To make these results even more stunning, the media’s insistence on over-covering Donald Trump should have juiced the GOP’s numbers, and the media narrative that the Democratic race is over should have depressed the Democratic numbers. But apparently not. The GOP also benefited from a three-way race, which should boost turnout over a two-way like the Democratic contest. Even with these advantages, Democrats solidly outperformed Republicans in turnout.

Unfortunately, some pundits have spun these results as good news for the GOP, pointing to the fact that GOP turnout was up over the 2008 primary. But that analysis conveniently forgets that John McCain had already sown up the Republican nomination by the time Rhode Island voted, while the Obama/Clinton race was very hotly contested.

In the real world, it is difficult to interpret these results as anything but more evidence that Rhode Island is moving to the left. On the right, some Republicans believe that voter anger at the right-wing Democratic establishment’s policies will deliver a red wave in November. Some pundits have begun parroting their talking points. Channel 10 political analyst Wendy Schiller even posited that Donald Trump might win Rhode Island.  Fortunately, it looks like Rhode Islanders are too smart to vote for Trump.  If these turnout numbers hold, the Republican Party will have a rough November in our state.

“After reading the bill, I was convinced that it does not stop the process, it really doesn’t shut the program down, nor does it significantly slow it,” Langevin told RI Future in an interview, which you can listen to in its entirety below. “It added modest layer of new security in terms of the vetting process but nothing that would shut down or significantly slow the vetting process, and that’s ultimately why I supported it.”

He said it wasn’t difficult to vote against President Obama, who strongly urged Democrats not to support the Republican-backed bill. “All of my decisions are based on the merits. They don’t belong to a particular party or special interest.”

Langevin, who told me he didn’t see State Sen. Elaine Morgan’s comments about Islam and Muslim refugees, said he thinks the United States should accept more Syrian refugees than the 10,000 Obama has called for – and that he thinks the government should add resources to ensure the refugee process moves quicker.

“I strongly support additional resources that will expedite the process,” he said. “The best thing we can do to make sure we’re not slowing the process down is put more resources into vetting so we can speed it up.”

When asked how he thinks Rhode Islanders feel about the issue, he said, “I’ve heard from people on both sides of this issue.”

You can listen to our full 20 minute conversation on his vote in particular and the Syrian refugee crisis in general here:

• Dems draw more with love than GOP does with fear
• Cathy Cool Rumsey will run against Elaine Morgan
• Rep. Nardolillo thinks Elaine Morgan owes Muslims an apology
• State senators to hold rally to support Syrian refugees
• Humanists of RI support sheltering Syrian refugees in RI
• Cicilline to Obama: Accept 100,000 Syrian refugees
• Diossa to Obama: Central Falls will take in Syrian refugees
• Dorcas International explains Rhode Island refugee process

“I don’t think it matters very much,” said the URI history professor who will be discussing his new book Out of Sight next week – Wednesday, Nov. 18 from 5:30 to 7:30 at AS220. Earlier this week, RI Future interviewed Loomis about his book, and the TPP.

“This is out of no love for Hillary Clinton that I’m saying this,” Loomis explained. “My guess is that a Bernie Sanders presidency for progressives is about 10 percent better than a Hillary Clinton presidency because of the limitations and structure of American politics.”

Though he said a Sanders presidency would be more likely to oppose a trade deal like TPP than Clinton, he said the two Democratic candidates will likely be facing the same conservative Congress and courts.

“We have to stop thinking strictly through presidential politics as the answer,” he explained. “We’re never going to elect the right person. That’s not how power works. That’s not how the world changes. It’s not how it’s ever changed. It changes from below. It has to come through from people organizing on the ground.”

He said it was was more important to focus on defeating the Republican Party than which Democrat to nominate. “Where the rubber meets the road in 2015 is defeating the Republican Party who actually wants to literally bring us back to the era of the 1890’s and we don’t want that,” he said.

