May 16th, 2013 at 8:42 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Former Auditor General Ernie Almonte announced Thursday that he’ll run for general treasurer in 2014, abandoning his long-shot bid for governor against Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras.
• Related: Caprio calls ‘shove it’ remark ‘stupid,’ prepares comeback (May 14)
May 14th, 2013 at 5:57 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - In his first TV interview since losing the 2010 governor’s race, former General Treasurer Frank Caprio told WPRI 12 he regrets his infamous comment that President Obama could take his endorsement and “shove it,” attributing the outburst to the frustrations of a losing campaign in its final weeks.
• Video: Watch the full Newsmakers with Frank Caprio (May 14)
May 7th, 2013 at 9:23 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
April 26th, 2013 at 1:09 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Dan McGowan
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Frank Caprio is looking to get back into Rhode Island politics.
• Related: Caprio leaves Dems, tweaks Obama two years after ‘shove it’ (Nov. 5)
April 9th, 2013 at 9:55 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Apparently Democratic treasurers stick together.
Former General Treasurer Frank Caprio is helping to raise money for the campaign of his successor, Gina Raimondo, as she prepares for a possible run for governor in 2014, WPRI.com has confirmed.
Asked in an interview Friday whether Caprio is helping her with fundraising, Raimondo replied: “Is he helping me with fundraising?” After pausing, she said: “He’s … yes.”
Caprio, who placed third when he was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, declined to comment when reached by phone on Friday. The former treasurer and state lawmaker is no longer a registered Democrat, WPRI.com revealed last fall.
November 5th, 2012 at 10:52 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
It sounds like Frank Caprio may not vote for Barack Obama in this week’s election.
Caprio, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, tweeted on Saturday: “This election has come down to who shows up-JFK’s ‘silent majority’ for @MittRomney- or women & the celebrity culture for @BarackObama.” The former treasurer, who now works as a managing director for the private-equity firm Chatham Capital, didn’t elaborate.
Caprio has also left the Democratic Party, at least as far as the voting rolls are concerned.
Records at the secretary of state’s office show Caprio is now registered as an unaffiliated voter, meaning he is an independent and not formally a member of any political party. The change takes effect Dec. 10. Lincoln Chafee, who defeated Caprio for governor, made the same move in 2007 when he left the Republican Party and registered as unaffiliated.
August 10th, 2012 at 11:44 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Rhode Island’s pension fund paid less than the national average in Wall Street fees during former Treasurer Frank Caprio’s time in office, according to a new study.
Rhode Island spent $13 million of its pension fund’s net assets on money-management fees in 2009-10, the study [pdf] by the Maryland Public Policy Institute and the Maryland Tax Education Foundation shows. That equaled 0.22% of assets, below the national average of 0.41% and the national median of 0.36%.
“There is substantial evidence that Wall Street managers are unable to beat passive equity index funds that cost much less in fees,” authors Jeff Hooke and Michael Tasselmyer wrote in their findings. Missouri, Pennsylvania and Hawaii spent the most on fees nationwide.
“If public pension funds were indexed to relevant markets rather than actively managed, the public pension systems … across the United States would save enormous amounts of money on fees, without undue harm to investment performance,” they wrote. “In fact, many Wall Street managers ‘shadow’ their target indexes with 70% to 80% of their investments in the same stocks (or bonds) as those in the index.”
April 3rd, 2012 at 10:35 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Republican Brendan Doherty is feeling the heat this week for keeping $1,000 from state Sen. Frank Ciccone in the wake of allegations the lawmaker tried to intimidate police officers.
But Doherty is far from the only leading Rhode Island politician who took donations from Ciccone – though he may be the only Republican.
Ciccone has donated at least $25,610 to a host of politicians and political organizations since 2002, including $2,800 to Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, $2,000 to former Providence City Council President John Lombardi and $1,650 to Congressman David Cicilline during his mayoral days, an analysis of R.I. Board of Elections filings by WPRI.com shows.
The Rhode Island Laborers District Council, an arm of the Laborers International Union, paid Ciccone $120,625 in 2011, according to its most recent federal disclosure filing. The Senate paid him $13,962.
Ciccone, D-Providence, also gave money to many of the state’s current leaders, including Gov. Lincoln Chafee ($500), Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts ($200), Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed ($750), Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio ($350), Providence Mayor Angel Taveras ($300) and U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse ($1,000) during his failed 2002 gubernatorial bid.
Beneficiaries who are out of office included former Treasurer Frank Caprio ($1,600), former Lt. Gov. Charlie Fogarty ($1,350), former Senate Majority Leader Dan Connors ($900), former Attorney General Patrick Lynch ($850), former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci ($125) and former state Rep. David Segal ($50).
Among the notables who did not get any money from Ciccone were House Speaker Gordon Fox, Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Peter Kilmartin. The senator did not return a phone call Monday.
• Related: Senate President Paiva Weed silent on Ciccone’s police report (April 2)
(photo: Rhode Island Senate)
December 30th, 2011 at 10:50 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
My colleague Kat Sotnik passes along this bit of gossip from the Boston Herald’s Inside Track columnists:
The interwebs are abuzz with multiple sightings of the “X Factor” judge with not one, but two sons of Providence Municipal Court Judge Frank Caprio who, BTW, has his own local TV show, “Caught in Providence.” …
Paula spent the hols on the South Coast of Rhode Island with the Caprio fam and on Tuesday ventured into neighboring Massachusetts, where she put in an appearance at a tasting at Wines & More in Wareham with hunky store franchisee John Caprio.
The scion of the political family added fuel to the lovey-dovey rumors when John told WarehamWeek.com — with a big smile on his face — that Mizz Abdul was “a good friend of mine.” Hmmm. Can’t hear that enough …
Back in Little Rhody, Paula was spotted supping at Papa Razzi in Cranston with John’s older bro, state Rep. David Caprio, a bachelor. And yesterday she popped into Pinkberry at Garden City Center with her bodyguard and shopped at Sephora in the Providence Place Mall, where she snapped pics with fans, according to the Twitterverse.
Inside Track doesn’t have the details quite right on David Caprio’s political history – he was a state representative from Narragansett but lost the Democratic primary to Teresa Tanzi last September. His brother Frank was, of course, state treasurer and the Democratic candidate for governor last year.
Update: Cranston Patch’s ace reporter Mark Schieldrop had the Abdul-Caprio story on Wednesday – with a photo.
Update #2: Thanks to Don Botts, via Twitter, for correcting my own brain freeze – Caprio was a state representative, while Frank Caprio was a state senator. This post has been corrected, but the URL will live on an infamy.
