Huge Night for Rhode Island Progressives
Brendan Doherty, Mark Binder and even, to some extent, Mitt Romney, all made Rhode Island progressives nervous throughout the 2012 campaign season. But once the campaign was over and the votes were counted, it turned out to be a great election day to be a local liberal. Easily the biggest victory was Congressman David Cicilline [...]
Leave Gordon Fox in Hen House of Representatives
This endorsement is one of the most difficult to make because, based on this author’s personal, professional and procedural experiences with Speaker Fox, he is unlikeable on all counts. In the spirit of full disclosure, when a written appeal for help on a personal level as well as a statewide plea for any continuing aid, [...]
Progress Report: Defining Moment in Cicilline, Doherty; Ugliest Campaigns; What EG Is Debating; Guy Fawkes Day
A defining moment of the David Cicilline v. Brendan Doherty campaign was captured by Phil Marcelo of the Providence Journal this weekend … both candidates were in a South Providence fruit store when a Cicilline “Spanish-speaking emissary,” according to Marcelo, said of Doherty, “He shouldn’t be in this neighborhood. He talks about undocumented immigrants posing [...]
Machinations in District 4
I have long argued that the key to contemporary Rhode Island politics lies almost entirely within the RI Democratic Party. “With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans,” I quipped. In 1995. The laws our General Assembly has FAILED to pass undermine our “most liberal state” reputation. The keystone legislation for any liberal issue area never [...]
Dickinson Helps Binder; Gordon Fox Cries Foul
Soon after learning from Ted Nesi that South Kingstown Rep. Spencer Dickinson invested another $3,820 in a somewhat brazen attempt of defeating his political enemy House Speaker Gordon Fox, we learn that Fox’s campaign has filed yet another complaint with the Board of Elections “against opponent Mark Binder after learning that Rep. Spencer Dickinson donated [...]
Progress Report: Gordon Fox Gets Kicked; Gina’s Coffers; Comparing Pay Grades; Pirate Party, Lawrence Lessig
Gordon Fox’s reelection battle has become one of the most watched contests in Rhode Island, and Ian Donnis yesterday busted out what I think is the best local campaign journalism of the year summarizing his race against Mark Binder. “Fewer than 9,000 voters will decide one of Rhode Island’s most important elections on November 6,” [...]
Progress Report: Ugly Campaign Olympics; Brien Down to Last Strike, ProJo for Warren; NEA-RI to NK: We Bat Last
I’m starting to get the feeling that Brendan Doherty doesn’t even want to serve in Congress. If he did, he’d probably audition for the job a just little bit rather than just trying to convince voters to reject incumbent David Cicilline. This campaign has become ridiculously negative, and their debates remind me of when my [...]
Speaker Fox Promises to Reconsider Voter ID Law
First he promised to bring a vote on marriage equality if he gets re-elected, now he says he’ll force the House of Representatives to take another look at the newly enacted voter ID law too. “Should I be fortunate to be re-elected, I will be sponsoring legislation to include a ‘sunset provision’ in the law,” [...]
Progress Report: Langevin Moves Left; Legislative Grants; Quid Pro Quo or Campaign Finance Law; POTUS debate
Jim Langevin may not be the most progressive member of Congress, but he could be a whole lot less liberal too. John Mulligan, the Providence Journal’s Washington corresponden,t sums up Langevin’s place on the political spectrum well in this graph: “…he has built a voting record that makes him solidly liberal on most issues by [...]
Eight Arguments in Mark Binder vs. Gordon Fox
The more you know, the more complicated things get. Since I’m of two minds in this, let me run through a few arguments and counterarguments I have in the battle between Gordon Fox and Mark Binder. Removing Speaker Fox sends a message to state lawmakers that they can be held accountable for actions like 38 [...]
Progress Report: Elastic Rhode Island; Mark Schwager, Typical Candidate; More Binder v. Fox; Kerr on Grinding
Rhode Island, says New York Times number-crunching blog FiveThirtyEight, is the most politically elastic state, meaning that “a large swatch of its electorate are persuadable voters unaligned with either political party.”In a separate piece on political elasticity Nate Silver describes elastic states as “those which have a lot of swing voters — that is, voters [...]
Progress Report: Binder vs. Fox; Dalai Lama, Springsteen on Progressive Values; WPRI Debate Snobs Get Promoted
Shaping up to be one of the most interested races for a State House seat, author and RI Future contributor Mark Binder’s challenge to Gordon Fox is attracting a lot of media attention. Fox is more conservative than we’d like in a Speaker and Binder is less experienced than we’d like in a state Representative. [...]
Progress Report: Doherty Ducks Civil Rights Debate; Fox Faces Binder; ProJo Layoffs Imminent; Veep Debate
If you want to know why Brendan Doherty didn’t want to participate in a debate his fellow CD1 candidates on civil rights issues, try reading the first paragraph of the ProJo’s story. “The 1st Congressional District candidates who attended this forum agreed on just about everything — that Republicans want to ‘roll back’ reforms that [...]
Bad Week for Gordon Fox
It’s not a great week to be Gordon Fox. As his leadership team is literally crumbling around him, his political opponent Mark Binder is stepping up his campaign. Problems with Fox’s leadership team have been mounting for weeks now. Two of the most conservative members of the team lost in primaries: Peter Petrarca and Jon [...]
Gordon Fox Is ‘Miffed’ at RI Future
The ProJo reports that House Speaker Gordon Fox, or at least his staff, is “miffed” that Mark Binder, who is challenging him for his seat in the House, is blogging about it for RI Future. Who can blame him? I’m sure Fox would much prefer to run either unopposed or against a candidate that doesn’t [...]
On Your Mark: Binder To Blog About Candidacy
On Wednesday, I filed the papers to become a candidate for State Representative from the Fourth District in Providence, RI. I’m running against House Speaker Gordon Fox. Today, I’m blogging about it. Welcome to the third turn of the 2012 political race. This blog will follow my campaign. I’ll be writing about the challenges, triumphs [...]
Three Local Authors, RI Futurists Present At Netroots
Three Rhode Island progressive authors will “battle it out” at Netroots Nation in what is being billed as “an idea free-for-all.” The meeting of the minds will take place at 2 p.m. on Thursday in the fifth floor Rotunda of the Convention Center. Not only are all three published by Light Publications – billed as [...]
Why I’m Not Running for Congress, Again
Every two years I consider the possibility of running for Congress… Again. Yes, I ran for the US House of Representatives in 2004 in the Democratic Primary challenger to Patrick Kennedy, who had cast an insanely foolish vote for the war in Iraq. At the time, I joked that my slogan was, “More liberal than [...]
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