This time the PawSox owners didn’t make any attempt at countering the event. This time the media showed up in force, with Channel 10 doing a live remote. The What Cheer! Brigade played four rousing selections and storytellers Len Cabral and Mark Binder (who has contributed to RI Future) entertained the crowd with stories. Kites were flown, games were played, children danced and the promise of a public park was glimpsed, if imperfectly.

The only elected official I noticed at the event was State Representative Aaron Regunburg, House District 4, on the East Side of Providence. He is opposed to building the stadium on that land.

Below are four videos of the What Cheer? Brigade, and photos from the event by Andrew Stewart and myself.

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 handily disposing of Doherty. I must admit, I was nervous yesterday … but in the end, the inexperienced Republican was probably done in by two things: he ran a confusing campaign – the two prevailing themes of it were integrity and negativity – and Rhode Islanders don’t like his politics. And even if he’s half as moderate as he claimed to be on the stump, which me and Don Carcieri don’t buy for one second, he failed to convince voters of this.

Ironically enough, the CD1 race was a trust election, and voters didn’t trust Doherty.

Cicilline and his staff deserve a lot of credit for running a great campaign – especially given that it often seemed as if he was running against the local media as well as the entire Republican party. He kicked Doherty’s ass in progressive Providence, and won handily in Newport and Woonsocket. Cicilline sticks up for the working class, and in return the urban areas of his district stuck by him.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse capturing more than 64 percent of the statewide vote and Abel Collins getting almost 10 percent in CD2 are important wins too. Whitehouse, the unofficial leader of the local progressive community now has a clear mandate. And Collins’ strong performance shows that his progressive message resonated with Rhode Islanders. I’m certain Jim Langevin, already a solid liberal, will take note.

The second biggest victory of the 2012 election cycle for local progressives belongs not to a candidate but an issue. With big victories for Ryan Pearson, Cathy Cool Rumsey and Stephen Archambault, there’s a new landscape for marriage equality in the state Senate. Given that House Speaker Gordon Fox promised to pass the bill (that I’m guessing will bare his name) through the House early, there’s going to be tons of pressure on Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed. I believe this is an issue whose time has come.

Fox’s victory is another big win for progressives. Besides marriage equality, he also said he’ll reconsider the state’s voter ID bill and even indicated he’ll go into the session with an open mind on tax increases for the rich. (I literally have no idea what Ted Nesi is talking about when he writes Fox stumped for tax and pension cuts.) The challenge for progressives will be to convince Fox to govern like he campaigned. His district will want him to do so, but now that the election is over, the pressure will be coming from elsewhere…

Perhaps the biggest local loss of the night belongs to American Legislative Exchange Council, the ultra-right wing bill mill that had gained a toe hold in the General Assembly. Both state chairs – Jon Brien and Frank Maher – lost. Unless others step up – and they will – one of the most conservative outside influences on the legislature has been all but eliminated. Good riddance!!

Brien’s defeat also means the legislature’s DINO caucus is on notice.

We’ve also got another four years of Obama, as opposed to Mitt Romney, and both chambers of Congress moved left.

Across the board, local progressives have reason to celebrate.

On the other side of the spectrum, independent Mark Binder is very likeable. Binder is soft-spoken, thoughtful and seemingly diplomatic. Both are very intelligent and exceptional communicators in spite of their opposing methods of expressing their respective messages. The white-hot, spotlit issues staged in this particular political drama are 38 Studios, pension reform, education reform, pay-day lending and gay marriage. Binder has the advantage on all of these.

However, the reason he holds the upper hand is because he has never had to deal directly with the decision making that comes from the Democratic-Republic system of being an elected lawmaker. His campaign has been run primarily on pointing out the failures of his opponent. To his credit, there are many to point out.

38 Studios was/is a massive cocktail of economic woe and, in spite of many others dipping a straw in that scorpion bowl, Fox was left holding the empty glass and the state will be feeling the fiscal hangover for a long time. To maintain the metaphor of blame, the EDC was definitely behind the bar along with then Governor Carcieri and possibly more nefarious influences like Jon Brien and ALEC.