Update #3: WPRO has more details and photos from Abdul’s visit to Rhode Island.
May 20th, 2011 at 12:45 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
Seven months after his painful loss in the governor’s race, Frank Caprio is starting to raise his public profile.
Word came on May 4 that the former treasurer has accepted a new job as managing director at Chatham Capital, an Atlanta-based financial firm, to run its new Providence office. The same day, Caprio spoke on a panel about entrepreneurial finance at the high-profile Milken Institute Global Conference in California.
Caprio has also started posting messages on Twitter, ending months of post-election silence (and offering us the picture at right of him with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo).
Now Caprio has granted an exclusive interview – his first sit-down conversation since Nov. 2 – to The Associated Press’ Michelle Smith. Caprio remained guarded in his comments, judging by Michelle’s two stories. But he left the door open to another run for office, and mentioned that he’s sent a conciliatory message to President Obama in the wake of Shoveitgate.
Caprio also defended his tenure as treasurer in light of the SEC’s probe into bond disclosures issued while he was in charge. “We rely on legal firms that are charged with drafting and standing by those documents,” he told Smith. “It’s not something that is worked on by a team of bureaucrats inside the Statehouse.” Smith also writes that Caprio “praised” his successor Gina Raimondo for her work so far.
Caprio is quite young – he turned 45 last week – and, by all accounts, quite smart. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent a few years making money in the private sector, it’s hard to imagine him staying on the political sidelines for the rest of his life.
Caprio will have to start fundraising from scratch, though. After spending $2.7 million on his failed bid for governor, Caprio’s campaign war chest had just $308 in it as of March 31 – and he still owed himself $2,400.
The real question is, what race could draw Frank Caprio back into politics?
(photo: Frank Caprio, via Twitter)
February 25th, 2011 at 1:47 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Apparently newly elected Gov. Lincoln Chafee isn’t having any honeymoon with Rhode Island voters.
Chafee’s approval rating stands at just 38% in new survey results released Friday by Public Policy Polling, which put out those much-discussed Senate results from the same sample earlier in the week. It’s the first poll done since the former senator took office nearly two months ago.
Chafee’s 38% approval rating is only two points higher than the 36% share of the vote he won in November’s four-way gubernatorial race. The survey found 44% of voters disapprove of the job Chafee is doing as governor and 17% are unsure.
The automated telephone survey of 544 Rhode Island voters was conducted Feb. 16 to Feb. 22 by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-affiliated firm in Raleigh, N.C. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
A detailed look at the poll shows that while Chafee may have won office as an independent, his base is in the Democratic Party.
The only groups with a majority approving of the job Chafee is doing as governor are voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama, 56% of whom approve of Chafee’s job performance, and self-identified Democrats, at 53% approval.
A whopping 84% of Republicans – Chafee’s own party until 2007 – disapprove of the job he’s doing as governor. More worryingly for his political advisers, just over half of independents – 51% – disapprove, too.
Chafee is doing much better among women, with 45% approving the job he’s doing so far compared with only 31% of men. He also scores higher among voters ages 18-29 (43%) and 46-65 (42%) than among voters 30-45 (36%) and 65+ (33%).
The poll also shows that U.S. Sen. Jack Reed continues to be the state’s most popular politician by a long shot, with a 60% approval rating.
Even more impressively, PPP says Reed is the most popular Democratic senator in the entire country based on job approval polls it’s done for 82 senators coast to coast over the last 13 months. Even with Republicans added in, only Wyoming’s Senate delegation scores better than Reed. (Perhaps he’s using psy-ops on the electorate? Kidding, kidding.)
PPP also asked voters’ general opinions about four other Rhode Island politicians, which sometimes differ from job approval numbers and therefore aren’t directly comparable to the numbers for Chafee and Reed.
U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin scored highest, with a 50% favorable rating. Below the halfway mark were former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy at 43% favorable and his successor, David Cicilline, at 34% favorable.
Former General Treasurer Frank Caprio, whose gubernatorial bid imploded last fall, performed worst with a favorable rating of only 29%.
Here’s a chart of the poll results – again with the caveat that it shows job approval numbers for Chafee and Reed versus favorability ratings for the other four:
February 4th, 2011 at 10:46 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Since The AP’s Michelle Smith and I separately uncovered the existence of an SEC investigation into Rhode Island’s bond offerings yesterday, a number of people have jumped to point fingers at former General Treasurer Frank Caprio.
There are certainly a number of questions Caprio ought to answer in light of the SEC probe, considering he was the state’s top financial officer for the past four years. Caprio hasn’t been returning reporters’ phone calls in the last 24 hours, and The New York Times says officials in Rhode Island ignored its inquiries last year about the state’s pension accounting methods.
Once again, we don’t know what the SEC investigation is about beyond Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s statement that it relates to Rhode Island’s bond disclosures. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume it relates to the unusual method of accounting in use here and in Illinois. The Times reports Illinois is under SEC investigation for just that reason.
The paper says the SEC is looking at states’ decisions to reduce pension contributions now because of savings that they won’t actually reap until far in the future. If that’s the case, Caprio isn’t the only one with questions to answer.
The Carcieri administration and the General Assembly’s leaders were glad to pocket those savings as they struggled to balance the budget in recent years. Their advisors must have cleared the idea. The state’s auditors and lawyers signed off on the bond disclosures now being probed.
Caprio was the treasurer and therefore the buck stops with him for Rhode Island’s financial disclosures. But blaming him and his staff alone ignores the fact that other state officials also benefitted by accounting for the state’s pension liabilities in this way.
December 1st, 2010 at 8:00 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
As I reported yesterday on WPRI.com, Rhode Island’s four candidates for governor spent a combined $6.3 million on their respective campaigns over the course of nearly two years. Here’s a chart showing the totals for each one:
That’s a lot of money – so much that it can be hard to wrap our brains around it. So let’s look at the numbers another way – spending per vote. (A little crass, perhaps, but interesting just the same.) To get that number, I took the amount of money each candidate spent on his campaign and divided it by the number of votes he received.
By that metric, John Robitaille ran by far the savviest race. The Republican’s campaign invested $603,833 in the race and received 114,911 votes – so he spent only $5.25 for every vote he received.
At the other extreme, Frank Caprio’s campaign invested $2.7 million in the race but only managed to get 78,896 votes, so he spent $33.66 for each vote he received, more than six times as much as Robitaille. Here are the spending-per-vote numbers for all four:
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:43 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
The FBI raided three hedge funds on Monday as part of a major insider trading probe, and now Boston.com is reporting that Massachusetts’ $43.6 billion state pension fund has almost $66 million invested in two of them. The pension fund’s executive director says his staff is “working diligently” to protect Massachusetts’ money.
