Gina Raimondo has the best ideas about how to better Rhode Island – and her middle class-friendly campaign message is far more appealing than Allan Fung’s policy proposals of cutting taxes and shrinking government. Couple that with Raimondo’s track record of being able to move political mountains and it seems like an easy choice.

But it wasn’t.

Maybe I’m holding a grudge because of her ability to shepherd through landmark pension reforms, which I still feel were too one-sided, but I’d like to think it’s more than that. I’m not sure I want to contribute to The Narrative of ‘A Democrat Can Screw Unions And Thrive’. There may be many short and long term wins to be had there (lower unfunded pension liabilities, for just one), but ultimately I’m far from convinced that’s the best row to hoe if we really want to fend off increasing economic inequality, which I firmly believe to be the root cause of much of our social and economic ailments.

Then there’s Wall Street.

It’s not a place in lower Manhattan, it’s a sector of our economy. Maybe the biggest, depending on how you define it, certainly it’s the strongest, and the only thing it makes is profits. This can be harmless in times of growth but, ultimately, can only be predatory unleashed on a society that consumes more than it produces. As such, Wall Street is the glue that solidifies increasing income inequality as the New American Way.

I’m not sure Gina Raimondo shares my thoughts on these issues. But I’m pretty certain Allan Fung doesn’t either. And in the short term, Raimondo will be far better for Rhode Island.

Payday loans don’t stand a chance with Gina Raimondo as governor. I bet she can whip the legislature into raising the minimum wage. I’m confident she can attract vibrant new businesses to downtown Providence and that she’ll be a fantastic ambassador for our tourist economy. She will not only defend our pioneering healthcare exchange, but I’d be surprised if she doesn’t find a way to make it even better. She will prioritize preparing for climate chance and sea level rise, and someday soon Rhode Island will regret if we are not.

Both Raimondo and Fung will support charter schools more than me. But I can see Raimondo turning the focus to a Constitutional right to an adequate and equal education for all. If one thing is obvious about education politics in Rhode Island it’s that we need someone to lead a high level conversation about where it’s going. I hope whoever is the next governor will pick up Bob Healey’s idea to fund education statewide as a way to offer both property tax relief and education equity. Raimondo is the only one who could pull this off.

I wanted to vote for Bob Healey, but it’s just too close with too much at stake. I think he’s the only one telling the truth on the campaign trail, even if he’s sometimes mumbling it. He may well be more popular if he had shorter hair, but instead he chooses to mock our political process. He’s the only one who earned my respect. But I think Rhode Island needs my vote, so it’s going to Gina Raimondo.

Larry Purtill, elected president of NEARI, the state’s largest teachers’ union, says Gina Raimondo would have won a two-way race, but he isn’t ready to throw his support behind her just yet.

“First, the Treasurer probably would have won if there was only one other candidate so except for a few in the media who like to beat up on us, it is a moot point,” Purtill told me.

He made clear he would not support Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, who won the GOP primary for governor. “Obviously, Allan’s position on right to work pretty much eliminates him,” he said.

But said that doesn’t mean he will support Raimondo. “The pension issue aside, Gina’s positions on mayoral academies and funding, teacher evaluation, high stakes testing, how she handles a Dept. Of Ed that teachers remain very skeptical of, her support for collective bargaining need to be out there for us. As of now, we certainly are very non committal.”

He added, “This is where I am and believe NEARI members are. I would hope that anyone who has followed the pension issue or the primary would know we would not just jump in because someone is a Democrat.”

Mark Gray, president of the Young Democrats, posted yesterday pointing out Raimondo’s progressive credentials.

He wrote: “For Rhode Island liberals, it’s taken as an article of faith that Raimondo is a conservative wolf in Democratic sheep’s clothing, based only on her (successful? we’ll see) attempt to stop the state’s runaway public employees’ pension train. The fact that this notion is so pervasive among progressives is a testament to how much unions—especially public sector unions—dominate the Liberal/Progressive scene here in Rhody Land.”

After Governor Linc Chafee voted for the first time in a Democratic primary, he explained in further detail why he voted for Clay Pell.

“We’ve got a lot of momentum in this state after a lot of hard work,” Chafee said. “Clay Pell is the person to continue that momentum. No divisiveness, labor peace, working with federal partners, local partners, unions, business leaders, that’s what we need in this state.”

He said he wasn’t certain who he would vote for at the beginning of the campaign but said he “had a feeling” it would be Pell.

“Like all citizens we watched the campaigns, you always keep your options open, but I kind of had a feeling who was best to keep the momentum going,” Chafee said.

The governor, who lives in the Potowomut neighborhood of Warwick, voted at Potowomut Country Club this morning. He would not share who else he voted for. His mother, Virginia Chafee, also lives in Potowomut, and the governor picked her up in his state car and the two were among the first voters at the posh polling place this morning. Mrs. Chafee, widow of the late Senator John Chafee, voted in the Republican primary.