Pension reform can be looked at as a mathematical necessity over the long term in spite of Fox and Raimondo’s bullying methodology. This reform is now headed to the courts who may or may not decide its legality and validity. Fox could have avoided this by using his position of authority to encourage more diplomacy and negotiation with those who suffer the economic repercussions of broken statutes, rather than ignoring the requests for more time, talk and less speculation of Fox’s caving to the “last place aversion” psychological influence of the private sector and the bond market.

There is no question that Rhode Island’s public education system requires a massive overhaul. Pages have been filled with discussion on what is wrong and how to fix it. Suffice it to say, Fox is affiliated with RI-CAN. This organization has questionable means of achieving admirable motives. Better public schools? Yes please. Systematic elimination of teachers unions in order to publicly fund corporate charter schools? No, thanks.

Gay marriage? Of course it should be legal. And an openly gay man in the most powerful position in Rhode Island’s General assembly who does not, when given the opportunity to promote a progressive agenda and make a stand for his own, unfortunately, disenfranchised minority … well? I suppose there is only one thing to call that: a politician.

Gordon Fox is a politician. He is an effective politician. He is an opportunist. He is a pragmatist. He knows how to attract power and to attach himself to power. Gordon Fox gets things done. He seems to embody the adage of more is lost by indecision than by wrong decision. He says the right things and, maybe, most of the time, he means it. In Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Angels in America the fictionalized, historical character of Roy Cohn (a gay, lawyer working in high-level politics) talks about politics in a way that is brutally honest. Roy says, “This is… this is gastric juices churning, this is enzymes and acids, this is intestinal is what this is, bowel movement and blood-red meat – this stinks, this is politics, [Joe] the game of being alive.” Perhaps this is too harsh a statement. Probably so. However Gordon Fox understands that to be successful at politics, it helps to be a politician and, often, that means making enemies and unpopular decisions. Sometimes Gordon Fox is not nice. But, again to quote Kushner’s character of Cohn, “Do you want to be nice, or do you want to be effective?”

Mark Binder is very smart. He is very creative. He is very contemplative and diplomatic. Gordon Fox is effective. My endorsement for Representative in House District 4 goes to Gordon Fox.

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 a threat to our neighborhood.” Doherty denied the accusation but the woman retorted that it is right there on his website.

Here’s a few of the reasons why this exchange defines the campaign: In so many different ways, Cicilline is running to represent the people who shop at this market, and Doherty is running to oppress them … from immigration to economic policy. Doherty is pretty acutely anti-immigration. He doesn’t support the DREAM Act. But also, Doherty likes to distance himself from his conservative leanings – so much so that he actually claims it’s negative campaigning when Cicilline links him to his own party, let alone his own policies…

That said, if David Cicilline holds on to his seat in Congress it won’t be because of favorable media coverage – this story was buried inside the Sunday ProJo and it’s been pretty disheartening to see the tacit and overt biases exemplified against his campaign – it will be because the 1st District loves liberals. The local media, not so much…

Scott MacKay has some brilliant 11th-hour observations about the election … including dubbing East Providence the Ohio of the CD1 contest.

GoLocal ranks the ugliest campaigns of this cycle … they give the top honor to the Mark Binder/Gordon Fox contest and rank the Cicilline/Doherty race as number 3. Anthony Gemma appears no where on their list.

Speaking of Anthony Gemma, you know the campaign season must be winding down because he has re-followed me on Twitter! Welcome back, Anthony!!

The ProJo Political Scene team eviscerates Gina Raimondo this morning for trying to keep her fundraising efforts secret. Tey report that at least half of the money she raised last quarter came from out of state … who are these non-Rhode Islanders that want Raimondo to be governor, and whose interest do they represent? The state’s or their own?

