It's the Cranston primary all over again.

And we remember how that turned out. OVERWHELMING support for the 'real' Republican despite union attempts.

I have absolutely no fear of this joker and don't intend on spending so much as a moment concerned about him.

Michaud's comments on Arlene were pathetic. He actually said he was in favor of resetting the clock for people who move to RI but have previously been on welfare in other states. His big "insight" into education issues was that we need to have children, parents and teachers talk more with each other. Is he kidding?

Just checked my calendar to make sure this wasn't April 1st! This is too good! Maybe Michaud can convince George Nee to run for Lt. Gov alongside him!

I noticed in the RIGOP "official" press release, that John Holmes' name was conspicuously absent in the list of RIGOP state chairs claiming to completely disavow working with this clown. I'm not usually gung-ho for Yorke, but he really stuck it to Michaud good at today's press conference.

I'm going to stick with my original story, and say, that this can only help Carcieri, by waking up real Republicans, who might have not bothered being involved so soon. I agree, it's Laffey/Reilly II, though I suspect that Governor Carcieri will win his own primary by an even wider margin than Laffey won his; which is really saying something.

Incidentially, I do think that the more Republicans (those who generally back Carcieri) are in the RI Republican Primary, the better it is for both Carcieri AND Mayor Laffey.

Michaud is a fraud. Supposedly Levesque, Guy Default's buddy, was the chair who encouraged Michaud.

Anthony,

If the Levesque rumor can be confirmed in any way Harrahs will cut him loose.
Dan Yorke questioned Jan Jones from Harrahs on that very question today and one could tell from her response that any Levesque/Michaud connection would not be tolerated. Harrahs is scared to death of being linked to any political opponent of the governor.
Hope all heard audio from Michaud's press conference today.
What a kook!
Lives in an east side condo yet says he's going to raise 600 grand and think he'll have little problem beating Carcieri.
Jimmy Baron is right on, Michaud could hurt Fogarty more than Carcieri if Carcieir's people play it smart and connect the dots between Fogarty and Michaud.

Tim, I would hope so. I don't understand why Michaud would want to embarrass himself. He loses all credibility by running.

Carcieri is the only elected official in RI standing up to the cabal of insiders who fleece the taxpayers to line their own pockets. Everyone else talks about how they'll reform this or reform that, but Carcieri is the real deal.

I just hope that Carcieri can get his house in order. It will be interesting to see who he chooses as his new campaign manager.

Michaud is Gary Reilly on steroids. Remember that puppet? These people must think Rhode Islanders are all ignorant fools. Not!

Anthony:

Where have you been? Steve Laffey started doing what Carcieri is trying to do now three years ago when he first became Mayor. Say "Crossing Guards". Say "Surplus". Say "Higher Bond Ratings" and "Lower Property Taxes."

He went head to head with all the special interests and kicked their butts, while restoring the financial base of the city. Carcieri is better than most but he has a huge deficit looming, hasn't tackled the insider issue until now, and has been ineffective at unifying the RP around anything even resembling a real platform of reform.

Get your facts straight. Your statement at 9:51PM is just not true.

J Mahn

Michaud = harmless gadfly. The best thing Carcieri and his allies can do is just ignore this guy - he's a two-day story max.
Does anybody really think this guy's challenge had anything to do with Costa's "resignation?"

Rhody,

I'll take a shot at answering both:

Michaud is the best thing that could have happened to Carcieri. However, don't expect Carcieri to ignore him. Not at all. I expect Carcieri to shout from the rooftops [paraphrasing] "look what those corrupt scumbags put up to try to take me down." He will be able to use this clumsy dolt just as well as Laffey, and then some.

Outside of stands on specific issues, from a purely political perspective, Carcieri contrasting himself with Michaud, may be significantly easier than with Fogarty. His ability to contrast himself with Fogarty will likely remain based on "issues" -- and not get personal -- meaning a fairly dull, non-mudslinging campaign.

Fogarty is in league with all that sleaze, too, but he has a relatively bland public profile, doesn't appear personally corrupt, and seems to have been around government forever. That's somewhat hard to attack on it's face. However, defining your opponent, when literally NO ONE knows anything about him, other than he's the candidate of Beacon Mutual, Blue Cross, Mike Levesque, and all things unsavory, will be far, far, easier. The more Michaud is contrasted by Carcieri, the better it is for Carcieri. Period.