“We can details on time,” Pell told NBC 10’s Dan Jaehnig, who responded: “You don’t know that firsthand.”

Jaehnig stopped Pell, who has disavowed negative campaigning, from turning the focus from his party affiliation to his opponents.

Here’s the NBC 10 segment:

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.

In some ways, the Democratic primary for governor is an epic battle between two factions of the party.

Angel Taveras, the progressive mayor of Providence who saved the city from fiscal disaster is in a public slugfest with Gina Raimondo, the well-heeled, Wall Street insider infamous for cutting pensions and investing the savings in hedge fund fees.

After beginning the campaign by negotiating a Peoples’ Pledge, Taveras and Raimondo are now running dueling attack ads on each other. And late last week their feud reached fever pitch when the Raimondo camp accused a Taveras supporter of sneaking into an event and trying to steal her cellphone. (The Taveras campaign apologized for the first transgression and denied the other.)

Such sleaziness would be the bigger news if it wasn’t for Clay Pell. Everyone is most abuzz about his people-powered, positive campaign strategy. Couple that with millions of his own money, and it could prove to be a winning strategy.

Unless it ends up just being the spoiler strategy.

Many expect Pell to make a huge leap in the next round of polling. But few expect it will be big enough to win. He may well best Taveras in the end, but it seems most-likely that Raimondo will beat them both. While Pell and Taveras split the left, Raimondo is drawing new conservatives into the Democratic Party – I know of at least one longtime Republican who plans to vote for Raimondo in the Democratic primary this year. And if Raimondo wins the primary, a swarm of influential liberals will give serious consideration to voting for a Republican.

So even as the drama unfolds between Wall Street and Main Street Democrats, the left’s lack of ability to agree on a candidate may have already guaranteed Rhode Island’s next governor will be a conservative.

Gina Raimondo stood alone in saying Rhode Island’s remarkably successful healthcare exchange should be scaled back, specifically saying the consumer services built in may have to be scaled back:

Angel Taveras said funding the exchange would be a top budget priority of his, if he is elected governor:

Clay Pell said he would be “absolutely committed to funding it.”

And Todd Giroux said we should start paying for the exchange by not paying the 38 Studios loan.

When Ian Donnis reported on this, he suggested Raimondo “was a little more specific” than the other candidates. Or maybe she’s just the only one who wants to scale it down?

Below is the full six minute segment on the health exchange and you can watch the entire Economic Progress Institute governor’s forum here.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras said he wants Rhode Island to have the best schools in the nation and make the Ocean State and “example for opportunity.” General Treasurer Gina Raimondo called income inequality “biggest problem facing our state” and said the social safety net is “an investment in our future” rather than an act of charity. Todd Giroux said he’d create a $1 billion commerce fund and wants to make workers’ comp available to day laborers.

But arguably the best line of the evening belonged to Clay Pell, who brought down the house when he said: “I’m a Democrat. I believe people who earn more should pay more.”

Pell was also the only one to pledge to fully fund the Open Doors plan to end homelessness in Rhode Island. He may have laid out the most progressive messaging of the evening, but also drew sharp attention to his privileged upbringing when he said, “for too long in Rhode Island it’s been who you know not what you know.” Minutes earlier in his opening remarks, he name dropped his grandfather and namesake’s signature college aid grant program.

Taveras leaned heavily on his biography, at least twice recalling his formative years living in affordable housing and being a “Headstart baby.” Substantively, he said Rhode Island could boast the best education system in the country, and that he wants to make Rhode Island a national “example for opportunity.”

If any news was made at the Economic Progress Institute’s governor’s candidate forum, it was that Raimondo said she would dismantle the parts of Rhode Island’s health care exchange that link people with other social services to help offset the cost when federal funding runs out. She also said “income inequality is the single biggest problem facing our state and in fact our country.”  Here’s how she said she would address income inequality:

Todd Giroux plays the part of the everyman political outsider. He was the only candidate on stage who didn’t got to Harvard and who has actually worked in the Rhode Island economy – they both sounds like nice attributes in a candidate but neither will likely garner him any political support.

“Join us to hear what the candidates have to say about income inequality, jobs and the workforce, the safety net, the human services delivery system and other important topics,” according to the event invite.

The forum will be moderated by Mike Ritz, the executive director of Leadership Rhode Island. As of last week, more than 300 people had registered to attend.

She tells us she’ll simply find the money by “taking just half of a cent” out of the sales tax, but those dollars are already being spent on other things.  So here’s a really basic question no one else is asking her:  What is she going to cut out of the general fund to pay for the $60 million in sales tax dollars she’s redirecting?  And what impact would those cuts have on job creation?

Progressives have lots of great ideas for closing budgetary gaps.  In Rhode Island, our favorite idea is probably repealing the 2006 income tax cuts for the rich.  It’s an easy solution, but conservatives don’t like it.  So I’m very curious to see how Raimondo proposes to find $60 million.

Raimondo’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.