A great story of a Smithfield farmer who has tripled in size since 2008, without the benefit of any new tax breaks … more evidence that local agriculture is great economic development!!

Not only will the House vote on marriage equality next session if Gordon Fox holds on to the Speaker’s gavel, he says it will vote early too … that means the media will have ample time to press Teresa Paiva Weed and the State Senators (a great 50s’ band name if ever there was one) into doing likewise!! Just a vote, TPW … that’s all we ask!!

Just in case you thought all Rhode Island towns are suffering in these though economic times, take a look at the questions candidates for East Greenwich School Committee are being asked about why they should be considered for office: “Do you favor iPads (or the like) for every EGHS student? If so, how quickly would you like to see that take place? Should the EGSD expand language offerings (i.e. to include Chinese and/or Arabic), even if that means current language offerings would have to be reduced? Are you in favor of high school students starting later?” I’m pretty sure these aren’t the same questions being asked of school committee candidates in West Warwick, Central Falls or Pawtucket…

Coventry fire fighters are the best!! Some of ’em work for free; others deliver babies.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day … on this day in 1605, Fawkes is caught in the basement of Parliament trying to blow the joint sky-high. To celebrate, Anonymous says it’s gonna take down Facebook.

And happy birthday to one of the world’s most progressive (and best?) basketball players of all time, Bill Walton.

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 seems to make it to the governor’s desk. Environmentalists have given up on the Bottle Bill. We lack any alternative energy feed-in tariff. We don’t have a state bank. And, most glaringly for a state as gay as ours (and I mean that in the good way), we lack marriage equality.

On this last item, we’re already behind liberal stronghold New Hampshire and soon to be behind Maryland, a state south of the Mason-Dixon line. We’re behind The South. THE SOUTH!

As a Rhode Island progressive, I see only one reason we don’t have this kind of legislation – the RI Democratic Party, the state party. Having held the reigns of power for decades on end, there is no other option on the table. In a case like this, The Machine is responsible for its own product.

How to Dismantle a Machine

In my 20+ years bathing in the waters of RI politics, the great tide has slowly eaten away at the edifice of the RI Democratic Party. While the RI GOP has done well to win the governor’s office with surprising regularity in the last two decades, the Dems have defended from a virtually unassailable fortress built within the state during the previous era.

I can only call the Dem’s traditional platform center-right; it reflects the demographics of another time. Strong, institutional labor unions with the cooperation of an inordinately influential Catholic Church served a political enterprise that specialized in inside dealings and turned a blind eye to vice.

Talk about your grand bargain? The arrangement outlined above covers pretty much everybody, and it works great when you’re flush. Riding strong middle-class growth in wealth, this model facilitated the creation of an operational network that dug itself into every corner of Rhode Island public and commercial life.

Only this: that was 30 years ago.

Since then, the grand bargain has gone to hell. Most of the players are dead or left, and growth of middle class wealth is a punch line. The network of relationships has held on with expected tenacity; nobody just gives up power.

Meanwhile, time marches on. Dedicated, old-school liberals within the party connected with smart, young activists for whom Rhode Island has become a magnet. Gen-X in mentality, these can-do, boots-on-the-ground political entrepreneurs created a grassroots network that has won a solid caucus of GA seats and, in case you missed it, Providence City Hall.

The 2010 Democratic primary decimated the old-school Machine. Frank Caprio, the Lynch brothers, Stephen Costantino and several GA Dems all routed in a progressive sweep. The writing, as they say, was on the wall.

Yours truly predicted a marriage equality bill by Valentine’s Day. Or not.

What’s the What? Who’s the Who?

Not for nothin’, but I should have been right about the marriage equality bill. Even if it lost in the full body, every Rep and Senator needed to put down a marker that would be a point of discussion in the next election cycle, i.e., now. Instead, RI Democratic Party leadership in the GA put forth a concerted effort to quash a legitimate bill put forward by the newly enlarged progressive wing.