By contrast, Rhode Island’s chief investment officer, Ken Goodreau, can breathe easy today. The Ocean State’s $6.9 billion fund has no money tied up with any of the targeted funds, Treasury spokesman Dave Layman told me in an e-mail.
“We have no exposure,” Layman said. “We own no hedge funds, including those involved in the FBI investigation.”
Goodreau has been in charge of the state’s investments for almost four years now. He came on board with General Treasurer Frank Caprio, whose successor, Gina Raimondo, will take office in January.
November 4th, 2010 at 1:48 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Now here’s an interesting data point for you, courtesy Twitter user Mario.
RI.gov’s election results page lets you break out absentee ballot results from regular votes cast at a polling place. And among those who cast a mail ballot, Frank Caprio – who won just 23% of the total vote – came out on top, ahead of both Chafee and Robitaille. Here’s the breakdown for absentee voters:
The deadline to apply for a mail ballot was Oct. 12, three weeks before the election. Thus mail-ballot voters can be quite different from those who turn out at the polls on Election Day, since they’re not necessarily representative of the broader electorate and – importantly – may make their choices before events late in a campaign.
That, of course, brings up the question of how much impact Shoveitgate had in the end. Matt McDermott, a Rhode Island Democrat studying at the London School of Economics, estimates that Caprio won mail ballot voters in Providence by 11 points – then went on to lose the city by 20 points. Judging by the figures above, McDermott thinks Shoveitgate cost Caprio 11 points in the end.
The only note of caution I’d add there is that – as I’ve mentioned repeatedly – our last WPRI 12 poll showed Caprio was already sinking fast in the days before Shoveitgate, so it appears his candidacy was already being damaged by Robitaille’s surge even before the controversial remark. But I have no doubt “shove it” is what helped push the Democrat’s final total all the way down to the low 20s.
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:09 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
The Democratic Governors Association spent well over $1 million this year on behalf of Frank Caprio’s gubernatorial bid. That’s on top of the roughly $3 million spent by Caprio’s actual campaign.
Yet Caprio finished the night in a distant third place, winning just 23% of the vote in a three-man race. National pundits will blame his loss on Shoveitgate, but our final WPRI 12 poll of the campaign showed Caprio was already fading fast even before his controversial comments about President Obama.
Just before midnight, DGA Chair and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell issued a statement about Caprio’s loss. “In a state hard-hit by the national recession, Frank Caprio ran as a strong Democrat committed to the principles of our party, but even a strong campaign couldn’t overcome the national wave,” Markell said. “We appreciate his dedication to the people of Rhode Island and wish him the best in his next endeavor.”
It seems like a stretch to attribute Caprio’s loss to a “national wave.” I don’t think many people are going to describe the midterm elections of 2010 as a high-water mark for Chafee-style Rockefeller Republicanism.
More importantly, at this writing Democrats have already lost the governorships of Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Mexico, Kansas, Wyoming, Michigan, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Plenty of people will be able to imagine more productive ways the DGA could have spent the seven-figure sum blown on Caprio’s double-digit defeat.
November 1st, 2010 at 4:18 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Attorney General Patrick Lynch, who dropped out of the Democratic gubernatorial primary in July to clear the way for Frank Caprio, is coming to his former rival’s aid on the eve of Election Day.
Lynch recorded a robocall – an automated phone message – that’s getting distributed this afternoon and was forwarded to me by one of the recipients. As you can see, it’s not easy to critique two other candidates and make the affirmative case for your own man in a 30-second message:
Hello. This is Attorney General Patrick Lynch, and I’m calling to ask you to vote for my friend, Frank Caprio, Democrat for governor, this Tuesday. Frank Caprio has a plan to get our economy moving again, and Rhode Island needs just that. We can’t afford Chafee’s plan to raise taxes on working families and we need to put an end to the failed Republican policies of the last 16 years. We need a Democrat in the governor’s office, and that Democrat is Frank Caprio. Please vote for Frank this Tuesday. Thank you.
Question: Do robocalls actually work?
Update: The same individual has now received a robocall from Frank Caprio himself. Unfortunately, Caprio’s message started playing while my correspondent’s outgoing message was still playing, so part of the message was cut off. But from context clues, it appears Frank Caprio wants people to vote for him tomorrow.
Update #2: My correspondent has now received a third Caprio robocall in the space of a few hours. This time it was Bill Clinton on his behalf. I can say that in this person’s case, the three robocalls has not made him more amenable to voting for the Democrat tomorrow.
That said, I shouldn’t pick on the Caprio campaign too much – they may just have the bad luck of robocalling somebody who emailed a reporter. Is Robitaille robocalling? Chafee? Ken Block? Joe Lusi? Let me know in comments.
November 1st, 2010 at 2:51 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
The big headlines from our new WPRI 12 poll last week were Frank Caprio’s seven-point drop, which put Lincoln Chafee in the lead for governor, and John Loughlin’s rapid gain on David Cicilline in the space of a month. But there were other interesting nuggets buried in the poll’s crosstabs – here are a few that stuck out to me.
• Is Lincoln Chafee the Democrat in the governor’s race? Looking at the coalition he’s put together, you could make the case. Chafee is either winning or nearly tied with Frank Caprio among some of the Democratic Party’s core consistencies.
Chafee is winning 52% of union households to Caprio’s 22%. The pair are tied among women at 29%, and statistically tied among younger voters (ages 18 to 39), with Chafee at 35% and Caprio at 34%. Among registered Democrats, Caprio’s lead over Chafee is just four points, 45%-41%. In the Democratic-leaning 1st District, Chafee leads Caprio 33%-27%.
The problem for Caprio is he hasn’t made up for that with new support elsewhere – Chafee leads him among men, 37%-23%; independents, 34%-13%; and seniors, 31%-28%. Among Republicans, Caprio only leads Chafee by one point, 12%-11%, while John Robitaille has 67%.
• Who’s persuadable at this point in the governor’s race? Only a few groups still have a double-digit number of undecided voters: independents, 17%; women, 14%; people ages 40 to 59, 14%; and 2nd District residents, 12%. They are taking their time, too – the number of undecideds in those groups was not statistically different from our previous poll a month earlier.
• Moderate Party founder Ken Block gets his strongest support from independents, at 7%. He’s also polling at 6% – two points above his overall rating – among men, younger voters, and Republicans.
