One interesting piece of the whole brouhaha about the Curt Schilling deal is the difference of opinion we’re seeing on it between current officeholders and candidates. The AP’s Michelle Smith found all five candidates for governor questioning the $75 million loan guarantee last weekend, and Red Sox executive Jeremy Kapstein, who is running for lieutenant governor, expressed doubts, too.

By contrast, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri – who chairs the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s board, and can’t run for re-election because of term limits – backed the deal and helped get eight of the nine board members in attendance Monday to vote for it.

The EDC’s press release heralding the deal included supportive quotes from House Speaker Gordon Fox and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, as well. (Of course, Fox and Paiva Weed are candidates this fall, too – but their leadership of the House and Senate won’t be on the ballot, just their individual seats.) And Keith Stokes, head of the EDC, told me lawmakers specifically drafted the legislation creating the loan guarantee program to make sure $75 million was available for Schilling.

There are a few ways you could look at this.

One argument – the one made to me yesterday by Stokes – is that candidates running for office have to make these statements because they think it’s good politics. It gets them attention from talk radio, TV stations and the papers, and creates a campaign issue. By contrast, officials like Gov. Carcieri and the EDC board have to make tough decisions because they are actually in charge of running the state right now.

That is certainly plausible. But there are other ways to look at it.

For one thing, these candidates have not spent as much time being briefed by 38 Studios – which means they haven’t seen all of the information that helped sway Carcieri and the board. That means they could be unaware of some crucial positive factors in 38 Studios’ favor – or they could have a clearer perspective on the deal because they weren’t so close to it (and Schilling’s celebrity).

In addition to that, the various candidates who have questioned the deal are all speaking with voters every day and will face them this fall. If they are hearing significant doubts about the 38 Studios deal out on the hustings, that could mean they are expressing what a large number of regular Rhode Islanders think about the deal. (I would love to see a good poll on public opinion about it.) We’ll see.

Update: Well, looks like one current officeholder who is also a candidate is backing the 38 Studios deal: General Treasuer Frank Caprio. The Democratic candidate for governor now tells WRNI he’s “going to be a cheerleader for” the deal. “Let’s do everything in a top-shelf fashion, and let’s put the wind at the back of 38 Studios, and let’s make sure it’s a success,” he said.