It was a people-vs-machine struggle, and the Machine won. Despite a strenuous effort for real equality that should not be overlooked in this debate, we got a half assed cop out. And every legislator got a cop out.

Or rather, every legislator but one. And I’m sorry to break the news: it’s not Ms. Paiva-Weed.

I voted for Gordon Fox in 2010, fully expecting his powerful support for marriage equality. It’s a big issue for me. It is for a lot of people in the neighborhood, and Gordon Fox knows it. I used to describe my old micro-neighborhood as “1/3 black, 1/3 orthodox, 1/3 lesbian”.

The fiasco that was Art Handy’s bill shocked me. I kind of freaked out. I said some pretty un-nice things about the Rep, and friends know I can turn a colorful phrase. I believe this topic may have come up at one of the RI Future re-set meetings that were happening about the same time, so other authors can attest – I was cheesed.

In his position as Speaker, Fox had the opportunity to be a leadership voice for the growing progressive force. Considering his political history, it should have been a no-brainer. So his choice in this case felt to me like a betrayal of trust. And this from an in-district, many-term supporter.

Power, however, has its own ways. Rather than go with the incoming tide that he himself helped create, Gordon Fox made a political calculation that by caving in to the right-leaning, Catholic Church-influenced Democratic State Party Machine, he could somehow do more in other areas for RI progressives. Such as…?

Oh, right, that economic development idea!

When news broke about the RIEDC plan to guarantee $75mm in bonds for a video game company owned by a retired sports star, I wrote the following:

“I worry that our little state is too hungry to put out a decent headline and, like the rest of the US, terminally star-struck. This deal scares the bejeezus out of me… These are giant dice to be rolling, and surely, this will make or break the careers of the decision makers.

I am _so_ glad that I am not them.” (9 July 2010, Yesterday on the Internet)

It’s one thing to play politics with probably the single most important issue in your district. It’s altogether different to follow that up with complicity in a high-risk deal put together by an end-of-term Republican governor and his cronies. And when that high-risk deal blows up…?

Dissatisfaction in the district is pretty high these day. And yet Fox was running unopposed – the hallmark of a political machine. Everybody knew that any serious progressive candidate could do a lot of damage. So it should be no surprise that Mark Binder’s independent candidacy rapidly gained traction. It is arguably the biggest political story in the state this cycle.

Mark Binder, Independent for RI House, District 4

I’ve known Mark Binder for about 15 years. We met when we both hosted Japanese exchange students from Bryant College, as it was called back then. We’ve watched each others’ kids grow up. We’ve helped each other in our various business ventures. We’ve talked an awful lot about local politics. He published my book.

Beyond being articulate, well-educated, civically-active and pretty good with policy, Mark Binder can bring sharp insight into the state house for this simple reason: he knows what the hell is going on.

By that I mean that Mark spends most of his time “in the field”, performing as a storyteller at schools across the northeast. One might assume that the schools where Mark performs would be in well-off towns, but his actual mix spans the range from inner-city to remote, rural and poor. And perhaps no institution is a better indicator of a community’s social conditions than the public elementary school. So on a regular basis, Mark is working with the kids that policies are designed to help in the public schools that state and municipal governments provide. To say the least, Mark’s perspective is grounded in reality.

Many professionals, and now I include myself in this group, get a narrow and skewed perspective on the world simply for lack of bandwidth. We’re in the office or working at home. We go out with our clients and vendors. We travel to a conference. We don’t do much else (as my poor attendance on this blog proves out), and I believe our perspectives on the world suffer for it.

If you want to know about policy, ask a wonk like me. If you want to know about the impact of that policy on real people, ask Mark Binder.

If elected, I trust that Mark will strive to enact smart policy that strengthens the widely-shared progressive values of the community that elects him. He’ll vote his conscience and he’ll deal straight, because that’s the way he is.

