Bob Plain
A blue tsunami just washed ashore in East Greenwich
The United States first went to war with Iraq, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and parts of the Berlin Wall were still standing as the Soviet Union continued to collapse. Cheers was the most popular TV show in America, Home Alone had yet to be released on the big screen, and you were probably […]
Is #PINKWAVE letter fake? The person it purports to support says yes.
“The #PINKWAVE is here!” says a campaign letter that was mailed to East Greenwich voters last week. It purports to be from a feminist and in support of Justine Caldwell, a Democrat running to represent East Greenwich at the State House. But the House District 30 candidate – who has made #MeToo and reproductive freedom […]
Beer, boofing, and devil’s triangle: Kavanaugh offers explanation to RI senator
“I like beer,” said Supreme Court hopeful Brett Kavanaugh when Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked if his high school “ralph club” referred to alcohol-induced vomiting. “Do you like beer, Senator?” the potential justice then shot back at Whitehouse. “What do you like to drink?” It wasn’t the only time Kavanaugh, visibly angry throughout the […]
Flanders, Whitehouse now agree on Kavanaugh accusation
The accusation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape a 15-year-old girl as a drunken high school student has captured the beltway’s and the nation’s attention. Here in Rhode Island, it’s also shed some light on the campaign between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the incumbent Democrat, and Bob Flanders, a Republican and himself a […]
It was a good night to be an incumbent in Rhode Island
While the trend nationally has been to oust the incumbents, and the local pundits and politicos seemed braced for an upset, Rhode Islanders stuck by the status quo in the 2018 primary election Wednesday. Democrats roundly rejected Matt Brown’s upstart challenge to Governor Gina Raimondo, the more moderate incumbent. And they narrowly stuck by Lt. Governor […]
Breakfast with Sheldon Whitehouse
You wouldn’t know it by watching him work the crowd waiting for a breakfast table in Newport, but Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island’s junior senator who is facing re-election this year, says he’s uncomfortable in the public spotlight. “In the world of people in politics, way shyer than average,” is how he described himself over breakfast […]
Incumbent Democrats face two-front campaigns
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, observed Charles Dudley Warner in 1850, and it seems true enough this campaign season in Rhode Island as the highest-profile incumbent Democrats are each taking fire from not only Republicans, but also the progressive left. Sometimes even on the same issues. Governor Raimondo Governor Gina Raimondo faces the most-obvious two-front […]
Blocked by GoLocal
GoLocalProv’s company catchphrases is: “See it. Read it. Share it.” But the often-abrasive tabloid-esque news website doesn’t always make it easy to share – or even see – its content on Twitter. Especially for local reporters.
Warwick wants to charge students for riding the bus, playing sports
In an effort to balance its budget, Warwick wants to charge students $1 to take the bus to and from school as well as a fee to participate in after school sports. But because these cost-cutting moves flout state law, the local school committee is seeking the approval of the state Department of Education to […]
Pat Fontes wants a world without war, so she’s challenging Sheldon Whitehouse
Pat Fontes, a stalwart of the local antiwar movement, used to support Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “I did not vote for Obama but I voted for Sheldon Whitehouse,” she told me in a recent interview. Now the 81-year-old peace activist is making her first-ever run for elected office by challenging Rhode Island’s junior senator in this […]
Matt Brown and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are both Justice Democrats
Matt Brown, Democratic candidate for governor of Rhode Island, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, overnight political superstar from the Bronx, have a lot in common. They both want America to make a major investment in renewable energy. They both think $15 an hour is a fairer minimum wage. They both believe in Medicare For All. And neither […]
RI Democratic Party doesn’t want to endorse Trump voter after all
The Rhode Island Democratic Party wants to take back two of four controversial legislative endorsements that lit a fire under the local progressive movement and drew the attention of national media. If successful, Michael Earnheart, a Trump voter challenging incumbent Rep. Moira Walsh, and Greg Accairdo, a former Johnston state Senator who has twice been arrested […]
Flanders spams public sector employees seeking campaign cash
When Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Flanders was the state-appointed receiver for cash-strapped Central Falls in 2012, the affluent East Greenwich resident infamously offered municipal employees a haircut or a beheading in balancing the city’s budget. As such, public sector workers probably won’t prove to be a major source of support for Flanders, a small […]
RI Dem Party doesn’t endorse three progressive female legislators
Being a progressive woman may be beneficial at the ballot box in the 2018 election but it doesn’t seem to help with respect to endorsements from the Rhode Island Democratic Party. Three female legislators learned this the hard way when the state Party endorsed their more-conservative primary opponents. Reps. Moira Walsh and Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, both […]
Bob Flanders doesn’t think community college is college
Republican Bob Flanders had some nice things to say about Bobby Nardolillo yesterday, his now-former opponent in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat who dropped out of the race yesterday. “He is a dedicated public servant with a bright future,” Flanders said of Nardolillo in a tweeted statement. Before Nardolillo dropped out, Flanders […]
Cicilline describes life inside, and politics behind, tender age detention centers
“It’s horrific,” said Congressman David Cicilline. “It’s barbaric.” The Rhode Island Democrat was describing what he saw after visiting immigration detention centers on the Texas/Mexico border this weekend where President Donald Trump’s family separation policy is playing out as a moral and political crisis before America’s and the world’s eyes. “It is horrifying to see […]
Paul Roselli drops out to run for state Senate, help Matt Brown
Saying Gina Raimondo won’t win in the general election even if she prevails in the Democratic primary, her underdog rival Paul Roselli ended his outsider campaign for governor to support fellow progressive outsider Matt Brown instead. “If Gina Raimondo wins the primary, Raimondo will lose the general election,” he said in a prepared statement released […]
AG to NK: you must go to court before selling former Wickford library
Though North Kingstown voters overwhelmingly approved at an April special election selling the Old Library/Town Hall Annex building on Brown Street in Wickford, and the Town Council has signed off on the sale, for $100,000, to be developed into a restaurant/event center, residents still might be stuck with the property Caleb Chadsey donated to the […]
John Lewis’ blunder shows off Brown’s naivete
Matt Brown, the upstart progressive challenging Governor Gina Raimondo in the Democratic primary this year, was quick to namedrop U.S. Rep. John Lewis when I interviewed him last month. Early on, we had digressed into discussing how Nelson Mandela and African National Congress managed to defeat apartheid in South Africa and by way of redirecting […]
Foreclosure protection law set to expire July 1, a bill would keep it in place
Nearly 10,000 homes went into foreclosure during the mortgage crisis in Rhode Island. Then, in 2013, the General Assembly passed the Foreclosure Reduction Act, which mandated banks to work with homeowners before repossessing property. Since then, the law helped some 600 Rhode Islanders avoid losing their homes. But the Foreclosure Reduction Act is set to […]
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