• Erik Loomis on his new anti-globalization book “Out of Sight”
• Erik Loomis on TPP: the ugly, the bad and the good
• Erik Loomis on Bernie vs. Hillary: Not as critical as defeating the GOP
• Erik Loomis live next week, Wednesday, November 18 from 5:30 to 7:30 at AS220

November 9th, Twenty-Sixteen
Words crawl across my TV screen:
GOP WINS THE WHITE HOUSE BACK
My chest felt like a heart attack

I called my friends so we could grieve
Some were packing, ready to leave
Others asked me, “How could we lose?”
Still others drowned their tears in booze

The only hope we could embrace
Lay with the House and Senate race
But red states were on a roll
Republicans took full control

The first sign things weren’t like before
My doc moved to a Walmart store
ObamaCare – too socialized
So now all healthcare’s privatized

Keystone pipeline that wasn’t built
Assured us that no oil was spilt
Now crude is pumped in each time zone
With fracking sites in Yellowstone

Small business climbed out of its rut
Now that minimum wage got cut
The Equal Pay for Women Act?
Big biz made sure it wasn’t backed

Immigration is finally fixed
Thanks to a border wall of bricks
Built by any Mexican who
Gets an ID number tattoo

Guns and books are now the rule
Arming teachers in every school
Bus drivers too, and postal clerks
Ready for whatever danger lurks

America gets even worse
Lucky for you I’m out of verse
Suffice to say if this comes true
The April Fools are me and you

c2015pn
Read Peet Nourjian’s previous poems here.

While there was jubilation in the Rhode Island Democratic Party election night party because of the biggest sweep since 1960, that mood was not shared by Democrats in South County.

From Exeter to Westerly, Democrats, and especially progressive Democrats, took an awful beating in General Assembly and Town Council races. Majorities in several South County towns also shifted from blue to red in their votes for state offices.

Since I started living in South County in 2002 and covering local politics at Progressive Charlestown, I had enjoyed watching what seemed to be a steady shift from the region’s historic Swamp Yankee conservatism to more progressive politics. South County sent a high proportion of solid blue Democrats to the State House and voted mostly Blue in state and national races.

But that changed on November 4.

Of the 11 South County communities, only four voted for Gina Raimondo over Allan Fung.

In addition to going GOP for governor, South County lost three terrific progressives – my own state Representative Donna Walsh, Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey and Rep. Larry Valencia. Each of them faced appallingly unqualified opponents. Donna Walsh lost to a radical “Tenther” who doesn’t even seem to live in the District. Cathie Cool Rumsey lost to Hopkinton’s honorific Town Sheriff who was caught using her uniform to impersonate a police officer.

Larry Valencia lost to a guy whose only previous experience was running as a delegate to the Republican National Convention as a delegate for Ron Paul – and who came in fifth out of five.

In Charlestown, we were totally crushed, losing every single elected office in the town to a group called the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), an off-shoot of the RI Statewide Coalition. If you mixed the Tea Party with the Nature Conservancy and the worst rich people’s homeowners association you can imagine, you’d get something that looks like the CCA.

The CCA Party gets more than 60% of its funding from out of state donors. They provide vacation property owners with the ability to vote with their checkbooks in local elections. The CCA Party has increasingly put Charlestown on a “pay to play” basis where the attention you get from town government is in proportion to the amount you donate to the CCA Party.

But those of us in Charlestown were not alone in our misery. Exeter Democrats also took a terrible beating. Exeter rejected all five state general office winners and provided winning margins for Tea Party Rep. Doreen Costa (R) to be re-elected and for progressive Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey (D) to be ousted.

It was only 11 months ago that Exeter Democrats rallied to crush a gun lobby-sponsored recall of their Democratic Town Council majority. The “Exeter Four” won a huge victory last December 14 only to see two of the four defeated on November 4, costing them the Town Council majority. The level and sophistication of campaigning in Exeter for the general election bore little resemblance to the way Exeter Democrats won last year’s recall.

Larry Valencia’s home base in Richmond also went very bad. Voters rejected the state slate except for Seth Magaziner and also flipped their Town Council from a Democratic majority to Republican control.

Even in Westerly, a Democratic stronghold, Democrats lost control of the Town Council. So it went in North Kingstown, Narragansett and Hopkinton. When the dust settled, the only solidly Democratic town left in South County is South Kingstown.