The Binder Campaign and Political Costs

As I said, I was not surprised to see Mark’s campaign gaining traction. Likewise, I was not surprised to see anti-Fox forces rally to his cause – the classic “enemy of my enemy” alignment. (And, no, I don’t expect Jeff Deckman, whom both Mark and I know from our work with New Commons, to have an impact on Mark’s policy views. Rather, the opposite I’d say, as I’ve always read Deckers as more of a back-bencher and not so hard right as he plays. Be that as it may…)

It is a bit unseemly to have so direct an RI GOP connection. But, c’mon, people. What do you want from life? This is politics, right?

If Gordon Fox or anybody wants to play at the top, they are going to make political enemies, and therefore it is critical that they build a rock-solid relationship with voters in their districts. Fox critically underestimated the blowback from his failure of leadership on marriage equality. Long before 38 Studios collapsed, Fox’s potential vulnerabilities came up in many conversations.

And then 38 Studios collapsed, and the Speaker found himself in a serious fight, taking heat in the press. It’s unreasonable to think that the Speaker of the House that both failed his base and was complicit in an epic boondoggle would not face serious consequences. That this is even a story indicates how atrophied political machines make the politics that they dominate.

It looks like Speaker Fox is hung out to dry here, but only because he is. Even given today’s legal action from the EDC, Gordon Fox is left holding the political bag in this spectacularly costly and potentially ruinous disaster.

He’s only paying the price because Mark Binder is running against him as an independent candidate. Dissatisfaction is pretty high, and Speaker Fox needs to get a sense of how high via the polls.

The Machine Fights Back

Likewise, I am not surprised to see the party rally to the Speaker’s side. The recent chain of endorsements leads me to think that the Binder campaign has raised appropriate concern within the RI Democratic party about their ongoing vulnerabilities.

It’s pretty thin gruel to compare reciting an incumbent’s own failings with mud-slinging. Fox needs to stand and account for his stewardship of MY vote, of Mark’s vote, of the votes of all the people in the neighborhood that are [colorful turn of phrase].

38 Studios, frankly, I could forgive, as I never envied anybody the position on that call. I look forward to the deep study on what was said to whom when.

Marriage equality I can’t forgive, but it wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker had there been something else to soothe the sting. There was nothing else, and a negative result is unacceptable from leadership.

“Faith has been broken. Tears must be cried.” ~Wild Horses, Richards/Jagger

The Ugly Reality called “Tomorrow”

Here’s the sad truth: it scarcely matters. Whoever represents the fourth district, Rhode Island faces a massive headwind. We face high unemployment, still-massive retirement and pension costs and there’s precious little on the “plus” side of the ledger to build around. The real solutions the RI Democratic leadership needs to get behind are _not_ the ones they get from the usual cast of characters.

Progressive policy, smart policy yields great benefits that lower the drag on everybody’s life, producing prosperous economies and thriving communities. Restoring environmental resilience should be a money maker, not a money loser. Alternative energy is such a no-brainer that I will no longer discuss the topic.

I wish I could say that the RI Democratic Party was capable of assessing this complex and deteriorating situation, plotting the smart, non-boondoggle course and then mustering the political will to enact the bold reforms that constitute the state’s last, best chance.

I don’t think the leadership of the RI Democratic Party is up to this task. I _definitely_ don’t think the leadership or any other part of the RI GOP is up to this task. That’s not to say that this state doesn’t have talent that’s up to the task – and many GA Dems are part of that talent pool.

The leadership of the party, though, needs to know that this past session was not what the progressive culture sector- and entrepreneurial-types were looking for when they chose to move to RI and live in House District 4.

That is why I am voting for Mark Binder. I hope a lot of people do. I hope he wins. I and many others in District 4 want the state party to register our severe dissatisfaction with their performance.

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 $3,820.31 to Binder after he had already donated the maximum allowable limit of $1,000,” according to a press release.