• Unlike Caprio, David Cicilline is hanging on to traditional Democratic supporters, which is helping him keep a six-point lead over John Loughlin. Cicilline is winning women, seniors, and union members. But independents have deserted him over the past month, giving Loughlin 58% to Cicilline’s 28% – a 24-point gain for Loughlin and a 10-point loss for Cicilline, with 14% still undecided.
• Will Bob Venturini be our own Ralph Nader? Elizabeth Roberts should thank her lucky stars that the Pawtucket cable TV fixture is still in the lieutenant governor’s race – if his 5% support were added to Bob Healey’s 35%, the lieutenant governor’s race would be a statistical tie. It’s also a tad surprising that Healey is only winning 50% of Republicans – did they not get the message when Heidi Rogers dropped out? Or do they dislike the message?
• We also found 16% of likely voters still unsure who to support in the lieutenant governor’s race. With Roberts at 42% and Healey at 35%, which way those undecideds break could decide the outcome. Democrats have rallied to Roberts, but 22% of independents and 18% of Republicans still haven’t made up their minds.
• Ken Block’s fellow Moderate, attorney general candidate Chris Little, is doing far better than his party’s founder, polling at 12% in a five-man field. Little is winning 16% of middle-aged voters, 15% of independents and 13% of men. That may help explain why front-runner Peter Kilmartin, a Democrat, has trained his fire on Little in addition to Republican Erik Wallin.
• Congressman Jim Langevin does best among younger voters – those aged 18 to 39 – at 65%. The older you are, the less you like Langevin – he gets 55% of those ages 40 to 59 and 49% of those ages 60 and older. Langevin also has 23% of Republicans.
• The campaign to change Rhode Island’s formal name by deleting “and Providence Plantations” has gotten very little traction, with just 16% of voters saying they will approve the switch.
• Caprio is winning 14% of voters who say his association with “old-style politics” will prevent them from voting for him. Chafee is winning 8% of voters who say his sales tax proposal will, again, prevent them from voting for him. Yet Robitaille is only winning 1% of voters who say his service in the Carcieri administration will prevent them from voting for him. Weird.
November 1st, 2010 at 10:24 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Over the last few days, I’ve been hearing a growing number of whispers that the R.I. Economic Development Corporation is almost ready to close on the $75 million loan it’s taking out on behalf of 38 Studios. Although I’ve got nothing official to report at the moment, that would fit with the most recent target date EDC lawyer Robert Stolzman laid out for me in mid-October.
If the deal closes this week and Lincoln Chafee wins the governorship tomorrow – both big ifs, mind you – it would set up an almost immediate clash between the EDC and the new governor-elect, who has been scathing in his criticism of the deal since July.
Among the other two leading candidates, Frank Caprio said at our debate last week that if elected he will march down to EDC headquarters on Wednesday to do something unspecified about 38 Studios. John Robitaille has been a supporter of the agreement.
Meanwhile, Amazon.com is now taking pre-orders for 38 Studios’ first game, “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” which is set to be released by Electronic Arts for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PCs next September. The price is $59.95, and the low-key cover art is what you see illustrating this post. (Thanks to Dean Lester for pointing this out first.)
“Reckoning” is being developed down in Maryland by 38 Studios subsidiary Big Huge Games; the company’s other, riskier release (“Project Copernicus”) is the one Rhode Island is backing. For a primer on the two games, check out my WPRI.com story from August.
October 30th, 2010 at 8:01 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Nearly a week after Frank Caprio told President Obama he could “take his endorsement and really shove it” – and on the eve of a campaign appearance by former president Bill Clinton – the embattled Democratic nominee for governor has offered a new and longer mea culpa.
In a statement e-mailed to reporters Saturday, Caprio said he has “had a lot of time to reflect on my words and I understand the criticism.” Caprio said he respects Obama’s decision not to get involved in the race due to the president’s friendship with Lincoln Chafee, while acknowledging he was surprised when he first learned of the White House’s decision.
“I wish I had chosen different language, but now the focus has to be on what is important to Rhode Islanders,” he said. (WRNI’s Ian Donnis has the full statement.)
At our debate and other forums this week, Caprio had appeared to embrace the controversy. “If it takes telling someone to ‘shove it,’ I am going to tell them to shove it, because I am going to fight for Rhode Islanders every day up at that State House,” he said Tuesday. But as he falls further behind Lincoln Chafee in public opinion polls with just two days before the election, it’s clear the Caprio campaign has decided Shoveitgate is not a positive for them.
Unfortunately for Caprio, it may be too late for him to right the ship between now and Tuesday. (Ian reports that the state’s most prominent Democrats aren’t even going to attend tomorrow’s Clinton rally.) If that’s the case, Republican John Robitaille will need a massive groundswell of support to defeat Chafee on Tuesday – otherwise, the independent ex-Republican stands a good chance of becoming Rhode Island’s next governor.
But as the politicians always remind us, the only poll that really matters will happen Tuesday. Stay tuned.
October 27th, 2010 at 4:24 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
The Projo’s Kathy Gregg has the numbers showing how much money the four main gubernatorial candidates had left in their campaign war chests as of Monday. Here are the numbers filed with the Board of Elections:
There are lots of additional details in Gregg’s story. Keep in mind that any of the candidates – read: Chafee – could decide to pour more of his own money into the race (or tap his donors again) with five full days left before voters go to the polls. Caprio and Robitaille will also benefit from whatever money their respective parties decide to spend on each man’s behalf.
October 27th, 2010 at 1:19 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Rasmussen's results since February
John Robitaille’s outside advisers think Rasmussen’s Friday poll understated how much support the Republican candidate for governor is likely to get when voters go to the polls on Tuesday, according to an internal campaign memo obtained by WPRI.com.
Rasmussen’s survey, made up of 750 likely voters, had Chafee at 35%, Caprio at 28% and Robitaille at 25%.
But the survey sample was made up of 55% Democrats, 32% independents and 13% Republicans, making it “heavily weighted towards Democrats,” Profile Strategy Group, Robitaille’s New Hampshire-based consulting firm, argued in the memo.
The consultants said that if the poll had been weighted to reflect Rhode Island’s actual voter registration numbers, it would have shown Chafee at 33%, Robitaille at 28% and Caprio in third place at 25%. The strategists also pointed out that national surveys show Republicans and independents more enthusiastic than Democrats about casting ballots next week, which could also tilt the electorate in Robitaille’s favor.
It’s a somewhat surprising argument, since Rasmussen’s polls are frequently described as being friendly to Republicans, but certainly interesting. As I discussed when our last WPRI poll by Fleming & Associates came out, conducting accurate surveys is an art as much as a science, so there’s always room for debate once they get released.
