? Oh yeah, that’s right, he’s busy … negotiating pension reforms with organized labor.

Raimondomania, as the adoring media has dubbed Gina’s phenomenal rise, certainly started off with a giant political victory by many accounts. But the legislative process was only the opening act in the effort to reform public sector pension benefits in Rhode Island. The legal obstacles continue to come into sharper focus on Friday. And, evidently, negotiations continued between the executive branch and the pensioners.

Raimondo has chosen not to come to the table.

First, right off the bat: anyone who uses the phrase “Democrat Party” is already showing their ignorance of the Democratic Party. You should still read their arguments, but chances are, they’re going to be off-base. And that’s what Donna Perry’s column in GoLocalProv is (the URL says Julia Steiny for some reason).

Ms. Perry tries to set up a scenario of a polarized RI Democratic Party; a “traditional apparatus” Democratic Party under the command of Chairman Ed Pacheco and another “union-social liberal” Democratic party, with NEARI’s Bob Walsh as leader (because, why not, that works). Ms. Perry’s scenario breaks down almost immediately, though she muddles through to the correct conclusion arrived at by the wrong route (that Democratic Primary results “lacking a narrative,” as WPRI’s Ted Nesi put it, are likely to continue). As Ms. Perry points out, there were a number of races where unions and marriage equality supporters worked for different candidates. If Mr. Walsh is to be the head of Ms. Perry’s fictional second Democratic Party, he seems to be doing a piss-poor job of it (no offense meant, Bob, but get your fictional party in line).

Ms. Perry points to two races for Senate; Maryellen Butke vs. Gayle Goldin and Mike McCaffrey vs. Laura Pisaturo. In the interest of space, I’ll focus solely on the former.

In Ms. Perry’s telling, Ms. Butke the marriage equality and education reform “powerhouse” is defeated by Ms. Goldin the union-chosen candidate. This faux narrative completely ignores the fact that Ms. Butke, despite gobs of cash, ran a confusing campaign that both bashed the Democratic Party and retiring Senator Rhoda Perry, and then tried proposing that Ms. Butke was the true “progressive successor” to Rhoda Perry. One mailing had Ms. Butke’s happy campaign on one side, and an attack piece on Ms. Goldin in mock Goldin colors on the other. The attack piece attempted to tie Ms. Goldin to policies she had nothing to do with, citing sources that make zero mention of Ms. Goldin; including one of Mr. Nesi’s blog posts that simply pointed out that the ultimate cost of the $75 million 38 Studios loan guarantee was closer to $112 million.

On top of this, Ms. Perry neglects to mention that Senator-elect Goldin isn’t exactly any kind of right-wing ideologue; she’s worked for an organization that wants to eliminate gender inequity and implement social justice! Oh, the horror! How could liberal Providence East Side Democratic Primary voters dare choose Ms. Goldin? In essence, there wasn’t much difference between the candidates, and Ms. Butke’s semi-negative campaigning was not effective (though she was quite energetic).

Ms. Perry has made the mistake of thinking of groups as monolithic. She’s done well in beginning to not think of the Democratic Party as monolithic. But now she’s gone and begun thinking of her fake “two Democratic Parties” as being monolithic. Or social liberal or union voters as monolithic. Just because you support marriage equality doesn’t mean you always vote for the louder marriage equality candidate. Just because you’re in a union doesn’t mean you’re going to vote the way the union tells you.

The Democratic Party in Rhode Island is not really under the control of anyone. It is a large-scale coalition of disparate groups. You can’t make blanket assumptions about any one group within that coalition. They range from various unions (unions often work against one another), environmental groups, farmers, various minority communities, LGBTQ activists, internet freedom activists, anti-poverty crusaders, pro-life activists, education reformers, corporate leaders, lawyers, neoliberals, etc., etc. Heck, even though he lost, ALEC Democrat Jon Brien is still very much part of the Democratic Party of Rhode Island.