South Kingstown was the only municipality not swept up in the red tide. South Kingstown was one of only three South County towns to vote for all five Democratic state office candidates. They also re-elected progressive Democrat Rep. Teresa Tanzi by six points despite a $100,000+ campaign mounted against her by mortgage banker Steve Tetzner.

In another closely watched race, South Kingstown also elected Democrat Kathy Fogarty over her Republican opponent, Lacey McGreevey. Fogarty defeated incumbent Rep. Spencer Dickinson in the primary to get her shot at the seat. She won the general election by 16 points.

On top of all that, South Kingstown voters also elected three Democrats and two independents to their Town Council. One of those independents is RI Sierra Club lobbyist Abel Collins.

So what happened?

Like elsewhere in the country, 2014 voter turn-out in South County was low. It was lower than expected even considering the normal drop-off in non-presidential election years.

In Charlestown, we expected turn-out to drop by 900 from the 2012 count for the presidential race. But the drop-off ended up being more than 1,100. With a total voter registration of just over 6,000, that drop-off had a huge impact on the results.

Challengers to incumbents trumpeted the state GOP’s lead issue – 38 Studios – 24/7. Forget that it was unlamented ex-Governor Donald Carcieri’s (R) idea. However, 38 Studios did not affect the state office races or act as much more than buzzkill in most races. Even Republican Attorney General candidate Dawson Hodgson, who probably banged the 38 Studios drum the loudest, admitted after the election that maybe the issue wasn’t so potent after all.

However, 38 Studios may have had a disproportional effect among our South County Swamp Yankees as it was in just about every one of the many mailers, ads and flyers attacking Democrats.

In many South County races, the conservatives out-spent and out-hustled Democrats. In the House District 36 race, Rep. Donna Walsh’s “Tenther” opponent out-spent her 13-to-1 going into the final month.

But money doesn’t always make the difference, as re-elected Rep. Teresa Tanzi can attest. Tetzner went into the final stretch of the campaign having raised three times as much money than Tanzi, mostly through loans he made to his campaign. Tetzner outspent Tanzi by six to one, but she still won.

By contrast, progressive incumbents Larry Valencia and Cathie Cool Rumsey both out-raised and out-spent their Republican opponents, Justin Price and Elaine Morgan respectively, by wide margins, but still lost.

After reviewing Price’s and Morgan’s campaign finance reports, it looks to me that there was a lot more money in their campaigns than they reported. Morgan, for example, reports having spent only $322 on her campaign up to the last week, but she had campaign signs plastered all over Richmond, Exeter and Hopkinton as well as campaign mailers. She only reported $444 in in-kind donations.

There are still unresolved pieces of the puzzle. At some point, Rep. Donna Walsh will get a hearing in front of the state Board of Elections on her charge that her opponent lied about where he lives and is not really a resident of the 36^th District. There may be charges filed in other campaigns for misreporting, ethics violations or campaign sabotage. There are a few recounts to be done of some races for town office.

But in the end, there is a new political reality in South County.

Perhaps with more time and perspective, we’ll be able to figure out what went wrong, but we now live with the reality that on November 4, South County flipped from blue to red. We have to figure out how to flip it back.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Allan Fung and Ken Block both support Common Core, cutting taxes, shrinking government, federal – not local – immigration reform and a women’s right to an abortion.

And despite admitting they would support the other in the general election during Tuesday night’s WPRI/Providence Journal debate, the thing they seem to agree on the most is the belief that their opponent would be a bad governor of Rhode Island.

Fung called Block a “political opportunist” and “not a real Republican.” He said he “has a difficult time reading municipal budgets” about an accounting error Block admitted to. “How can we trust him” with the state budget, he asked.

Block, on the other hand, said Fung is too familiar with local government. “If you’re happy with Rhode Island the way it is, vote for my opponent, or one of the other Democrats,” he said during his closing remarks.

At different points during the debate, they each paraphrased Ronald Reagan’s famous “there you go again” quip to Jimmy Carter. They each blamed the other for the negative tone of the campaign.

“This campaign has been full of venom, vile and half truths,” Block said. “We didn’t start the negativity. You have to respond at some point, anyone who watches politics knows it.”

Fung responded, “I think the viewers of Rhode Island see where much of the negativity and half truths have been coming from in tonight’s debate.”