“There is nothing independent about his illegal contribution to the Binder campaign,” said Fox spokesperson Bill Fischer in the statement. “This is a clear case of collusion between Rep. Dickinson and the Binder campaign and it violates state law. This campaign has a pattern of complete disregard for the law. At this point voters should be extremely skeptical about Mr. Binder’s ability to serve.”

Update: Peter Kerwin, who works for Binder, sent along this statement:

Spencer Dickinson gave the Binder campaign a generous contribution of $1,000.00.  Beyond that, any expenditure made by Mr. Dickinson was never approved of, authorized or sought by the Binder campaign.  Rep. Dickinson clearly has strong feelings about the Speaker’s corrosive influence on the political process in Rhode Island and the Speaker Fox clearly does not like to have his authority challenged.

The Fox campaign seems to be working on the theory that any expenditure made by anyone who doesn’t like Gordon Fox must be directly connected to the Binder campaign.  That is absurd on its face, as is this latest attempt to distract voters from Gordon Fox’s central role in the 38 Studios debacle, which is back in the news and apparently causing heartburn among the insiders running the Fox campaign.  The fact that 3 of the 5 people who were in the room with Gordon Fox and Michael Corso when the 38 Studios deal got hatched were named in the lawsuit filed by the state yesterday.  It’s been a rough week for the Fox campaign, but making phony complaints with Board of Elections isn’t going to make people forget that Gordon Fox hung the people of Rhode Island out to dry on the 38 Studios deal.

The press release from Fox went on to read:

This is the fourth complaint that the Fox campaign has filed in the past week involving contributions and expenditures surrounding the Binder campaign. Most recently, the Fox campaign reported Mr. Binder to the state Board of Elections for not reporting $2,000 of television advertising in his most recent campaign finance report.

“Mr. Binder has established a clear track record of disregarding campaign finance laws,” Fischer said. “Mr. Dickinson is skirting the law by making additional contributions to the Binder campaign.”

 

Correction: The original version of this story implied that Dickinson donated the $3,820 directly to Mark Binder. That was incorrect.

“Fewer than 9,000 voters will decide one of Rhode Island’s most important elections on November 6,” reports Donnis. He does a great job of laying out both Mark Binder and Fox’s talking points, but the real gem is the audio he gets of Fox going door-to-door.

A voter says to Gordon Fox: “Do you deserve a good, swift kick in the ass?” Fox responds, “To keep me focused, we all do. We all do from time to time.”

The ProJo’s cleanup hitter Mike Stanton follows that up this morning with a pretty good front page overview of his own.

Here’s why Lawrence Lessig is so prophetic: “The real corruption isn’t the total amount of money raised; it’s the total amount of time spent raising money — not from all of us — but from the tiniest slice of the 1 percent,” he tells the ProJo’s Ed Fitzpatrick. Lessig, a Harvard professor, will speak at Common Cause RI’s annual dinner tonight. Hope to see you there!

Speaking of the inherent issue with political fundraising from the 1 percent, Gina Raimondo already has more than $1 million in her campaign account. It isn’t middle class Rhode Islanders who couldn’t afford to to pay for public sector pensions who are making this big donations … it’s the uber rich who know how good Raimondo’s pension reforms have been for Wall Street and the finance industry.

And speaking of the 1 percent, Tim White takes his annual look at highest paid state workers in Rhode Island. It seems as if for the first time in many moons URI’s head basketball coach won’t be the highest paid public sector employee in the state … not that new coach Dan Hurley doesn’t deserve it. The Hurley Bros are gonna turn our program around!! He’s also a lot of fun to follow on Twitter.

And speaking of the highest paid local folks, we looked into the highest paid CEO’s in Rhode Island back in April. Compare their salaries to the highest paid state workers and then consider which jobs are more important to our society. Then compare both sets of salaries to what you might earn, or what the fire fighter or public works employee who saved your ass during Hurricane Sandy might earn. The reality is one of the biggest problems with the way our economy functions is the utter lack of any relationship between pay grade and job importance. This is ridiculously obvious when you consider what the richest Rhode Islanders “earn” compared to the rest of us. But, according to the laws of corporate-controlled capitalism, those who serve the stock market best get the most money…

As I’ve argued before, farmers should be the highest paid sector of an economy that serves the people … and supporting local agriculture should be the most bipartisan issue in America. It’s great for the economy, the environment, health and wellness, real estate values, even local taxing capacity … to that end, support ballot question 6 on Tuesday.

