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Politics as Usual by Jim Baron
Early handicapping of the 2010 election race had been fun up until now.
There was no end of enjoyment talking about the various Democrats who have already started elbowing for position:
General Treasurer Frank Caprio as the Big Kahuna, with a campaign warchest spilling over with dough like (I was going to say like a pirate's booty, but that phrase doesn't necessarily still mean what it used to; anyway, he's got bucks to burn) and a large early lead in the polls.
Patrick Lynch, son of the Rhode Island Democratic dynasty, who would no doubt get big help in the primary. (Caprio vs. Lynch would also refuel the historic Italian vs. Irish political rivalry in Rhode Island.)
Providence Mayor David Cicilline is also a contender, but Providence City Hall is not known as a stopping point on the way to the governor's office. Cicilline also has a predecessor who seems to dedicate three hours a day on the radio entirely to driving up Cicilline's negatives. Recent polls indicate that is working.
Elizabeth Roberts, the first female lieutenant governor, appears inclined toward trying to make more gender history the year after next. She has a built in base, and unlike the three gents mentioned above, she has a job that is not a potential political minefield where she might be forced to make a patently unpopular decision.
You don't hear much anymore from or about Charlie Fogarty, who came within a hair of beating Governor Carcieri in the last go-round, but being quiet and unassuming has worked for Fogarty in the past, and there is still quite a bit of time so don't write him off just yet.
But with all that kerfluffle on the Democratic side, there was at least one sure thing on which a pundit could hang his hat (do pundits wear hats anymore?): Steve Laffey was going to be the strongest Republican in the race and almost surely the party's nominee. So much so, that it would have behooved the Democrats (don't donkeys already have hooves?) to pick a candidate who, as the sportscasters say, "matches up well" with the former Cranston mayor.
Well, all that electoral arithmetic went out the window on Thursday when Laffey told WPRO's Dan Yorke rather emphatically that "I am not going to run for the governorship of the state of Rhode Island."
In fact, Laffey seemed to go out of his way to burn his bridges on the issue, telling the radio audience "God has taken me in a different direction. I don't know exactly what it is, but it won't be running for governor of Rhode Island." So if Laffey does change his mind about running, he is going to have a higher power than Joe Trillo or Gio Cicione angry with him.
Yorke also asked him point-blank if there was a chance of him changing his mind and entering the race. Laffey answered, "No, I don't think so," then changed it to a plain "no." That is part of the political charm of Steve Laffey. Most pols would have started off saying no, then changed to the less-definitive, less restrictive, "I don't think so." But there is nothing mealy-mouthed or Clintonesque about Laffey. He says what he thinks and practically defies you to disagree.
Would Laffey have been able to win if he did run? Who knows?
Sixteen years is a long time for one party (particularly a pitiful minority party) to continuously hold a top executive office like governor. We have had two terms each of Republicans Lincoln Almond and Donald Carcieri and Carcieri's once sky-high popularity numbers have sank like a stone in recent polls. So this may not have been the GOP's year for governor no matter what God had in mind for Steve Laffey. On the other hand, if the state economy were still in the dumper as August turned to September in 2010, with double-digit unemployment, Laffey might have been able to make a credible argument that he is the guy who has what it takes to turn it around. But now we will never know.
One thing for sure, given Laffey's remarks about the state GOP during the 2006 Senate primary and afterward in his book about that race, "Primary Mistake," it is not likely that Republicans would make a plea for Laffey to accept a draft "for the good of the party," nor that Laffey would be susceptible to such an appeal. But it might amuse Laffey to make the party leaders publicly beg, should it come to that.
Nonetheless, like him or not, Laffey's departure from the governor's race represents a tectonic shift in the state's political landscape.
It is particularly bad news for Laffey's former foe Lincoln Chafee, who started musing out loud last week about tossing his hat into the ring (politicians don't wear hats that much anymore, either; I can't recall ever seeing one on Chafee's head) for governor.
Without question, the best-case scenario for a Chafee for Governor campaign would involve having Laffey be the Republican nominee.
The latest scuttlebutt has Chafee joining up with Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian, to run as a governor-lieutenant governor "ticket" as Independents. That makes sense. Avedesian would help mend fences with some of the moderate Republicans that might still be miffed with Chafee's high profile snubbing of the party after he left the Senate. Less moderate Republicans would never vote for Chafee anyway; they would surely be Laffey voters.
As Independents, Chafee and Avedesian would be able to make a claim for the loyalties of the majority of voters who are non-affiliated, the moderate Republicans, and the Democrats who backed one of the losing candidates in what is likely to be a vicious and prolonged primary fight. Would Lynch, Cicilline and Roberts voters back a victorious Caprio? Or would they label him a DINO (Democrat in Name Only) and give Chafee one term in order so as not to have to challenge their own party's incumbent in 2014? Would Caprio partisans flow to Lynch, or would they keep their powder dry and sit tight for four years, when the political situation may have changed completely?
Chafee and Avedesian would offer the dissidents in both scenarios a more benign alternative.
But without a strong, or at least credible, Republican candidate, the Independent experiment won't be able to build the critical mass one needs to defeat a Democrat in Rhode Island. They need a real three-way race. Maybe Chafee could start quietly funneling money to Warwick Rep. Joe Trillo, as of now the only Republican in the running.
And don't sell avowed Cool Moose candidate Robert Healey short. Whether or not you think he could win, he has a common sense-non partisan message that could be attractive to people who see the state and nation swirling the bowl and don't think that Democrats and Republicans pointing fingers at each other is the answer we need. In that, he and Chafee are likely to cancel each other out, like two supporting actor candidates from the same movie vying for the Oscar.
An Independent bid like Chafee's is probably the only thing that could stop one of the Democrats from becoming Rhode Island's next governor. Healey, who has run and lost before, would be more of a long shot. But if they split the "plague on both your houses" voters, the Democrat, whomever that might be, will be a shoo-in.
The Democratic primary was already going to be exciting. But with Chafee and Healey and a Republican to be named later, the general election could be well worth watching, too.
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