By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Republican Brendan Doherty said Wednesday he’ll return $1,000 donated to his campaign by state Sen. Frank Ciccone, criticizing the lawmaker for showing “very poor judgment” when he allegedly tried to threaten police officers as they arrested Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio.

The announcement comes two days after WPRI.com reported Doherty would keep Ciccone’s money despite last week’s incident in Barrington, a decision that drew criticism from some of his allies.

“With the benefit of additional information released today by the Barrington Police and upon careful reflection on the matter, I am extremely disappointed in the actions of Senator Ciccone and I have directed my campaign to return his contributions,” Doherty said in a statement.

Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, crossed party lines twice last year to contribute campaign cash to Doherty, who stepped down as head of the Rhode Island State Police to challenge first-term Democrat David Cicilline. Ciccone gave Doherty $500 in June and another $500 in October, according to Federal Election Commission records.

“I am confident that the Barrington Police acted with respect and courtesy in this situation, but it has become evidence that Senator Ciccone showed very poor judgment and failed to treat the police officers in the same manner,” Doherty said Wednesday.

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Republican Brendan Doherty’s campaign isn’t acting too concerned about Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s endorsement of Democratic Congressman David Cicilline for reelection, particularly since the governor’s comments echoed one of their own campaign talking points.

Giovanni Cicione, Doherty’s campaign manager, told WPRI.com he was “not surprised” Chafee opted to endorse Cicilline, “but it is noteworthy that in the same breath he felt he had to qualify that support by saying that Cicilline was not ‘forthright’ in discussing the financial troubles he left in Providence.”

During a taping of “Newsmakers” on Friday, Chafee labeled as “unfounded” much of the criticism of Cicilline’s work as mayor, but said of the congressman’s comments on the campaign trail in 2010, “maybe there’s some legitimate criticism there – he should have been more forthright in the depth, the devastation of these cuts.”

“We consider that qualification telling,” Cicione said, “and we will give the governor’s endorsement of the architect of Providence’s demise the weight it is due.” Doherty retired as superintendent of the state police just weeks after the newly elected Chafee asked him to stay on.

Chafee, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Treasurer Gina Raimondo are all supporting Cicilline over Doherty. Chafee attended a Cicilline fundraiser in Providence on Thursday night whose host committee included the mayor and the treasurer. Chafee and Taveras have emphasized their preference for a Democratic majority in Congress.

“We wish the governor and Mayor Taveras well in cleaning up the problems David Cicilline left behind, and we can only hope that they find a way to prevent the damage done in his eight years of neglect from being foisted upon the taxpayers of the state and the 11% of our citizens who remain unemployed,” Cicione said.

• Related: Chafee endorses Cicilline, defends him as mayor (with caveat) (March 30)

Ken McKay is stepping down as chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, WPRI.com has confirmed.

McKay revealed his departure to GOP insiders in an email on Wednesday, said Giovanni Cicione, McKay’s predecessor as party chairman and the campaign manager for Brendan Doherty’s 1st Congressional District campaign.

Steve Frias, the state party’s 1st vice chair, has taken over as acting chairman and will hold an election to replace him within 30 days, Cicione said. A special election will be held the week of Dec. 19 following a meeting of the party’s executive committee the week of Dec. 5, Frias said in an email to party members Sunday obtained by WPRI.com.

“We’ll have a new chair by the end of the year, which is good given the campaign season is coming up – it’s probably best to have it over and done with in 2011, so whoever comes in can focus on 2012,” Cicione said.

McKay, who was elected chairman in March, is expected to take a high-profile new job either with a major campaign or in Washington. Cicione declined to offer any suggestions as to who should succeed McKay.

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Gio Cicione

Brendan Doherty has brought in former Rhode Island Republican Party Chairman Giovanni Cicione and the party’s former executive director, Robert Coupe, to run his congressional campaign.

Doherty hired Adams Point Advisors, a Barrington-based political consulting firm the pair founded last spring, to take charge of his 1st Congressional District campaign as of Oct. 1, Cicione said. Cicione will serve as campaign manager and spokesman, and Coupe will serve as political director and press secretary.

Doherty had been relying on volunteers led by his friend RDW Group’s Dante Bellini Jr. to manage his campaign since he entered the race in May. The former state police colonel is also employing consultants from OnMessage Inc. for media and Johnston Consulting of Vermont for fundraising.

