Jeff Johnson was my high school biology teacher at South Kingstown High School. Students like me know him as the teacher who consistently dresses poorly and reads poetry out loud for fun. In many ways, he lives a life of absolutes. His desk is eternally messy; his glasses are always missing. His vocabulary and control over language are often awe-inspiring; his typing speed, not so much. He is universally loved by his students. He is fiercely intelligent and curious. But most importantly, he is so incredibly caring, not only to his students and to his family but also to our planet and to all its citizens.
Mr. Johnson has spent the past three decades fighting for the people and the issues politicians don’t care to talk about. Since the 1970s, Mr. Johnson has been engaged in the fight against climate change, and in March 2016, he helped organize a Climate March in South Kingstown. In the late 1990s, Mr. Johnson became heavily involved in the protests against the inhumanity of the American sanctions on Iraq which killed an estimated 500,000 children. Opposed to the Iraq War from the beginning, Mr. Johnson, alongside thousands of people, participated in the Iraq War demonstration in NYC on February 15, 2003. Over the years, Mr. Johnson has brought to the high school activists like Ralph Nader and the late Howard Zinn to speak on issues ranging from climate change to perpetual war.
But even with all of these things going on, Mr. Johnson always finds time to help his students. When I was at the high school, Mr. Johnson was always helping someone after school, whether it was with biology concepts, family problems, writing an essay or a science fair project. These conversations would go well into the afternoon, sometimes into the night. And it was one of these late afternoon conversations that sparked the idea for this campaign.
Today, his campaign is run by the volunteer work of a dozen of his students (current and former). We have spent countless hours working on a campaign platform (available online) that covers everything from agricultural policy to social security reform. We have been kicked out of libraries while collecting signatures outside. We have marched through torrential rain holding deteriorating cardboard box anti-war signs in our arms. We have designed a bumper stickers and yard signs, brochures and a website. We do this because we have talked to Mr. Johnson; we have gotten to know what a passionate man he is; and we really believe that he has the ability to affect change, meaningful change, where Mr. Langevin hasn’t in his decade and a half.
To Mr. Johnson, and perhaps to his campaign’s detriment, the election isn’t just about winning and a job in Congress— it is about his students. “The reason why I got into politics was because I was always talking about issues like climate change, but if all you do is talk about them, all you do is depress kids,” he told me earlier today in his classroom, “I felt like I had to do more than a hollow, academic exercise. It had to be a tangible part of my life. I was tired of feeling guilty.” This same feeling motivated Mr. Johnson to run in 1994, 1998 and then again in 2000 for statewide office. In 1994, Mr. Johnson ran for Lieutenant Governor as a Green, receiving about 6% of the vote. To date, no statewide election has matched that vote share result for a Green candidate.
Mr. Johnson is a candidate who will not represent corporate greed and war. He will never take money, as Mr. Langevin has, from defense contractors: General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrup Grumman. He will not be passive as climate change ravages our world— he will be practicing civil disobedience with the activists— he will be getting arrested on the streets so that people will pay attention. Mr. Johnson is a person who understands the plight of the “American dream” and the American worker. He was the first person in his family to graduate from college, and today, he holds four degrees. He has worked as a submarine welder, a quahogger, a farmer, a prison dishwasher, a medical technician, a Ford assembly line operator, a gas station mechanic, a painter, a landscaper, a book editor and a paperboy. Nowadays, in addition to the high school, he commutes to Providence to work in DCYF group homes on weekends. Private sector, public sector, white collar, blue collar, Mr. Johnson has seen it all. He has seen for himself the struggle and hardship Americans must face every day.
This election season, we hang on the precipice. We must think carefully about whether we want to maintain this status quo of wage stagnation and environmental degradation. We must be open to alternatives, no matter our political affiliation or views. And more than anything, we must courageously vote our conscience after we have given all candidates a fair assessment. Mr. Johnson, I believe, offers alternatives to our status quo, alternatives that will leave a healthy planet for future generations, alternatives that will heal our economic system so that it is more equitable and fair for both the American people and those abroad.
If you want to read more about our campaign and our views, please visit out website. And check out our Facebook page!
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In many ways, Congressman Jim Langevin and upstart progressive challenger John Hamilton have a lot in common even as they compete in the Democratic primary for the second congressional district seat.
For example, they both think Langevin is a strong favorite to win.
“It’s an uphill battle,” Hamilton said. “He has a lot of money and he’s the incumbent. All the advantages go to the incumbent.”
Langevin said, “I’m hopeful and optimistic about it. I feel good about the race, but never overconfident.”
And both describe themselves as being progressive.
“I’m a progressive from way back,” Hamilton said, “which used to be known as a liberal.”
Langevin said, “If you look at my voting record I think I have a very progressive voting record.”