The memo also pointed out that Rasmussen’s poll showed Robitaille winning independents and put his unfavorable rating at 40%, lower than Chafee’s 50% and Caprio’s 48%, whereas all three have nearly identical favorable ratings (49% for Caprio and Robitaille, and 48% for Chafee).
Bottom line? Profile Strategy Group thinks a higher-than-usual turnout among Republicans and independents would put Robitaille “within the margin of error of Chafee.” They counseled him to emphasize his message of bringing back jobs and countering the Democratic-dominated General Assembly to position him as the anti-Chafee choice.
All this should just whet our appetites for tomorrow evening, when WPRI will release the results from our final poll of the campaign. I’ll have full coverage right here on WPRI.com starting at 6 p.m.
October 26th, 2010 at 9:27 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Polls show Lincoln Chafee is the front runner in the race to be Rhode Island’s next governor. But you’d never have guessed that watching tonight’s WPRI gubernatorial debate, as Frank Caprio faced a concerted assault from all sides.
It was inevitable Caprio would face tough questions in the wake of Shoveitgate, but I was surprised by how much Republican John Robitaille – along with independent Lincoln Chafee and Moderate Ken Block – trained their fire on the Democratic nominee.
Robitaille – who gave a feisty and effective performance – was particularly scathing, chastising Caprio for Shoveitgate like a father to a son: “You’re not acting like a governor, Frank.” Later, when Caprio compared the investment return of Rhode Island’s pension fund favorably with those of other states’, Robitaille said it was “like saying the S. S. Minnow isn’t sinking as fast as the Titanic.”
Robitaille has been gaining in the polls over the past two weeks or so, according to both Rasmussen and internal campaign surveys, and if he wants to overtake Caprio to challenge Chafee he needs to win over the moderates and center-right voters who are still with the Democrat right now. He certainly did his best to make that happen tonight.
That dynamic left Caprio on the defensive, a tough place to be in a four-man debate. (Think of how different tonight might have gone if it had been just Caprio and Robitaille, or Caprio and Chafee.) All three of his opponents took shots at him during the first 20 minutes – even Block’s answer about suing the EDC included a swipe at the Democrat.
Caprio did his best and didn’t lose his cool. For me, the high point for Caprio was the poignant moment when he described his greatest regret as not spending enough time with the daughter he fathered as a teenager. For a candidate who has seemed almost robotic on the trail, it was a rare glimpse of the man behind the talk of jobs and kitchen tables.
What then of the front runner, Chafee? At times, Chafee almost seemed to be staying above the fray tonight – again, a surprising development with polls showing him out in front. Once again he cast himself as the optimistic candidate, emphasizing Rhode Island’s natural and manmade assets and the need for economic growth.
But Eyewitness News political analyst Joe Fleming told me after the debate he thought Chafee gave a markedly weaker performance than he did at our previous one at Roger Williams University. Chafee never offered up a regret when asked, for example, and sometimes meandered.
Ken Block was – well, Ken Block. He offered up enough one-liners and zingers to fill a Bob Hope Christmas special. He also emphasized his business and IT bona fides. But there were times he came off as a bit of a scold. “Oh my word,” he told Chafee at one point, “you’re not listening very well, are you?” Right now, Block’s main goal has to be ensuring he gets at least the 5% support needed to keep the Moderate Party a registered organization – which he should be able to do.
A few other quick thoughts:
• Caprio is now turning “shove it!” into his new campaign slogan. “If it takes telling someone to ‘shove it,’ I am going to tell them to shove it, because I am going to fight for Rhode Islanders every day up at that State House,” he said. Yes, we can!
• Robitaille bounced back and forth between conciliatory – pointing to his knowledge of labor relations to show he can work effectively with unions and praising Rhode Island Housing – and critical; he said he’d give the General Assembly “an ‘F’ – and that’s charitable,” adding that the Democratic-dominated legislature has “ruined the state” over the last 70 years. (Dems have held one or both chambers since 1941.)
• Chafee was a little retro tonight, mentioning both black-and-white TVs and Charles Dickens in his answers. He also used the Gettysburg Address for his sound check.
• On 38 Studios, Chafee pointed back to the highly critical Verrecchia report to explain why he is thinking about suing the EDC board – even though the current board was put in place specifically to deal with the problems identified in the Verrecchia report. (Verrecchia himself is on the EDC board now.) Later, Caprio said he would march down to the EDC next Wednesday if he gets elected to deal with the $75 million bond transaction if it still hasn’t closed – which is entirely plausible at the pace things are going. What would he say once he got there? And how would Keith Stokes respond?
• Frank Caprio’s campaign is glad to have Bill Clinton coming back to Rhode Island on Sunday to campaign for their man two days before the election. An aide told me it was in the works long before Shoveitgate, though the same person acknowledged he’ll have trouble getting people to believe that.
• Until the last week or two, Lincoln Chafee’s proposal to levy a 1% sales tax on exempt items had been the issue of the gubernatorial campaign. Tonight, it didn’t come up until 27 minutes in, and even then it wasn’t mentioned nearly as often as before. Any time Chafee isn’t talking about raising Rhode Islanders’ taxes is probably a positive for him.
• Gov. Donald Carcieri – remember him? – attended the debate in person, sitting with Robitaille’s campaign staff a few rows back from the front. Alas, he was too far away for me to see his reactions – but administration sources have made it clear he’s watching this campaign with great interest. Robitaille, for his part, loyally defended the outgoing governor – his former boss – while noting their different backgrounds (but not beliefs).
• No surprise that once again my pal Tim White acquitted himself well in the moderator’s job. By my count, this was Tim’s 2,743rd debate of this election cycle (and his last, except for Sean Bielat’s solo turn on Friday). Good questions from The Providence Journal’s Team of Eds – Fitzpatrick and Achorn – as well.
• Chafee had a line that I found funny, whether he meant it to be or not. Asked to grade the General Assembly, he said: “I’m not going to grade them, because I have to work with them.” Well, I assume if he was going to give them an A+ ahead of working with them, he probably would have said it.
• Caprio and Chafee had a nice moment after Chafee couldn’t come up with a regret but praised Caprio’s statement; Caprio turned to shake his hand, smiling broadly.
• Chafee is making a big play for Hispanic votes in these waning days of the campaign. He launched a Spanish-language website today, and said during the debate his first priority as governor would be getting rid of E-Verify. He got the endorsement of Providence en Español, too.
• Frank Caprio said his favorite book is “Lord of the Rings.” Who knew?