The ProJo editorial board applauds URI for moving its MBA program to the Capital City, and endorses the idea of partnering with CCRI and move its nursing program to the I-195 land to be closer to Brown. I concur.

I have no idea why, but I thought GoLocal’s look at what local pols gave out for Halloween candy was great journalism.

American Pirate Party, anyone? Sounds pretty good to me…

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 brother and I would fight as children – the primary difference being me and my bro, even then, seemed to understand public policy better than Doherty…

But if negative campaigning was an Olympic event, the gold medal may well go to my friend Mark Binder. The line between disavowing the hardball politics of Smith Hill and engaging in them is pretty clear; Binder crossed it a long time ago .. he proably doesn’t know who’s responsible for the anonymous ad attack ad running on WPRO, but candidates can and do set a tone for their campaigns.

There are few places I would rather be a fly on the wall than the editorial board meetings at the Providence Journal … for example, how did the typically very conservative ed. board endorse progressive Democrat Elizabeth Warren over moderate Republican Scott Brown?

Obviously us progressives wholeheartedly agree, but the ProJo lays out really good reasons why even moderates who may be more philosophically aligned with Brown should still vote for Warren. By the way, this reasoning applies locally too!

Elizabeth Warren could help prevent a Republican takeover of the Senate, at a time when extremists have inordinate sway in the GOP. Republican control could spell damaging rollbacks of environmental and other regulations, and set back health-care reform. Further, one or more Supreme Court justices could retire soon. Senator Brown named fiery conservative Antonin Scalia as his idea of a model justice, and voted against confirming Elena Kagan. A vote for Ms. Warren would keep the court in more centrist territory. In this race, she is the better choice.

And this is also great from today’s ProJo op/ed page … Cicilline talks up the progressive congressional budget proposal: “This plan would eliminate the deficit in 10 years, end the war in Afghanistan safely and expeditiously restore investments in education and infrastructure, strengthen Social Security and Medicare without cutting benefits, require millionaires, Wall Street and Big Oil to pay their fair share, and enact corporate-tax reforms that seek to make it harder for companies to ship American jobs overseas.

Prototypical DINO Jon Brien had three chances to win back his House seat this campaign season … the first was to win in the primary, which he didn’t. The second was to knock out primary winner Stephen Casey on a technicality, and that didn’t work either. Now, his last chance is to win a write-in campaign. If I were Brien, I wouldn’t invest too much time working on my victory speech…

Rhode Island just got a little greener, thanks to three new wind turbines at the waste water treatment plant in Providence.

NEA-RI President Larry Purtill pens a letter to North Kingstown Patch responding to the school superintendent’s letter in the local weekly paper. Evidently, the superintendent thinks the custodians whose jobs were outsourced should move on – which shows a little bit of ignorance to the dynamics at play … while management might swing a bigger bat, labor bats last.

Trial of the century: US v. Bank of America

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, who was paraphrasing Mitt Romney’s meta-campaign message: We broke the economy and Obama didn’t fix it quick enough so give it back to us.

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,” said Speaker of the House Gordon Fox, in an email to me on Monday evening. “The sunset would force a ‘re-look’ at the law, which means legislative hearings would be held to learn the effectiveness of the law and whether modifications need to be made. That would include looking at the more restrictive provisions set to be enacted for the 2014 election cycle.”

2014 is the first election voters would be required to show a photo ID; in this election voters area allowed to show any form of identification, including utility bills.

In his email, Fox compared the potential voter ID sunset provision with one in the newly enacted seat belt law passed last year.