On policy matters, too, Langevin and Hamilton agree more often than they disagree. Both cited income inequality as the biggest issue facing America.
“To my view concentrated wealth at the top is the problem,” said Hamilton.
Langevin said, “We talk about fighting for a living wage and closing the income gap and trying to create an economic system that the vast majority of American families would benefit under, as opposed to the 1 percent, I’m a pretty consistent vote on all of those things.”
It’s the subtle differences in their responses that shows why Hamilton is challenging Langevin, despite conceding that “we’re both pretty good” when asked where the two candidates find agreement.
“I’m seeking to be a change agent in this election,” said Hamilton, who was inspired to run for congress by Bernie Sanders.
Langevin, the eight-term Democrat first elected in 2000, said, “It is my job to reflect the views of my constituents, the people I represent, and I hope I’ve been doing that effectively.”
Both are voting for Hillary Clinton in November, but Langevin is an avid supporter of hers and Hamilton, who served two terms in the state legislature in the early 1980’s, more reluctantly. He says he returned to politics only because “both parties are taking a wrong direction.” For 30 years, less-than-liberal Democrats helped Republicans and corporations ruin the American middle class, according to Hamilton.
“The Democratic Party took a wrong direction in the 1990’s,” he said. “We had the golden years of economics in America … and what happened? Well, we started cutting taxes for the very wealthy – the billionaires, the millionaires and the corporations – so we had less revenue to reinvest in our country. Then we started doing these trade agreements … and then we deregulated the banks, we did away with Glass Steagall, which was an important separation of investment and regular banking. I call those the triad of middle class destruction. We had job sucking trade agreements, we had bank deregulation and we had the trickle down economics and taxation that started with Reagan and then later in the Clinton era.”
On these finer points, Langevin and Hamilton only partially agree.
Both candidates oppose trade deals, in general, and the Trans Pacific Partnership, in particular. But there is a concerted difference in their words.
“I see TPP as nothing more than a corporate takeover of America and I consider anyone who votes for TPP to be voting against the United States of America,” Hamilton said.
Langevin was more measured, saying, “I’m not a supporter of that right now. I’m waiting to see what is going to be negotiated in terms of an agreement. I have not been impressed with many of the trade agreements in the past, including NAFTA, that have worked well for other countries, it seems, and corporations but hasn’t benefited American workers or American companies as much as it has overseas companies.”
They have stronger differences on reinstating the Glass Steagall, which historically prevented lending banks from also being investment banks but was repealed in 1999. It is a favorite policy prescription of many progressives looking to reign in Wall Street..
“Not that I’m opposed to reinstalling the provisions of Glass-Steagall,” Langevin said, “but the Consumer Protection Division that we just created, I do want to give that a chance to work to see if that could be more effective.”
Both said gun safety and gender equality are important areas for Congress to act on next session. Hamilton is solidly pro choice and Langevin more pro life when it comes to abortion, but it’s hard to imagine legislation that would divide them as Langevin often votes against anti-abortion bills sponsored by Republicans. Langevin voted with Republicans last session on a bill that would have made it more difficult for Syrian refugees to come to the United States and Hamilton criticized him for it. But, for the most part, if Republicans control the House of Representatives again, which Langevin said seems likely, he and Hamilton would probably often vote the same way.
But there are big differences between Langevin’s style and Hamilton’s – and nowhere is that difference more acute than in their approaches to the proposed Burrillville power plant.
“That plant is not needed in Burrillville,” Hamilton said. “If there is any politician who hasn’t come out against it and stood with them against this power plant, they need to send that message that they are never getting their vote again.”
Langevin isn’t taking a position on the issue.
“I think everyone recognizes that we have to do more to meet our state’s energy needs and help bring down the cost of energy and some feel that the Burrillville power plant is something that will help in that area but we also have to mindful of the environmental impacts,” he said. “That’s why I support the whole process and fact finding that’s happening right now. Although it’s not a federal issue, it’s local and state, I’m certainly monitoring the issue very closely.”
Hamilton, whose first political awakening came when protesting against a proposed nuclear power plant in Charlestown in the 1970’s, called Langevin’s hands-off approach “unacceptable.” Remembering how they stopped the proposed nuclear power plant from being developed where Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge is today, he said, “John Chafee and Claiborne Pell did not remain neutral on the Charlestown nuclear power plant.”
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Congressman Jim Langevin, the Democratic incumbent in the second congressional district, and his Republican challenger Rhue Reis disagree on a terms limits and boots on the ground in Iraq during their NBC 10 News Conference debate.
(You can watch the David Cicilline v. Cormick Lynch CD1 debate here)
News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England
In the second segment, Langevin and Reis disagree on the minimum wage. Langevin says he’s open to lowering the corporate tax rate, but would like to see other reforms as well. Reis says Rhode Island doesn’t need to increase workforce training.
