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 1st, 2013 at 10:35 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Treasurer Gina Raimondo continued to raise campaign cash at a rip-roaring pace during the first three months of 2013, far outpacing the other leading candidates for the state’s top job.
April 16th, 2013 at 12:30 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Dan McGowan
Cranston, R.I. (WPRI) – Cranston Mayor Allan Fung has hired a veteran Republican political operative to help craft a likely campaign for governor in 2014, WPRI.com has confirmed.
Patrick Sweeney, who ran Republican Barry Hinckley’s unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 2012 and previously served as executive director of the Rhode Island GOP, was brought in on Apr. 1 as a consultant for the mayor of Rhode Island’s third-largest city.
April 9th, 2013 at 1:20 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island is finally at the top of a set of national rankings, but Gov. Lincoln Chafee probably isn’t too happy about it.
February 1st, 2013 at 10:13 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Dan McGowan
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The 2014 governor’s race is still over 21 months away, but Gov. Lincoln Chafee and prospective candidates General Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras all finished 2012 with more than $300,000 in their campaign war chests, according to reports filed with the R.I. Board of Elections Thursday.
January 31st, 2013 at 12:25 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Gov. Lincoln Chafee frequently says that the clearest sign he’s running for re-election is the fact that he continues to raise money for his campaign war chest. That makes his final campaign-finance report for 2012 another indication that he plans to stay in the race.
Chafee posted his second-best fundraising quarter since taking office, raising $92,287 from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 and boosting his campaign’s cash on hand to $315,902 at the close of the year, according to a report filed Thursday with the R.I. Board of Elections. The vast majority of Chafee’s donations – $88,402 – came from individuals.
Chafee’s donors for the fourth quarter included $1,000 from former Republican Party Chairman and Lieutenant Governor Bernard Jackvony; $1,000 from Barrington resident Alison Townsend; $1,000 from Providence Police Union lawyer Joe Rodio; and $1,000 from RDW Group partner Phillip Loscoe. (more…)
January 31st, 2013 at 9:22 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Democrat Gina Raimondo is the early favorite to win the 2014 governor’s race, according to a new poll released Thursday morning to WPRI.com.
The Public Policy Polling survey [pdf] shows Raimondo would win anywhere from 32% to 46% of the vote depending on which hypothetical opponents she faces. She is the only candidate to crack 40% support in any of 10 ballot tests conducted by PPP.
If Raimondo is out of the picture, however, there’s no clear frontrunner: the leading candidates in non-Raimondo scenarios shift between Republican Brendan Doherty, Republican Allan Fung and Democrat Angel Taveras depending on the match-up. Moderate Party founder Ken Block starts out with double-digit support in most scenarios, suggesting his presence could have a major impact on the outcome.
Independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee faces an unsurprisingly uphill battle to win a second term, with more than half of voters saying they don’t want him to run again. His strongest shot at re-election comes if he runs as a Democrat: running under the party banner, Chafee starts out trailing Republicans Doherty and Fung by just four points. Among voters who do want Chafee to run again, 20% say he should run as an independent and 18% say he should run as a Democrat.
January 29th, 2013 at 12:40 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
You can add former Congressman Bob Weygand to the list of Rhode Island Democrats who may run for governor next year.
Weygand, who represented the 2nd Congressional District from 1997 to 2001, confirmed Tuesday that multiple people have approached him to suggest he should jump into the 2014 race, and said it’s “very flattering.”
“I think anybody who’s been in office often thinks about whether they should run again, and so to answer your question very candidly, of course I would love to consider serving in a public sector role in some way,” Weygand, 64, told WPRI.com.
The biggest question may be whether Weygand could raise enough money to compete; he estimated a candidate would need at least $3 million to be viable. “Any legitimate candidate has to be able to put the finances behind it,” he said. “That’s certainly a big consideration.” Weygand’s campaign account is currently empty and inactive.
January 23rd, 2013 at 11:53 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Seasoned local political operative Peter Baptista is joining Providence Mayor Angel Taveras’s campaign team, WPRI.com has learned.
Baptista confirmed Wednesday that he’s coming on board as the mayor’s new finance director. “I have been thoroughly impressed with what Angel has been able to accomplish in Providence, and I am excited for the opportunity to join Angel’s team,” he said.
The high-profile hire will fuel further speculation that Taveras is planning to run for governor next year. Polling shows he and Treasurer Gina Raimondo, another likely candidate, are the two most popular politicians in Rhode Island. Independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee has signaled in recent weeks he will seek a second term.
October 31st, 2012 at 5:59 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Lincoln Chafee faces a decidedly uphill battle if he opts to run for a second term in two years, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Wednesday night.
The survey of 601 likely voters also finds nearly two-thirds of Rhode Islanders think the state is unfriendly to business but three in five are satisfied with the quality of their local school district.