As I write this, it’s just past 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. One week from now, the polls will be closed and officials will be tabulating the votes to find out who Rhode Island’s next governor will be. WPRI will release our final poll of the campaign on Thursday evening, and I’ll be covering the last days right here on Nesi’s Notes. Then next Tuesday night, I’ll be here live blogging the results for WPRI.com as they come in – and of course we’ll have full coverage on TV, too.
In the meantime, one complaint we political reporters often hear is that there’s too much focus on the horse race, rather than substance, in the late stages of a campaign. With that in mind, I want to hear your questions about policies. What do you want to know about the gubernatorial candidates’ positions? Let me know at tnesi (at) wpri (dot) com and I will do my best to ferret out the answers.
October 26th, 2010 at 4:45 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
the podiums are in place at PPAC
The four men vying to become Rhode Island’s next governor – Moderate Ken Block, Democrat Frank Caprio, independent Lincoln Chafee and Republican John Robitaille – will meet tonight for our final televised debate of the fall campaign. And it promises to be a doozy.
The debate will air right here on WPRI.com from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and the first hour will be shown commercial-free on WPRI 12, as well. Once again, Tim White will be moderating with an assist from two Projo columnists, and I’ll be live-tweeting next to our WPRI.com debate stream via my Twitter feed. (And don’t worry Celtics fans, I’ll keep you posted about the opener while you do your civic duty.)
In the wake of Shoveitgate and Rasmussen’s Friday poll – and with just one week left before voters cast their ballots – this may be the most important debate of the race. I would be astonished if it stayed as sedate as the last encounter between the quartet on our airwaves just two weeks ago – if Frank Caprio and John Robitaille want to win, they can’t let that happen.
I’m particularly interested in Caprio’s strategy tonight as he fights a two-front war, trying to cut into Chafee’s support on the center-left while beating back Robitaille’s surge from the center-right. Here’s the long view of the contest’s dynamic, as captured by Rasmussen in its nine surveys since February (Ken Block was not always included):
Remember, too, that in a race with three strong contenders, it only takes a small share of the vote – say, 35% to 38% – to emerge as the victor and the next governor of Rhode Island. With Caprio and Robitaille splitting the anti-Chafee vote, Chafee can win if he holds onto the base of support he’s built up. That’s the reason Caprio’s people allegedly tried to get Robitaille to drop out of the race.
After the debate, I’ll post my impressions here on the blog – you can share your own in the comments – and we’ll have full coverage on TV at 10 and 11 and on WPRI.com. We’ll get a fuller picture of where things stand two days from now, when we release our latest WPRI poll by Fleming & Associates on Thursday evening.
(image credit: Josh Davis/WPRI)
October 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
David Axelrod, left, with Obama
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said this morning Frank Caprio sought President Obama’s endorsement, but the Caprio campaign tells me they couldn’t get their calls returned by Obama or Axelrod.
Xay Khamsyvoravong said he left a message on Axelrod’s cell phone more than a week ago to discuss Obama’s upcoming visit to Rhode Island, but never heard back from Axelrod or the president.
Instead, one of Axelrod’s deputies at the White House called Caprio back to discuss the president’s visit and non-endorsement.
“Our request wasn’t to talk to a deputy of Mr. Axelrod; our request was to speak with the president or Mr. Axelrod,” Khamsyvoravong told me.
Khamsyvoravong made the comments about two hours after Axelrod gave an interview to MSNBC during which he said the president declined to endorse Caprio out of respect for his friend Lincoln Chafee, who endorsed Obama in 2008.
“Mr. Caprio called here weeks ago looking for the president’s endorsement, and this was explained to him,” Axelrod said, referring to Obama’s relationship with Chafee.
“I understand he’s disappointed, and sometimes when people are disappointed they say intemperate things and that’s just – I get that,” Axelrod continued. “But the president’s reasoning was clear to him then, and it hasn’t changed.”
But when I spoke with Khamsyvoravong a little while ago, it was clear Obama’s thinking hadn’t been at all clear to the Caprio campaign ahead of the president’s visit.
The Caprio camp was blindsided to see the front page of Monday’s Providence Journal carrying a banner headline about the White House telling reporters Obama would not endorse the Democratic nominee out of respect for Chafee.
“The issue for us was not around his decision not to endorse – the issue for us is more the way the White House handled the situation,” Khamsyvoravong said.
By speaking to the press without contacting the Caprio campaign first, the White House “basically dropped on us” a negative story amid a high-profile Obama visit in the midst of a tight three-way race for governor.
Axelrod said in light of Obama’s friendship with Chafee, “he decided that he didn’t want to involve himself in that race.”
Of course, by very publicly failing to endorse Caprio – and spending 24 hours in a nasty spat with the Democrat – the president is more involved in the race than he would have been if he’d never set foot in Rhode Island.
Khamsyvoravong said the Caprio campaign wants to shift the focus back to the Democrat’s message ahead of tonight’s 7 p.m. debate between the four gubernatorial candidates on WPRI.
“Our focus is on fighting for Rhode Islanders, and Frank Caprio’s a person who has a plan to turn this state around,” he said, citing recent endorsements of the candidate by both The Providence Journal and Providence Business News. “He’s willing to stand up to anybody and fight for that plan.”
(image credit: White House/Pete Souza)
October 26th, 2010 at 10:48 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Frank Caprio spoke with Meredith Vieira this morning and stuck by his decision to tell President Obama to “take his endorsement and really shove it,” although he also said he has “the highest respect” for the president. Here’s the video.
The New York Post slapped the story on its front page:
Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod appeared on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” this morning and reportedly gave a different version of what happened between the White House and the Caprio campaign than we’ve heard from Caprio’s people. Here’s the video of that interview, which the network just posted. (What’s up with MSNBC.com videos not embedding correctly?)
On Anchor Rising, Justin Katz offers an analysis that mirrors both Joe Fleming’s and my own – that Shoveitgate represented “a calculated move to shore up the right-of-center voters whom Caprio courted thoroughly and effectively right up to the Democrat primary.” If Justin’s center-right commenters are any indication, the move didn’t do much good.
Apparently, WPRO’s John DePetro called the flap “the shove heard ’round the world” this morning. I’m sticking with Shoveitgate.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports Chafee has loaned his campaign another $500,000, bringing his personal investment in the race to a whopping $1.6 million. (I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lay out nearly $2 million when all is said and done.) Chafee also has a new TV ad on the air today featuring none other than President Obama, who references him as “Linc” during a 2008 campaign rally. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is in the ad, too.