News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England
RI GOP’s Rob Paquin and I discuss:
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Following Abel Collins’ televised debate last Friday, where he clearly bested both Rep. James Langevin and GOP challenger Michael Riley, it’s more apparent than ever that Collins is the best candidate for progressives—perhaps the only candidate—in the 2nd Congressional District. He’s a genuine peace and environmental advocate who’s determined to get big money out of congressional politics. His election to Congress would be good news for those who love peace, and those who long for democracy in America.
In a first for Greens, these qualities won Collins—an independent—the Green Party’s endorsement at its state committee meeting in August. A statement at the time called Collins Rhode Island’s best choice for Congress, saying he’d be a “strong, clear voice, for the people and the planet.”
“Of course it’s possible to challenge the two-party system,” Collins declared. “What’s not possible is to sustain the unsustainable, to make more fossil fuels, or create a peaceful society when people are motivated by fear, and not by love.” After his endorsement, Collins told the Greens he is “proud to be the peace candidate in the race, and proud to have the endorsement of the Green Party.”
After Collins’ strong performance in this week’s debate, a lot more Rhode Islanders will give his campaign a second look. If enough voters were tuned in, Abel’s progressive campaign is going to do very well on Tuesday.
Tony Affigne is state committee chair for the Green Party of Rhode Island. Visit the Greens at www.RIGreens.org
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I’m glad the Rhode Island Democratic party is finally coming together to renounce the incredibly negative campaigning the Republicans have been resorting to. Let’s hope the media picks up on this story.
In my biased opinion, it’s the biggest meta-narrative of the local campaign this year, but I think it has a lot of merit for my brothers and sisters in the unbiased side of the industry as well.
Today at 1pm at Slater Mill all the Democratic heavyweights in the state – Sheldon, Jack Reed, Cicilline, Elizabeth Roberts, Gina Raimondo, Mayor Taveras and Ed Pacheco, among others (Langevin will be taping the WJAR debate) to call upon their Republican counterparts to stop slinging mud and start talking about issues.
It seems like every day either Brendan Doherty, Barry Hinckley or their operatives release a new dirty and misleading advertisement. Hinckley was just given a Pants on Fire by Politifact today for an untrue ad. Doherty’s ads make a pants on fire rating seem like a gold star though. They have literally been among the most atrocious I’ve ever seen. AP writer Michelle Smith does a nice job of summing up the ad here. She writes:
House Republicans are airing a TV ad in Rhode Island linking freshman Democratic Rep. David Cicilline to a child molester and a murderer he defended when he was a lawyer two decades ago.
A Doherty spokesman told Ian Donnis of RIPR earlier in the week that the campaign decided to go negative because Cicilline did first. Tim White chided Doherty when he offered this same flawed logic during a WPRI debate, saying, “you’re basically saying he started it.”
I think it’s laughable that Brendan Doherty calls himself a man of uncommon integrity and then runs this kind of dirty campaign. There’s no reason unbiased political reporters shouldn’t be calling out a candidate for such an obvious contradiction.
This kind of gutter campaigning isn’t good for anybody and Republicans should be held accountable for resorting to such dirty tactics. But, I suppose if they had a message that would resonate with Rhode Islanders, they’d be ringing that bell instead.
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For progressives living in the Second Congressional District, there’s no tougher choice on this year’s ballot than deciding whom to vote for in the race between Jim Langevin and Abel Collins. Both are sufficiently liberal to warrant your support, but they represent opposite extremes of the left side of the of the state’s political spectrum, and would bring very different attributes to the office.
Langevin would continue the consistent and competent job he has done representing Rhode Islanders while Collins would instantly be among the most liberal members of Congress. Both have their benefits.
Langevin will continue to amass clout in the Congress, and by and large he’s done well by progressive Rhode Islanders.
On economic matters, which are of the utmost importance this election, he’s proven almost, but not quite, as progressive in his voting record as either Senator Sheldon Whitehouse or Congressman David Cicilline – the standard bearers for representing Rhode Island’s liberal base inside the beltway.
On social issues, Langevin has moved left during his tenure in Congress, and I’ve got a lot of respect for politicians who are open-minded enough to evolve. He’s a practicing Catholic who has done a great job of standing up the bully tactics of Bishop Tobin, and I’ve got a lot of respect for that too.
Langevin now believes all couples should be able to marry, which wasn’t always the case. While he’s anti-choice on abortion issues, it’s hard to argue with his very personal reasons – because of the accident that left him wheel chair-bound since he was 16, he wouldn’t wan to deprive anyone of a chance at life. Besides … given how far to right the House has shifted on social issues, Langevin can generally be counted on to vote with the good guys on the choice issues that do come up.
Collins, on the other hand, is not a compromise.