Coming up at 11 p.m.: Obama vs. Romney in Rhode Island
May 10th, 2011 at 7:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
All things considered, a politician is better off running for re-election when the economy is on the upswing. So Rhode Island’s new unemployment forecast is good news for Governor Chafee.
Rhode Island’s jobless rate is set to fall from a high of 11.6% in 2010 to 7.2% in 2014, according to projections Moody’s Economy.com offered at this month’s biannual Revenue Estimating Conference. Compared with last time, the new projection shows a lower rate in 2011 but then a slightly slower decline through 2016.
“This is based on 2010 coming in a little lower than expected, and also slightly stronger labor force
growth,” Zach Sears, Economy.com’s new Rhode Island analyst, told me in an e-mail. “So even as the jobs recovery continues and prospects for job seekers improve, discouraged workers returning to the labor force will prevent the rate from coming down faster.”
That would mean the unemployment rate will have fallen by about one-third by the time Chafee faces voters again in November 2014. And while 7.2% is still pretty high, the fact that the job market will be improving and still moving in the right direction should provide a boost to the independent incumbent.
As I wrote on the night of Chafee’s victory, the economy will likely make or break his first term. Other factors can and undoubtedly will influence the 2014 election’s outcome – but an improving economy will help the governor make the case to voters that they should give him another four years in the job.
Here’s the new unemployment forecast, with an arrow pointing at the 2014 election. Unfortunately, it also shows that the passage of an entire decade still won’t be enough to reduce Rhode Island’s jobless rate to where it was in 2006, before the Great Recession:
Of course, economists will remind you that these forecasts aren’t exactly infallible.
January 20th, 2011 at 12:07 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Here’s a Rhode Island moment for you.
As I was going through the court documents relating to this morning’s huge Mafia bust, I did a double-take when I saw that Thomas Iafrate – an alleged mob associate arrested in Johnston this morning – would be arraigned this afternoon by U.S. Magistrate Judge Lincoln Almond.
Why is Rhode Island’s former governor doing the arraignment? He’s not. The judge is his son, Lincoln D. Almond. The governor was Lincoln C. Almond.
Tim White and I broke the story about this morning’s bust on WPRI.com this morning and we’ve been continuously updating our article with more information as it comes in. The two of us are heading into the WPRI studio to tape a Q&A video about today’s arrests and how it fits into the larger Mafia story. I’ll post that here later in the day.
Update: Hmm. Now I’m seeing conflicting information about who’s doing the Iafrate arraignment – maybe Almond, maybe not. Guess I’ll find out for sure when Tim calls the newsroom after the 2 p.m. hearing.
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 30th, 2010 at 3:28 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Lincoln Chafee spent $2.5 million over 19 months to win the Rhode Island governor’s office, including more than $1 million in the final four weeks, an analysis of campaign finance records by WPRI.com shows.
More than half that money came straight out of the Chafee family’s bank account. The independent former senator loaned his campaign a total of $1.61 million over the course of the campaign, according to his final campaign finance report, which was filed Tuesday with the Board of Elections.
Chafee spent four times as much as the man who came in second, John Robitaille. The Republican nominee spent a comparatively paltry $603,833 but managed to come within 8,660 votes of defeating Chafee.
Moderate Ken Block spent $500,709, almost as much as Robitaille, but came in a distant fourth, though he did crack the 5% mark to keep his nascent party on the ballot.
And then, of course, there’s Frank Caprio.
The Democrat’s candidacy suffered an epic collapse in the final weeks of the campaign. He’d already spent well over $2 million as of Oct. 25, and almost certainly added to that in the final week of the race.
Caprio hasn’t filed his final report yet – he has until 11:59 tonight to send it in. I’ll have a new post, more analysis and charts (of course!) once all the numbers are in.
Update: Lincoln Chafee spent $2.5 million to win the election. Frank Caprio spent even more to lose. Read my full story on WPRI.com.
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.
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 5:45 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Looks like somebody’s doing some polling to see how voters feel about Shoveitgate. Just got this e-mail from a reader:
I received a robo-poll [call] last night at home while watching your debate. They asked two questions:
- If you will vote on November 2nd, who is your choice for governor?
- Do Frank Caprio’s recent remarks telling President Obama to “shove it” make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?
The robo then informed me that the poll was being conducted by www.publicpolicypolling.com. So there is at least one poll out in the field already on that question.
Hmmm. Public Policy Polling is a Democratic-leaning firm out of Raleigh, N.C., that uses the same sort of automated calling process as Rasmussen. I wonder who’s paying for it? If you know, fill me in at tnesi (at) wpri (dot) com.
And while we’re here, I’ll take this opportunity to plug yet again that we’ll release the first results from our latest WPRI poll by Joe Fleming tomorrow evening.
Update: On Twitter, Cook Political Report senior editor Jennifer Duffy – a Rhode Island native herself – suggests Public Policy Polling may be doing this poll on its own, as firms often do for the free publicity. “They know the media will cover them so it’s worth the $500,” she writes. (I sure would!) Looks like PPP turns their results around pretty quickly, so perhaps we’ll hear what they found soon.