Cicione was former Gov. Donald Carcieri’s choice to lead the Rhode Island GOP, which he wound up doing from 2007 to 2011, when he was succeeded by Ken McKay. (Carcieri is supporting Doherty.) Coupe served as a policy advisor and spokesman for the late U.S. Sen. John Chafee, the father of independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

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By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – State Rep. Daniel Gordon’s criminal record may be extensive, but his political record is not.

Gordon didn’t cast a ballot in a single election in Massachusetts from 2000 though 2008 after originally registering as a Republican in Taunton, according to records reviewed by WPRI.com. He later moved to Fall River, which dropped him from the voter rolls in 2008 when he did not respond to a confirmation card.

Gordon registered to vote in Portsmouth as an independent in May 2009 but did not provide a prior address when he filled out the form, Town Registrar Madeleine Pencak told WPRI.com.

Gordon eventually registered as a Republican in Portsmouth on June 14, 2010, just two weeks before he declared his candidacy to succeed John Loughlin as District 71′s representative on June 28, according to Pencak and records at the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office.

Other Republicans struggled this week to recall how Gordon wound up being their sole candidate to compete for Loughlin’s open seat, which was one of just 10 districts out of 113 held by the GOP during the General Assembly’s last session. Loughlin stepped aside to mount a losing bid for Congress against Democrat David Cicilline.

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Tim White contributed to this report.

• Related: What happens if state Rep. Daniel Gordon resigns from office? (Sept. 19)

The drumbeat of calls for state Rep. Daniel Gordon to resign his seat is rising despite his defiant pledge this morning to remain in office.

Giovanni Cicione, who was chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party until earlier this year, said unequivocally on Tuesday that the freshman lawmaker should step down.

Asked whether he thought Gordon should stand aside, Cicione told WPRI.com: “Yes. Just resign.”

“My impression is that it’s a broad consensus at this point, except for Dan,” Cicione added. “I hate to see any reduction in the size of the Republican caucus, but I’m more concerned with demeaning the legislature, so I think that that’s appropriate.”

Keith Hamilton, a councilman in Gordon’s hometown of Portsmouth who is first vice chairman of its Republican Town Committee, said while the local GOP does not have an official position on what Gordon should do, he and a number of others there think the legislator should vacate his seat.

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Two of the state’s top Republicans threw a Lincoln Chafee lovefest at this morning’s taping of “Newsmakers” with Tim White, Ian Donnis and yours truly.

Republican Party Chairman Giovanni Cicione said he would welcome Chafee back into the Republican fold if the independent governor-elect ever decides to rejoin the political party with which his family is still closely identified. “Paths can always be U-turns,” he said.

Pressed on whether he would really like to see Chafee become a Republican again, Cicione replied: “I would. I don’t know if the party would as a whole – I think there might be some resistance there – but look, I have great respect for his father, and I know [Lincoln Chafee] grew up in a household where party loyalty was important.”

Cicione continued with a defense of Chafee’s rationale for leaving the Republican Party back in 2007, the year after he was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in his U.S. Senate reelection campaign:

I think that he had some very fair frustrations back when he was in the Senate over some issues that are important and I don’t think were wrong. Honestly, I think the majority of the Republican Party regrets some of the things that happened in the Bush administration – the [Iraq] war possibly being one of them, but the economy and the spending certainly being one of them. Linc Chafee was a deficit hawk and there was no respect for deficit hawks when he was there. I think today people see the wisdom of that, and Republicans see the wisdom of that.

If we can just get over the emotional hurdle of having split up with him essentially, I think we would find – I hope that we would find we’re not that far apart.

Cicione also pointed to Chafee’s victory as a bit of a consolation for Republicans because it prevented Democrats from making a clean sweep of the state’s top offices last Tuesday. But he did qualify his words with a reference to Chafee’s inclusion of teacher’s union chief Bob Walsh on his transition team, saying some of the choices “scare the heck out of me, so we’ll see if this is all just rosy thinking on my part or if maybe there is a hope there.”

Cicione’s magnanimity took me by surprise, but perhaps it shouldn’t have. Chafee is the scion of one of the Rhode Island G.O.P.’s best-known families, and he remains close to many in the party, including Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian – a potential Senate candidate in 2012 – and Catherine Taylor, who came within a whisker of defeating Ralph Mollis for secretary of state last week and was our other guest on “Newsmakers” this morning.