Almost forgot the second part:

Tim was going to leave anyway ... he's been there for five years. They wanted new blood, and he wanted new opportunities. Tim did a great job, but it's the type of position that might be better filled by someone else for a second term run. I'm sure it was a very mutual understanding. Michaud had zero to do with that. Perhaps Fogarty's allegedly closing the gap in the polls could have, but I don't really think so. I just think Carcieri wanted to reinvigorate things, before he kicks off his reelection effort. I certainly don't think that Tim's the only one that will be leaving soon.

Joe,
I don't compare taking on a small, impotent band of crossing guards for publicity's sake with taking on Beacon Mutual, a very large company that impacts hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders through its monopoly in worker's comp. insurance.

In one instance you have someone trying to project the image of a reformer and in the other instance you have someone bringing substantive reform.

To me, Laffey's absence from the discussion on the Beacon Mutual issue is just further evidence that he is less concerned reforming RI and more concerned about carefully crafting his image as a reformer.

Laffey was and is a joke. He rode in on a white horse promising to be a true conservative and save us in Cranston from the "EVIL UNIONS" and instead he's accomplished nothing but making Cranston a haven for illegal aliens and raising the taxes on the property owners to pay for a surplus that SHOULD be ours, not the government's.

The biggest problem with the Senatorial Republican primary this fall is that there aren't any REPUBLICANS running.

Anthony:

Again you are either very poorly informed or you just don't want to understand the real facts.

The Crossing Guards were part of the Public Service Employees Local 1033, Laborers International Union of North America. How quickly and conveniently you forget.

That's who Laffey went after, that’s who took the hit and that's why Reilly ran. Trafficante and his bosses were the puppeteers and Reilly was the puppet. The people sent a very loud message to the politicians and union bosses who run this State and Laffey crushed (that’s C R U S H E D) Reilly in the Primary and then what’s his name in the GE.

This Michaud primary run will turn out just about the same. It’s too bad Carcieri took so long to go after these greedy self serving crooks.

Take a look at another guy in the Beacon quicksand, mis-Judge Fortunato. The same guy who tried to stop Laffey and the Crossing Guard firing, who was soundly over ruled by Judge Procaccini's precedent-setting decision.

When something smells this bad it will only be a matter of time until the rot is discovered and purged.

J Mahn

Greg Easton,
What are you talking about? In your post above (the very first one) you talk about how "It's the Cranston primary all over again. And we remember how that turned out. OVERWHELMING support for the 'real' Republican despite union attempts."

Then you say "The biggest problem with the Senatorial Republican primary this fall is that there aren't any REPUBLICANS running."

You lost me.

The first law of economists:

For every economist, there exists and equal and opposite economist.

The second law of economists:

They are both wrong.

- Anonymous

That's why 'real' was in quotes. Laffey is no more a republican than Chafee is, but Reilly was a union spoiler who couldn't care less what party he belonged to as long as his bosses were pulling the strings.

I drank the Laffey grapejuice for a good long time. I was a BIG fan of his. But what has he DONE to give me a reason to support him as a republican and a conservative? He raised my taxes and invited the illegal aliens into the city. Oh, and he went after a couple of unions in order to look like he was doing something.

If he's the best we can get in this state then we might as well elect a Democrat. At least we'll know the knife will come at us from the front with very little fear of getting stabbed in the back.

Oh yeah, I know just what you are Greg. You are one of those who claims to be looking for reform. You say all the right things, but then, when the guy you are supporting gets in and actually does what he says, you are stunned. You actually backed him because you thought you could get something out of it from him. And then, lo and behold, when he actually is a reformer and the little perk you thought you'd have coming doesn't come you turn on him. Yup, I've seen many just like you Greg. You ain't looking for reform, you are looking for an inside deal. You figure by saying you're looking for reform will get you in good, and you figured Laffey was just like every other sleazy pol, and there was a payback coming to you. Ha, ha ha, too bad. Now the best you can do is cry about him raising taxes, like you had some other plan that could have averted bankruptcy by not raising taxes. Yeah, right. Boy have I seen your type. You're all the same.