All I know is, Shoveitgate has gotten me even more excited about tonight’s WPRI/Projo debate between the four gubernatorial candidates – our last televised debate of the campaign. I may be biased, but I don’t see how anyone can argue tonight’s encounter won’t be pivotal – Caprio is slipping, Robitaille is gaining, and Chafee is trying to capture and hold the roughly 35% of the electorate he’ll need to win. (Moderate Ken Block will be there, too.) The debate will be held at 7 p.m. at PPAC, and you can still order free tickets here if you’d like to attend in person. I’ll be live-tweeting right here on WPRI.com.
Then on Thursday night, WPRI will release our final poll before the election, conducted by our well-respected pollster Joe Fleming of Fleming & Associates. I’ll be watching to see whether it mirrors the findings of last week’s Rasmussen survey, which showed Chafee on top and Robitaille nearly tied with Caprio.
And one week from now, the most important poll of all – Election Day.
October 25th, 2010 at 2:15 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Air Force One is scheduled to land at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick at 3:55 p.m. Monday, depositing President Obama in Rhode Island for a brief four-and-a-half-hour visit here. The presidential plane is supposed to depart T.F. Green to return to Washington at 8:20 p.m. – though Democrats and presidents are known for running late, so we’ll see whether Obama actually makes it out on time.
The president will visit American Cord & Webbing Co., a manufacturer in Woonsocket, for a public event at 5 p.m. The company got approved for a U.S. Small Business Administration loan last month, and it plans to use the financing to expand from 30,000 square feet to 43,000 square feet, according to the White House. The company was founded nearly a century ago and currently has about 60 employees, according to the EDC.
From there, Obama will head to two fundraisers – a $500-a-plate reception at the Rhode Island Convention Center and then a more intimate $7,500-a-plate dinner at the East Side home of developer Arnold “Buff” Chace Jr. and his wife, Johnnie. Both will benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports the campaigns of U.S. House candidates including David Cicilline and Jim Langevin.
My WPRI colleague Danielle North is in Woonsocket, and she sent along this photo of Frank Caprio’s chair in the reserved section at American Cord & Webbing Co. After Shoveitgate, will he be there to sit in it? I wonder what his seatmate Secretary of State Ralph Mollis will whisper in his ear.
October 25th, 2010 at 1:09 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, tells me that when he drove through Wayland Square at 8:30 a.m. on his way to work this morning, all the parking was already blocked off (presumably by Secret Service) from Waterman Street left onto Wayland and up to the Chace house.
“It looks like they’re getting ready for a blizzard,” he quipped.
Meanwhile Politico, the voice of the inside-the-Beltway political class, has a Jonathan Allen story up taking a look at Shoveitgate in the context of national divisions among Democrats ahead of next week’s expected electoral bloodbath for the party:
There had been behind-the-scenes activity to try to get the president to endorse Caprio — or at least appear with him while in Rhode Island.
But Obama, who won a cross-party endorsement from Chafee in the 2008 presidential campaign, has made clear he doesn’t intend to put his thumb on the scale for Caprio in one of the few states where his endorsement might benefit a Democrat this year.
“This is disappointing. Frank Caprio has spent his career fighting for the values of the Democratic Party, and I think he deserves the full support of our party and its leaders,” said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. …
Caprio and the DGA asked Obama to move tonight’s Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser from the home of a Chafee supporter out of concern that it might be read as a blessing of Chafee. But the White House turned down the request and rebuffed subsequent efforts to get Caprio a joint appearance with the president. …
“If the White House wants to know why Democrats won’t come out for them look no farther than the fact that even the president won’t come out for Democrats,” said a source who is involved in several gubernatorial races. “It’s bad enough that the White House failures have dug a hole so big for the Democratic Party that Chilean miners would be envious, now they’re choosing not to endorse Democrats. Are they living on this planet?”
Two sources familiar with Rhode Island politics told POLITICO that Chafee is benefiting from his 2008 endorsement of Obama’s presidential bid and Caprio’s suffering for having been in Hillary Clinton’s camp in the primary that year. Caprio hasn’t even been invited to join Obama at public events, sources said.
“My understanding is that Obama is not looking to endorse Caprio and by including him in any events would give that indication or force him to actually say where he stands on that issue,” one source told POLITICO. “I have also heard that Caprio is upset that the DCCC did it’s big Rhode Island event at the home of a family who are very vocal and active supporters of Chafee. In many circles in Rhode Island, Chafee is seen as more of a Dem and a progressive than Caprio, who people often joke is a Republican in Democrats’ clothing.”
Interesting to see the shadow of the 2008 presidential primary falling over this race. One reason Bill Clinton came here over the summer to campaign for Caprio is because the Caprios were loyal Hillary supporters in her losing battle with Obama. Clinton’s visit gave the Caprio campaign the video they’ve used for their effective Clinton TV advertisement. But now Chafee is benefiting (or at least preventing Caprio from benefiting) because he picked the right horse in 2008.
For the record, the house in question is the Orchard Avenue home of developer Arnold “Buff” Chace Jr. and his wife, Johnnie. The pair have donated to Chafee, Joe Fernandez, Josh Miller, Gina Raimondo, Elizabeth Roberts and Angel Taveras – among others – this election cycle, according to campaign finance reports.
Update: Although Politico calls Lincoln Chafee’s 2008 support for Barack Obama “a cross-party endorsement,” technically that’s not quite accurate. Chafee left the Republican Party in mid-2007, months before he gave Obama his endorsement in February 2008. That’s just a detail, though – the Obama campaign pointed to Chafee’s support as an example of their man’s ability to win support from across party lines.
And now that I look, I see Chafee actually endorsed Obama on Valentine’s Day. How sweet!
(image credit: Pete Souza/White House)
October 25th, 2010 at 9:17 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
General Treasurer Frank Caprio
New: Shadow of Clinton v. Obama falls over the governor’s race
Welcome to Rhode Island, Mister President!
The political world is all atwitter this morning over Democrat Frank Caprio’s decision to take to the august airwaves of WPRO to tell President Obama he can “take his endorsement and really shove it.” (Rhode Island’s would-be next governor left it to our imaginations to figure out where, precisely, the Leader of the Free World should shove said endorsement.)
“We had one of the worst floods in the history of the United States a few months back and President Obama didn’t even do a flyover of Rhode Island,” Caprio said, according to WPRO. “He ignored us and now he’s coming into Rhode Island and treating us like an ATM machine.” The station has posted the full audio of the interview here.
Although Bill Clinton came to the Ocean State to campaign for Caprio, Obama – whose presidential run was endorsed by Caprio opponent Lincoln Chafee – has stayed silent in the race. Obama will be in Rhode Island today to support congressional candidates David Cicilline and Jim Langevin and to raise money on Providence’s East Side. (U.S. Sen. Scott Brown will be making his own visit to back Cicilline’s opponent, John Loughlin.)