Taylor, for her part, offered kind words for Chafee in the face of criticism that he is now too close to teacher’s unions, which were key supporters of his campaign. (Taylor was a U.S. Senate aide to both Lincoln Chafee and his father for years.) Here’s a bit of what she had to say:

I know that there is that concern out there because of the teacher’s unions being so involved in his campaign. But I know that Gov.-elect Chafee has been talking with Commissioner Gist and a lot of people who care very much about education. I know he’s open to a lot of good ideas from a lot of people. I will also say, one thing you can say about Linc Chafee, he’s a fiercely independent individual and he will not let who’s around him sort of stand in the way of him hearing good ideas.

A few other interesting nuggets:

• Cicione said that whichever Republican decides to run against Whitehouse in 2012 – whether it’s Avedisian, Donald Carcieri or Cicione himself – that person will need to decide to run “sometime this winter or early spring” if they want to mount a credible campaign. “The fundraising has to start in earnest in early spring or summer,” unless the individual can fund his own campaign, he said.

• Cicione, who expects to step down when his term as Rhode Island’s G.O.P. chief ends early next year, said he “probably” wouldn’t support another term for Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

• Taylor made clear she expects to run for office again on the Republican ticket at some point in the future. “I feel obligated to those 162,000-plus voters who trusted me with their votes this time to come back in some way,” she said.

The entire half-hour conversation offered some fascinating insight into how top Republicans see their party after last week’s election and where they expect it to go next. The show will be posted online later today and will air on TV at 5:30 a.m. Sunday on both WPRI 12 and FOX Providence. (Once again, football is taking our regular time slot – set your DVRs.) I’ll update this with a link once the show is online. [Here it is.]

Update: The conscientious Ian Donnis reminds me that Cicione said he probably wouldn’t support another term for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele – my original paraphrase was a little too definitive. (I’ve added the “probably” above.)

Update #2: The new episode of “Newsmakers” is now available online – watch it here on WPRI.com.

Even before last week’s election, political insiders were wondering which Republican would step up and try to deny U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse a second term in the November 2012 election. Whitehouse is a juicy target, but the Republican Party in Rhode Island doesn’t have a deep bench of well-known potential candidates with the financial wherewithal to mount a Senate bid.

In an interview on Monday, Cicione told me his favored candidate is outgoing Gov. Donald Carcieri. “We’re hopeful that the governor will get bored after a couple weeks” once he leaves office, Cicione said.

I’m a little skeptical about whether Carcieri will decide to run – his second term has been grueling and his approval rating was only 44% in October – but he has the national connections to mount a credible bid. Carcieri’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, downplayed the possibility that Carcieri will run but did not rule it out when I asked her about it.

Another possible Republican candidate getting some buzz is Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, a close ally of Gov.-elect Lincoln Chafee. Avedisian steamrolled his Democratic opponent last week, winning 80% of the vote. Like Carcieri, Avedisian is staying coy for now about his 2012 intentions – he told me he is busy getting ready for a new term as mayor. But I got the distinct impression he will consider challenging Whitehouse, too.

Cicione also floated the names of Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, Lincoln Town Administrator Joseph Almond or Woonsocket Mayor Leo Fontaine. There’s also the possibility that a wealthy outsider – perhaps a business leader – could emerge from out of nowhere to contest the race, the same way Carcieri did in 2002 and Anthony Gemma did this year.

Then there is Gio Cicione himself – the chairman has begun floating trial balloons to see whether he could get enough support to run. “If I get my law practice in order and find the resources, I’d probably consider it,” he told me on Monday and Roll Call on Tuesday. But Cicione was honest about what it would take. “It’s just a question of being able to tap the money,” he said.

Cicione doesn’t doubt national money will be available to the Republican who challenges the first-term Democrat. “There is an anti-Whitehouse establishment in Washington that I think would be very interested,” he said. “I had people calling me from Washington before this election [last Tuesday] asking who was running so they could give them money. … This is an eminently winnable race.”

Whitehouse, for his part, had $575,672 in his campaign war chest as of Sept. 30. He will likely benefit from the fact that Barack Obama’s name will be at the top of the Democratic Party’s 2012 ticket – Obama won Rhode Island by a 28-point margin in 2008. And our WPRI 12 poll in September showed Rhode Islanders warming to the senator, with his favorable rating at 40%, up from 33% in January. We’ll see what happens.