They even both agreed they didn’t know yet whether they support Education Commissioner Deborah Gist’s recent decision to delay implementing a high stakes test graduation requirement. (Don’t forget, she was appointed by Republican Gov. Don Carcieri)

One rare instance of policy disagreement came on unemployment insurance.

Block says unemployment insurance in Rhode Island covers more seasonal employees than in other states. “We must fix it,” Block said. “There’s no more Republican ideal than having those who heavily use the system pay their fair share.”

But Fung counters that Block is effectively advocating for raising taxes on seasonal businesses such as those in tourism, agriculture and construction. “That is going to crush the seasonal industry,” he said. “I would not support tax raises to those seasonal industries.”

Both, however, agree that the economic burden is best dealt with at the employee level.

Newton (a former employer of mine) is still listed as the chairman on the group’s webpage.

“Chuck accepted responsibility,” said Isaacs, who has advocated for less anonymous political attacks on the internet. “I think the whole thing, it was almost sophomoric. Unfortunately it’s indicative of the negativity that pervades politics on both sides.”

Senator Dawson Hodgson, a Republican who represents East Greenwich and is running for attorney general, agreed.

“I thought that was appropriate [that Newton be fired] because he created that in his state office on state time and we as a Republican Party stand for wise use of public resources and that is not consistent with how we operate.”

Hodgson said he did not believe a crime was committed. Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU, agreed.

In a letter to Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, Brown wrote, “Indeed, as you are aware, the courts have set a very high standard for public officials to pursue even civil actions against political invective. If the broadsides on this Facebook page constitute unlawful “harassment,” then The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and dozens of other political web sites engage in criminal activity every day.”

Amy Kempe, spokewoman for Kilmartin, said the Attorney General’s office is still waiting for a complete report from police. “It underscores the loopholes in current statutes,” she said. “We’re trying to add in online impersonation.”

Kempe said the AG’s office will consider stand alone legislation for online impersonation this year instead of bundling it with other provisions.

Rep. Scott Guthrie said he is considering bringing federal charges.

Watch the not-funny-because-it’s-true Daily Show segment here, in which Aasif Mandvi suggests Democrats level the playing field by suppressing Republican turnout with, among other ploys, “Jesus didn’t vote” bumper stickers.

The segment also features Civil Rights hero and Georgia Congressman John Lewis who will be in Rhode Island later this week for the Providence NAACP’s 100th Annual Freedom Fund Awards Dinner.

This Daily Show segment on voter repression is pretty good too:

For example, while Justin Katz posted this on Twitter: “Memo to RI conservatives: Stand against the prudes’ moral bullying. It will only continue to expand.”

Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Young Republicans posted this to Facebook:

Eight emails have hit my inbox today re: the insensitivity of the RI GOP’s semi automatic gun raffle, and some new attendees’ concerns re: attending a republican event tomorrow. PLEASE note that the YRs are not beholden to the state party, have no funding from them (all of our events are self-funded or sponsored by the Roosevelt Society), and tend to have a very different tone. The only connection is that by charter, the chairman (me) sits on their E-board (although to be honest, we’ve only had one e-board meeting since we came into existence, so impact is non existent). Tomorrow night with Commissioner Gist is NOT a RI GOP event. We look forward to continuing to promote the big tent philosophy, and being the next generation’s problem solvers (Lord knows we have a lot to work with).

On the other hand, she’ll gladly make time for the Rhode Island Young Republicans.

Ignoring student activists and engaging conservative politicians is just one of the many ways Gist continues to be a divisive force in public education. On Friday, she claimed to have not read a report that was critical of teacher evaluations, a major initiative of hers and, not to mention, the subject of her PhD thesis.

Yesterday on Twitter her disdain for her detractors was more subtle but still present. Providence mayoral candidate Jorge Elorza said he disagreed with the NECAP but not high stakes tests in general. Gist felt that was “Excellent news!” for her. It was disturbingly more political than that of the candidate’s. More worrisome is that Gist missed the gist of the tweet – yet another public voice against the NECAP test. She’s seemingly deaf when it comes to any and all disagreement.

The Rhode Island Progressive Democrats and/or the Young Democrats of Rhode Island ought to ask her to come talk to their groups as well.