Fox co-sponsored the voter ID with outgoing conservative Rep. Jon Brien of Woonsocket, who lost in a primary but is still attempting to keep his seat through a writ-in campaign. Brien and Fox, once allies, have become estranged as of late. It started when Brien wouldn’t support a supplemental property tax for Woonsocket at the end of the legislative session, but increased and became public when Brien said he didn’t know the loan guarantee legislation he sponsored in 2010 was going to 38 Studios. Fox says Brien is lying about this to protect his reputation.

Brien is a board member of ALEC, which is well-known for pushing voter ID bills in state legislatures around the country. Rhode Island’s version is less restrictive than the ALEC model legislation.

Fox said, “I voted in favor of the Voter ID law after listening to concerns raised about voter fraud by fellow members of the minority community such as Rep. Anastasia Williams and Sen. Harold Metts.  We passed one of the least restrictive Voter ID laws in the country, allowing a voter in 2012 to show virtually any type of ID – which doesn’t need to include a photo. However, the law we passed toughens requirements for the 2014 election to include just photo IDs.”

John Marion, executive director of Common Cause RI, said he “welcomes” an opportunity to revisit the controversial law.

“I will be very interested to see what the Speaker comes up with,” he said. “I have heard other opponents who are interested in freezing the law at the 2012 requirements, so this will be a lively debate if there are multiple proposals out there.”

While 30 states have voter ID laws, according to ProPublica, only ten states require a photo ID as Rhode Island’s law would require next election cycle. Those ten state are: Pennsylvania (which is being challenged in court), Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Michigan, South Dakota, Kansas and Idaho.

Fox first said he would reconsider the voter ID law in a televised debate on WPRI. You can watch that here:

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 national standards, though somewhat to the right of such Rhode Island Democrats as Rep. David N. Cicilline and former Rep. Kennedy. That is due in part to his positions on abortion and other social issues. He has made news during the current Congress, however, by moving to support gay marriage.”

I’m pretty satisfied with Langevin’s record on economic issues – watch his new ad here to hear him defend the middle class and castigate Mike Riley for being a Wall Street hedge fund manager. On social issues, I’m very impressed with his willingness to evolve. It shows he has an open mind, perhaps the most important characteristic for a politician to possess.

That’s not to say I’ll be voting for Langevin over Abel Collins, a progressive to the bone who is a very long shot to win the seat. I still haven’t made that decision, but promise to keep you informed of my thinking…

“’Tis the season when state lawmakers running for reelection get to hand out checks to their local senior centers, American Legion Posts and Little League teams, courtesy of the state taxpayer,” says the ProJo Political Scene team. Nobody confuses legislative grants with good government, but they sure make for effective politics…

Romnesia: when you can’t remember what was previously on the Etch-A-Sketch.

In WPRI’s debate between Mark Binder and Gordon Fox, Tim White asks an interesting question of Binder, who accuses the Speaker of the House of shady politics: “Can you back up your charges of quid pro quo with evidence, or is your real issue here with how this country’s campaign finance system works?”

Of course, quid pro quo politics and our campaign finance laws aren’t in any way mutually exclusive of each other. Quite the opposite, in fact! It’s interesting to note that pointing out the way the system works has become a strategy for running against an incumbent.

A beautiful picture of a Providence student painting a mural at a local elementary school.

No reason you can’t take in the ProJo’s third and final Publick Occurances panel on the local economy tonight and still be home by 9 in time to watch the third and final Obama/Romney debate.

Speaking of the POTUS debate tonight … Romney will focus on Benghazi, while Obama can pretty much parade out a litany of other victories: he ended the war in Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden. The president will also likely point out what a disastrous dope Mitt has been on foreign affairs during the campaign.

And speaking of foreign policy, today in 1962 President Kennedy announces to America that he has ordered a blockade of Cuba after learning the Russians were moving some nuclear weapons there.

And speaking of Cuba, The New York Times reports it seems as if the infamous revolutionary is still alive after all.