What a heartrending week in America. Thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. Your tips and comments and tips are always welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
1. Scenes from America in 2016: “This was to have been a celebratory month, a time when the two major political parties nominate their presidential candidates amid pageantry and expressions of optimism and unity. Instead, July has begun with violence of the worst kind, and with shock and horror and an escalation of racial tensions. Summer 2016 threatens to be long and divisive.” (Via Dan Balz in The Washington Post) …. “The officers who were targeted [in Dallas] were upholding an oath they swore to protect and serve their fellow citizens. They do this every day, knowing full well the risks and dangers it entails. And last night, once the shooting started, these heroes ran towards the source of danger so that others could escape.” (Congressman David Cicilline) …. “It would be hard to overestimate the impact that smart phone cameras have had on forcing us to grapple with the fact that [police violence against black people] is, in fact, a very real (and all-too-common) problem” (The Daily Caller) …. “What we need in the United States is not division, what we need in the United States is not hatred, what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country whether they be white or whether they be black” (Robert Kennedy in 1968).
2. Responses to the week from Jim Vincent of the Providence NAACP; Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare; community activist Kobi Dennis; Governor Gina Raimondo; and many others.
3. The run-up to Rhode Island’s next gubernatorial election is a little more than a year away, so who will represent the Republican Party? For now, the answer remains something of a mystery, and state GOP Chairman Brandon Bell isn’t naming names. “I have been talking to people, I’m not going to share that, of course” Bell said during an appearance on this week’s RI Public Radio Bonus Q&A. The chairman also skirted the question of whether Cranston Mayor Allan Fung (who lost to Raimondo by 4 points in 2014, before a serious police scandal) is the GOP’s best hope for recapturing the governor’s office. (Fung said he’s focused on his 2016 re-election fight with Democrat Michael Sepe, although he also touted his record in Cranston. “I’m extremely proud of my record of success,” Fung said, pointing to high bond ratings, quality of life improvements and one property tax hike over five years.) So who else may emerge as a GOP gubernatorial candidate? Will a relatively unknown businessman come forward, a la Don Carcieri in 2002? Will state Rep. Patricia Morgan (R-West Warwick) be able to climb the ladder to House minority leader and then make a bigger jump? Stay tuned.
4. Chairman Bell hopes that Steven Frias and other Republican legislative candidates will be able to capitalize on the whiff of ethically questionable behavior associated with the Statehouse: “My focus has been on leadership — you take the other team’s quarterback out, and I think at this point in time leadership is the problem,” Bell said on RIPR’s Political Roundtable. “You go from Fox to Gallison to Carnevale to Almeida — just name them all, they’re all tied to Nick Mattiello.” On Bonus Q&A, Bell contended that Mattiello-backed reform measures (like giving voters the chance to strengthen the state Ethics Commission) happened only as a response to previous scandals. “We were one scandal away from the line-item veto, apparently,” he cracked. Yet Mattiello has backed other measures, including the elimination of the master lever and a series of tax cuts, that give his members talking points for the campaign trail. And while some Rhode Islanders scoff at long-term incumbents, the experience of knowng the many small details that constitute running a race shouldn’t be underestimated.
5. Rhode Island won’t be getting a $175 million FASTLANE grant this year for the 6/10 interchange. “While we are disappointed that we did not receive the FASTLANE grant funding for the Route 6-10 Interchange project, we remain committed to moving this long-delayed project forward,” RIDOT Director Peter Alviti said in a statement. “Seven of the interchange’s nine bridges are structurally deficient and must be replaced. We cannot continue to postpone this work. Thanks to the passage of RhodeWorks, Rhode Island has $400 million in committed state and federal funding to draw from to address the Route 6-10 interchange. RIDOT will move quickly to evaluate our options to tackle this problem and present a recommendation for next steps. Let me assure you we will not roll the dice with Rhode Islanders’ safety. RhodeWorks provides us the basic resources to finally tackle the problem of getting these bridges back into a state of good repair and providing safe conditions for the 100,000 people who use this Connector daily.”
6. GOP National Committeeman Steven Frias, the state party’s choice to challenge Speaker Mattiello, said he plans to vote for John Kasich at the upcoming Republican National Convention. As far as November, “I will be supporting the Republican ticket.” Asked about his reaction to a recent Providence Journal editorial that called Donald Trump unfit for the presidency, Frias said, “None. My focus is on running for the Statehouse, not about the race to the White House.” Will Trump hurt his run for state rep? “I don’t think so, because when I go door to door, I’ve gone to hundreds of doors now, and I’ve talked to a couple of hundred voters already. I would say people, when we talk we talk about Speaker Mattiello and what’s going on at the Statehouse, they can differentiate between a state rep race and a presidential race. I have gotten at most two questions, maybe three, about Donald Trump, but half the voters, I can tell you are upset about what’s going on in the Statehouse.”