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 2:37 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
The overnight ratings are in, and last night’s gubernatorial debate here on WPRI drew even bigger numbers the the top-rated one we held Oct. 6.
The 60-minute televised portion of the debate was again the #1 program in the Providence market from 7 to 8 p.m., this time drawing in more than 60,000 viewers to set another record for a TV debate audience this cycle, according to Nielsen. And once again a lot of people streamed the debate live here on WPRI.com, particularly the extra 30 minutes that were only shown online.
Now we’re gearing up to release the results of our latest WPRI poll by Fleming & Associates. That will begin during tomorrow’s evening newscasts.
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 4:45 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Answer: None other than my partner-in-crime Tim White.
That’s right: Tim will be inside the Rhode Island Convention Center – and live tweeting for our enjoyment – when the president delivers his remarks at a $500-a-plate fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sometime after 5 p.m. We’ll also have the live video feed here on WPRI.com and full coverage on our newscasts.
One person who won’t be there: Frank Caprio. The Democratic nominee’s spokesman says he won’t be attending any of the president’s events today. Can’t imagine why. Here are some more updates about Obama’s visit:
• R.I. Democratic Party Chair Ed Pacheco accentuated the positive just after Obama’s plane touched down at 3:49. “We are thrilled and excited to have the President of the United States in Rhode Island and proud to have his support for the Ocean State,” Pacheco said in a brief statement that name-checked congressional candidates Jim Langevin and David Cicilline twice.
• WRNI’s Scott MacKay notes that White House spokesman Bill Burton elaborated during the flight to Warwick on Obama’s failure to endorse Caprio. The president is staying out of the governor’s race “out of respect for his friend Lincoln Chafee,” Burton said.
• Well-heeled local Democrats attending the president’s $500-a-plate and $7,500-a-plate fundraisers aren’t the only ones hearing from him today. One of my colleagues’ wives received a recorded phone call from Obama earlier this afternoon encouraging her to get to the polls next Tuesday. “There’s too much at stake in this election for you to sit on the sidelines,” he said. No candidates got a mention, and half the 30-second message was taken up by disclaimers from the Democratic National Committee saying who paid for it.
• Shoveitgate is starting to feel like a really bad family holiday gathering – everybody squabbling, alliances shifting, and a couple weak attempts at bringing everyone back together. All they need to do is serve turkey and pumpkin pie at tonight’s fundraisers and the scene would be complete.
• Air Force One is scheduled to depart T.F. Green at 8:20 p.m. to whisk Obama back to Washington.
Update: The view from inside the Rhode Island Convention Center, where Obama will speak at a fundraiser not too long from now, courtesy Tim White:
Update #2: Eyewitness News political analyst Joe Fleming spoke with Karen Adams on the air a few minutes ago, and his take on Shoveitgate largely mirrored mine – this was probably a calculated attempt by Frank Caprio to steal the limelight on the day of the president’s visit, and to the extent that Caprio has dominated (or at least shared) today’s headlines, it largely worked. Fleming also pointed out that with Caprio losing ground to Republican John Robitaille in last week’s Rasmussen poll, he needs to stop the bleeding and find ways to target independents and center-right voters; ergo, attack Obama.
Still, it’s possible to win the battle and lose the war. And at this point, the race between Caprio, Chafee and Robitaille is trench warfare – barring a major new development, one of them is going to win with the support of somewhere around 35% of the electorate on Nov. 2. Did Caprio’s comments today do anything that will help him win over the moderate and center-right voters he needs to break away from Robitaille and overtake Chafee?
Update #3: The president’s motorcade left Woonsocket for his two fundraisers at 5:13, according to the press pool report. Obama is headed first to the Rhode Island Convention Center – where Tim White is on the scene and ready to tweet – and then the Chace household on the East Side. The road is blocked off by RIPTA buses, and Republican John Loughlin has some supporters there holding signs.
Here’s a photo of the Secret Service scanning guests arriving at the Chace home about 20 minutes ago, courtesy my colleague Rebecca Johnson:
Update #4: Wow, there sure are a lot of campaign ads on tonight’s newscast. In the last few minutes I’ve seen Raimondo, King, Langevin, Mollis, Taylor, Caprio, Chafee and Robitaille.
Update #5: President Obama will be back in New England later this week, The Associated Press reports. He will travel to Bridgeport, Conn., to support candidates up and down the ballot in the Nutmeg State.
October 25th, 2010 at 3:47 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Here’s some good news for the John Robitaille campaign, which is feeling good as internal polling shows him on the rise and Shoveitgate dominates the headlines during today’s Obama visit. The Republican Governors Association’s commercial supporting him will begin running on WPRI and Fox Providence tomorrow after last Friday’s snafu. Not sure about the other two stations, but presumably everyone has it now.
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.