If there is a narrative from primary night, it’s that the Democratic Party is shifting left. Unions and marriage-equality supporters didn’t really lose any ground, they only gained it, knocking off a number of their opponents. Yes, they didn’t win everything, but then, no one does. They all won under the Democratic Party banner, which should be pleasing to the Democratic Party (a displeasing result would be a large organized mass of union and/or social liberal candidate running as independents and not participating in the primary). David Cicilline absolutely crushed Anthony Gemma, which should make many Democrats smile. Going into the general election, Democrats are going to have quite an advantage, with higher turnout rates to support President Barack Obama.

So, no, Ms. Perry, as much as you, or I, might wish it, there are not three parties in Rhode Island. There’s one. It’s called the Democratic Party. It runs the state. It’s in charge. It screws up, it succeeds. How powerful is it, you might ask? Well, let’s see why I didn’t count the Republican Party as a party.

Take a look at the first television ads for Barry Hinckley and Brendan Doherty. They’re only 30 seconds each (and rather benign), so it’ll only take about a minute. Notice anything? Both candidates use the phrase “both parties” when talking about who to blame for America’s economic situation. Both fail to make use of the color red, strongly associated with Republicans, instead opting for blue (strongly associated with Democrats). And most damning of all? Neither mention their party affiliation; only Mr. Doherty shows it (barely) onscreen, I assume because of law forcing him to show that the National Republican Committee helped pay for the ad. That should tell you all you need to know about the Republican Party in Rhode Island.

I suspect if that if named a United States Senator tomorrow (might as well give the right-wing immediate heartburn at that prospect) my committee assignment of choice would be the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the so-called, and when run correctly, aptly named HELP Committee. Putting four important issues so remarkably interlinked together was wise indeed, but those linkages are not always obvious to some who deem themselves progressives.

My progressive friends breathed a sigh of relief last week when the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, appreciate the importance of a strong public education system, and usually understand the basics of workers having a voice at the table through collective bargaining rights. But last year, so many progressive legislators, despite making commitments to the contrary, often in writing to the groups that endorsed them, voted to implement some of the most draconian changes in the country to Rhode Island’s state-run public pension plans. And many of their progressive supporters seem to be equally confused by the issue or just wish it would go away. It will not, and should not.

The elected officials who broke their commitments know who they are. While, to the dismay of many, I remain personally fond of Rhode Island General Treasurer Gina Raimondo (who made no commitments on the issue), she essentially told the General Assembly that our unfunded pension liability was a “weapon of mass destruction,” and with remarkable haste in a virtually unprecedented special session, the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011 was enacted. And it was enacted with a lot of nominally progressive votes. I have more sympathy for elected officials willing to make amends, those who felt caught up in the same type of political tide that led federal elected officials to support the ill-advised war in Iraq (a vote which was at least a contributing factor to Hillary Clinton losing the Democratic Presidential nomination) and now acknowledge their errors in judgment, than for those who are angry they have been asked to account for their votes. I do give kudos to Providence Mayor Angel Taveras for negotiating a solution with active and retired employees as the state should have done and progressive legislators should have insisted they do.

All of that said, this article is not primarily directed at elected officials who need to reconsider their priorities, but at the progressive community in general. It is ironic that many of my more conservative acquaintances, while still maintaining their distaste for both unions and defined benefit pensions, confide in me their belief that the State of Rhode Island acted illegally in breaking the covenant it had with those workers and retirees. It pains me that some of the progressives with whom I have fought side by side in so many battles do not understand either the legal or moral obligation the State has to those workers, or that society should have to provide real retirement security to all workers. Worse are those that buy into, and repeat, the false choices argument – that if the state honors commitments to its public sector workers, it won’t be able to tighten the safety net for those most in need. Have the recent tax cuts for the wealthiest among us have been forgotten so quickly? False choices indeed!

Progressives believe that the entire arc of an individual’s life should be imbued with justice. That includes not only a world free from discrimination, a clean environment, the right to choose, the right to marry the partner of your choice and help for those who need it the most, but access to quality, affordable health care, an excellent public education, a good job with good wages where workers have a voice, and a secure retirement.

Apparently, one can still be a Democrat and ignore some of these issues – but you can’t claim to be a progressive.