Considering that last Friday’s Ramussen poll showed Republican John Robitaille and Caprio neck and neck, it’s possible this was a calculated effort by Caprio to win the affections of center-right voters who are sour on Obama – unlike Chafee, Caprio isn’t known for spouting off without considering his words’ effects in advance.
It’s worth noting, too, that while Obama’s popularity has taken a hit among Rhode Islanders, his favorable rating among Democrats was still at 70% in our latest WPRI poll last month. Get ready for another round of is-Caprio-really-a-Democrat stories.
Cable news has already started discussing the story, according to my Twitter feed, and it’s a headline on The Washington Post’s site, too. It’s hard for me to see how this helps Caprio in the last eight days of the campaign, but I guess you never know.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Caprio’s comments come up tomorrow night when the four gubernatorial candidates meet for our last televised debate of the campaign. The debate will be held at 7 p.m. at PPAC, and you can order free tickets here if you’d like to attend in person. I’ll be live-tweeting, as ever.
Update: Two things. First, I may try to nickname this tempest-in-a-teapot “Shoveitgate.” Second, it’s currently the top headline on Drudge in bright red.
Update #2: CBS News’ Mark Knoller takes a look at the Obama-Caprio-Chafee triangle:
“[Obama] will not be making an endorsement in the race,” says White House Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki. In a Sunday conference call with reporters, Psaki would not explain why the president is distancing himself from Caprio, who is locked in a tight four-way contest to become Rhode Island’s chief executive. …
As titular head of the Democratic Party, President Obama can’t endorse Independent Chafee over Democrat Caprio, so he’s staying out of the race.
Caprio’s aides don’t want it to appear to be a snub of their candidate, though it’s hard for it to be viewed any other way.
The visit to Rhode Island will be Mr. Obama’s first since taking office. He’ll be attending a $500-per-person fundraising rally followed by a $7,500-per-plate fundraising dinner – both in Providence and both to benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
To amortize the political cost of his visit to the DCCC, the president first pays an official visit to the American Cord & Webbing Co. in Woonsocket, R.I. He’ll tour the company’s plastics injection molding operation and then address workers about his administration’s efforts to help small businesses like theirs out of the recession.
Update #3: If Caprio’s strategy was to draw attention away from Obama’s visit – or at least make sure he was on offense in today’s coverage, rather than defense – he sure succeeded. His remarks have spread like lightning. That said, I also notice that a lot of the comments on our site, WPRO’s and Projo.com are critical of Caprio for speaking disrespectfully of the president of the United States – an unscientific sample, but interesting nonetheless. What do you think? This blog doesn’t require you to register, so fire away!
Update #4: Are there other Democratic gubernatorial candidates who’d have liked to receive Obama’s endorsement but didn’t get it? It’s one thing to have the president stay out of a gubernatorial race in, say, Alabama – where his support would likely be a net negative – but this is Rhode Island we’re talking about.
Update #5: Giovanni Cicione, who heads the Rhode Island Republican Party, just told The Associated Press that Caprio’s comments were disrespectful and cast them as a sign that Caprio’s campaign was in “meltdown mode.” Naturally, Cicione wants to get that message out as his man, Robitaille, gains in the polls.
“To take that kind of an attitude in a public statement, I think was very disrespectful and I think it’s a shame,” Cicione said of Caprio. “It shows that he’s not the sort of calm collected person he tried to present himself as.”
Update #6: Caprio doubles down on Shoveitgate. He just repeated his comments on camera to my WPRI colleagues, as you saw if you’re watching the noon newscast.
I wonder what he and the president will say when they run into each other at tonight’s fundraisers? Or will they even cross paths? Who wants to sneak me in?
Update #7: The AP caught up with Sen. Jack Reed, a close Obama supporter who is traveling with the president around Rhode Isalnd today. Reed “called Caprio’s comments disappointing and said the president has been extremely supportive of the state, including helping the state get millions in federal for flood recovery, infrastructure and to close a massive budget deficit,” the wire service reported.
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:09 pm by Ted Nesi under News and Politics, Poll Results
• New: RGA’s Robitaille buy down the drain after it misses deadline to deliver ad
Rasmussen is out with a new survey of 750 likely voters about the Rhode Island governor’s race, conducted on Oct. 21. Margin of error is plus or minus 4 points. Here are the results:
The big headline is how close Democrat Frank Caprio and Republican John Robitaille are compared with Rasmussen’s previous survey on Oct. 4 – more good news for the Republican after yesterday’s announcement that the national G.O.P. is going to invest in his campaign. This is the first time Rasmussen has had Caprio under 30% since March. Chafee’s two-point gain is within the margin of error, and Robitaille is back where he was in May. Undecideds are steadily shrinking in number.
Here’s an updated version of my chart tracking Rasmussen’s results since it started polling the race in February (Block isn’t in here because Rasmussen only started including him recently):
The growing support for Robitaille helps explain why Caprio is going after him in a new mailing, as The Associated Press’ Eric Tucker reported earlier today:
The front of the mailing includes photos of Robitaille and the Statehouse and carries the headline, “John Robitaille is not ready to manage Rhode Island’s budget crisis.” It includes a quote from an August newspaper article in which Robitaille, while discussing his intention to surround himself with smart advisers, said, “I am not a budget guru.”
Robitaille campaign manager Mike Napolitano called the mailing ridiculous and said the quotes were taken out of context.
“I think it shows that they’re afraid of us,” he said, later adding that the campaign planned no negative ads of its own between now and the Nov. 2 election.
Today’s Rasmussen survey is the first new independent poll on the governor’s race we’ve gotten in two weeks, but it won’t be the last before voters cast their ballots. WPRI will release another poll conducted by Fleming & Associates between now and Nov. 2.
The gubernatorial candidates will meet for our last televised debate of the campaign next Tuesday night at 7 p.m. – it will be held at PPAC, and you can order free tickets here if you’d like to attend in person. Or you can watch at home and enjoy my patented live-tweeting.
Update: No surprise, Robitaille spokesman Mike Napolitano was in a good mood when I called him to ask about the new Rasmussen survey.
“We think it’s great,” Napolitano said. “We’re three points behind Caprio and it’s 6% undecided. And with all the money they’ve spent – especially all the money Caprio’s spent – he’s actually gone down. So obviously John’s positive message is resonating with voters.”
“This is an extremely close race,” he added. No argument there from me.
Update #2: The Block campaign will be glad to see its candidate above the 5% threshold required for the Moderate Party to stay on the ballot going forward.