He’s what progressives should want their politicians to think like. He’d fight for a fairer tax code, and we already know from his service at the State House that transportation issues are tantamount to him. He’s also a tireless advocate for the environment, sustainability and civil liberties. These are arguably the most important issues for the country grapple with if we’re to fix our economy in a meaningful way.
His downside is he’s still a little politically naive, and the Collins campaign has been something short of a well-oiled machine. Some of that has to do with money, and a lot of that has to do with his lack of party support, but some of that also has to do with leadership and Collins would have done well to have learned the ropes a little better before running for U.S. Congress. My biggest beef with Abel is he could have been an effective state legislator if he would have run for a seat there this year.
Thanks in large part to Mike Riley’s lackluster campaign, I’m confident enough in a Langevin landslide to throw my humble support behind Abel Collins, but if he were running in the First District, I’m not sure I’d be writing the same thing … That said, I firmly believe it would be great thing for both Rhode Island and the progressive movement if he could pull off an upset.
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Either independent congressional candidate Abel Collins is doing better than previous polls predicted, or how well he is doing is in the eye – or methodology – of the pollster asking the question.
The Collins campaign would have you believe the former.
It released an email-based poll conducted by CCRI political science professor Eric Siegel showing Collins garnering 16.1 percent support among respondents. That’s compared with 9.2 percent in a recent WPRI poll, and 4.7 percent in a more recent Brown poll.
The email poll showed incumbent Democrat Jim Langevin with 47.6 percent, compared to 52.6 in the WPRI poll and 49.4 percent in the Brown poll. Mike Riley, the Republican, got just 22.3 percent support in the Collins poll, compared with a similarly paltry 29.1 percent in the WPRI poll and 31.5 percent in the Brown poll.
Siegel, a former Green Party committee chair whose business Aqua Opinion and Policy Research was hired to conduct the poll though he is also serving as a volunteer with the Collins campaign, said email polls better reflect the electorate than do polls that utilize landlines, like the WPRO and Brown polls.
The logic goes that those who still utilize landlines tend to skew conservative – so even if the landline-using respondent is a registered Democrat, for example, he or she may tend to be a more conservative Democrat than, say, a registered Democrat who has ditched the landline for a cell phone or Skype. However, the same logic only politically reversed should also hold true … would those who would respond to an email poll tend to skew left? My guess is yes.
In other words, in either circumstance you might get the same amount of registered Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter) responding, but they might tend to be from different ends of the spectrum of registered Democrats or Republicans or unaffiliated voters.
There’s another difference in the Collins poll. Siegel weights his responses to match the demographics of the district, whereas the other two polls call the requisite number of households until they reach a demographic sample that matches the district.
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At long last, the Abel Collins campaign sent me the YouTube code for his response to the questions posed WPRI posed to the other two CD2 candidates in the Tuesday night debate that he was excluded from.
It’s only 20 minutes long, and if you’re a voter in the Second Congressional District or a fan and/or pundit of politics (state or national, actually), it is well worth a watch. Collins may not be the most viable candidate in the race, but his ideas have great merit.
Here’s a link to WPRI’s debate, to compare and contrast.
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Just in case, after Mike Riley berated not only Jim Langevin during the WPRI debate but also the moderators several times too, you needed any additional evidence that this guy can’t get along with anyone he gave it to you on the Dan Yorke show yesterday.
Riley actually had the audacity to berate Yorke this time, the host of the radio show he was appearing on … and he did so for, among other reasons, not asking him softball questions!
“What you really should be asking me is how is Rhode Island going to do better, that’s your job,” he said to Yorke. “My job is to make Rhode Island do better.”
Yorke was asking Riley about an inconsistency between him saying in 2010 that he didn’t believe in money in politics but this time around he clearly does as he is prepared to invest more than a million dollars running for Congress. Riley dismissed the question and called it a “gotcha” question.
The two verbally spar right from the get go, but it gets really heated at about 11:22 in the podcast – when Yorke asked him about the video we dug up of his 2010 campaign for state Senate.
Riley also offered some insight as to why he developed such nasty and untrue attack ads against Langevin.
“I was actually so naive politically as to believe that my ideas would come out through the radio station or through newspapers,” he said when asked why he changed his philosophy about money in elections, “but that actually didn’t happen. I’ve learned a lot about politics.”
He also offered a little insight into what he thinks of the press, too.
“All this side story and all this stuff you hear in the media means nothing,” he said when Yorke asked him what message he wants listeners to take away about him. “What we really need to do is get Rhode Island back on track. And what you need someone to do is get someone in there and work on the economy.”
I’m pretty sure Rhode Islanders – as well as Americans everywhere – don’t think we need Wall Street hedge fund managers like Riley doing any more work on our economy.
]]>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.
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