7. Divisions among Rhode Island Democrats were on display this week when state party chairman Joseph McNamara decided to endorse a rival of former rep Linda Finn. Finn’s supporters were incensed. Some might see this as part and parcel of how House Dems didn’t raise the minimum wage, let most of a criminal justice reform package die, and voted for a concealed carry measure. Then again, Finn didn’t hesitate to criticize leadership during her time in the chamber, so maybe it’s not much of a surprise that the state party didn’t want to throw her a bone. Asked about this, Finn says via email, “I am actually not that shocked that the party chose to endorse a relatively unknown individual (businessman) as their endorsed candidate. It is unfortunate that rather than just say that they do not agree with my strong stance on gun control issues, and I suppose my vote for Mike Marcello as speaker, they say they chose another individual due to his business experience. I suppose that if there was an actual vetting process of the party for endorsements, they might have discovered that I have also worked for a family business (retail lumber), have had management positions for large corporate businesses in the financial services industry and have started and run my own business for 13 years. For those reasons, I had been assigned to the Corporations and Small Business committees while in office from 2013-2014. So If the business factor was the barometer used, it still seems even more puzzling.”
8. The talk is that the North Providence mayoral race between Charles Lombardi — who turned 70 this week — and challenger Kristen Catanzaro looks like a nail-biter.
9. Governor Gina Raimondo has traveled out of state 18 times through the end of June, with five of those trips for economic development meetings in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California. “At about any given time, we have probably a dozen companies that we’re in discussion with,” the governor told me as part of a radio story set to air Monday on RIPR. “It might happen now, it might happen a year from now, it might happen two years from now. But if you have a consistent presence and you’re constantly out there, Rhode Island is going to get its fair share of opportunity.” URI economics professor Leonard Lardaro applauds Raimondo’s use of out of state travel in search of jobs, but he said Rhode Island still has to digs its way out of a big hole: “Rhode Island’s still about in the first, maybe second inning of reinventing ourselves, something that should have been done all the way back to 2008.”
10. On a related note, best wishes to Joy Fox, who marked her last day this week as Raimondo’s hard-working communications director. (Oh what fun you’ll have, Mike Raia!)
11. Joe Caiazzo has signed on to run Hillary Clinton‘s Rhode Island campaign — just months after he led Bernie Sanders‘ primary effort.
12. RI GOP Chairman Bell isn’t hiding his upset over state Rep. Patricia Morgan‘s recruitment of GOP and indepenedent legislative candidates — which he considers part of her stated goal of ousting House Minority Leader Brian Newberry (R-North Smithfield): “I’m not a fan, I’m not a fan of that method. I think Leader Newberry has done a phenomenal job. He tries really hard to keep everyone nicely playing in the sandbox. It’s a tough job to be the minority leader of such a small opposition, and you have to keep people together.” Bell said Morgan should keep her aspirations to herself, adding, “She has to worry about her own election. Don’t forget she’s got a tough election herself, and her whole thing about recruiting independents and other people — she has an independent [Vin Marzullo] that can actually beat her in this race. So she has to worry about her own race at this point.” For the record, Morgan said her recruiting of legislative candidates is an attempt to build GOP ranks, not to bolster her chances of succeeding Newberry.
13. “Philando Castile and the Power of Facebook Live“
14. Best wishes also to Maria Tocco, who’s leaving state government after six years, first leading communications for Elizabeth Roberts when Roberts served as lieutenant governor and then with HealthSourceRI. “I’m leaving to explore other opportunities but I haven’t decided what’s next for me,” Tocco writes. “I’ve really enjoyed being part of the senior leadership team here, and will also miss my team in marketing and outreach. I’m just ready to stretch a bit and move on to my next ‘big thing.’ “
15. The legislative session has come and gone, and Robert Kando remains the executive director of the Rhode Island Board of Elections. Despite some new appointments by Governor Raimondo, it looks like the votes aren’t there, for now, to make a change.
16. RI native Adam Bozzi has a new job, working for the End Citizens United PAC. Way back in 2006, Bozzi was the spokesman for Charles Fogarty‘s Democratic gubernatorial run. More recently, for the last six years, he’s been the communications director for US Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat.
17. Close observers of the #RIPoli Twitter are familiar with CoffeeBlackRI’s refrain, “It’s not about the real estate.” So it’s worth noting when CoffeeBlack sounded a cautiously positive note about a $19.5 million grant to Brown University to bridge gaps between medical research and healthcare.
18. Interesting read via the Chicago Tribune on what happens when a mega-brewer like Budweiser takes over a craft brewer like Goose Island. Excerpt: “Judging only by what’s in the bottle, and putting aside the industry consequences of the world’s largest beer company snapping up small craft brewers — a legitimate subject for another day — it’s difficult not to count the marriage of Anheuser-Busch and Goose Island as a win for beer drinkers. Ten years ago, big breweries were still mostly fighting craft beer, and their weapons of choice were advertising and bland light lagers. They certainly haven’t given up that fight. But the approach has broadened and now includes buying a brewery like Goose Island, learning how to make its beer, then selling it in grocery stores across the nation, at any and every sports bar and on United Airlines flights worldwide. Just think about that: A pretty darn good India pale ale made by Anheuser-Busch travels on nearly every United Airlines plane around the world. Such a thought would have been laughable 10 years ago.”
19. Program note: TGIF will return July 22 so your correspondent can take a week off to enjoy summer in Rhode Island (and perhaps tweet a bit less).
20. Why former GM Theo Epstein remains the dominant influence on the Red Sox.