Greg Easton:

First of all get your drinks straight. Its Kool-aid not grape juice. Sheesh!

Laffey is a Reagan republican plain and simple. Small government, special interests/lobbyists are bad for America, rule of law, lower taxes, strong military, etc. That’s what I call a true American. Party affiliation in RI borders on a joke anyway.

Also, your use of the now historically lame "raised taxes" issue nullifies your post. You are therefore, hereby nullified too, which means until you retract your statement and publicly declare yourself a clinical moron all your future posts on all blogs, bulletin boards, forums, etc. will be deleted and sent to the pixel dump.

Sorry but that is what happens to people who perpetuate lies and other falsehoods on the unsuspecting public. Don’t worry I am sure your friends at Chafee HQ will come and visit you often at the dump.

J Mahn

I can understand why Laffey loves immigrants - trying to exploit the social conservatism of many Hispanics for political gain. But I digress.
Michaud's got no constituency. Four non-family members at his campaign announcement. No endorsements (can Carcieri really prove Levesque, Holmes, Bennett, et al are behind him)? Democrats who are crossing over to vote in the Senate primary are not flocking to him or talking him up. He will get less than half (maybe a lot less) of Chafee's vote on primary day.
I admit no solid evidence to prove this theory, but maybe, just maybe, Carcieri is a skilled enough politician to have possibly put up Michaud himself (WWKRD?)* . The gov's at his best when he has a straw man to attack - having a non-Fogarty pinata to whack around plays to his strengths.

* What Would Karl Rove Do?

Joe,
I think you missed my point. I realize that the crossing guards were part of a larger union, but taking them on did not bring about any real reform. In taking on the crossing guards, Laffey got a lot of headlines and saved taxpayers a little bit of money, but no real reforms resulted.

Don't get me wrong, I think Laffey made the right move in firing the crossing guards, but its effect was mainly symbolic.

I agree with your comparison of Michaud's candidacy to Reilly's. Rhode Island is a small state and voters are able to detect candidates that are merely stalking horses.

As for Fortunato, he is a liberal Democrat and nothing that he does surprises me.

Anthony:

Is back peddling your style or do you just like to be wrong? I didn’t miss your point. You didn’t make this point in your previous post. You are making it now. Now let’s talk reform.

Laffey's case against the CGs was a precedent-setting decision that made "no layoff" clauses essentially illegal. This is the very nature of reform. In the grand scheme of things this “small” victory set the tone for all the negotiations that Laffey had control over as Mayor. Every contract Laffey has negotiated since has been fair to the employees and to the taxpayers. This is what reform is all about.

I also sense a revisionist tone in your post. How quickly we forget. Should we all just forget that the City was about to go bankrupt? During the 12 months before Laffey was elected Mayor the Projo had front page article after front page article (with red headlines no less) about the impending doom in Cranston. Maybe we should all forget that there was no money in the till to make payroll or that the City was about to default on millions of dollars in loan payments. Let’s also fail to remember that there were no cash reserves, audits were not being done even close to on time, pension funds were being pilfered to pay down debt, the State was about to take over, and the City’s bond rating was the lowest in America. Try as you may to short change the facts, Laffey walked into a raging inferno, put out the fire, and is walking out the front door having saved the City. These are real, concrete reforms.

Think about it this way. Changing things for the better requires a bright mind, a strong will, a savvy political sense, good PR and marketing, and the leadership skills to pull it all together. No one in recent RI history has made the kind of impact Laffey has made in his three years in Cranston. If his only fault is “shameless self promotion” and a desire for bigger challenges, who cares? Doesn’t everybody (you and me included) want a better life for ourselves and our families?

My best and favorite teachers always told me to shoot for the stars. Laffey is doing just that, and he’s cutting taxes too. What a guy!

J Mahn

Joe,

Easton and Anthony are liars, plain and simple.

Easton slings mud and slander because of sour grapes. Jim called it.

Anthony will twist and spin and distort the facts to excuse the leftist behavior of his hero Linc Chafee. Anthony's got spin for pork-barrell spending, spin for Chafee's long standing love affair with higher taxes, spin for his contorted excuse for opposing Justice Alito. You name the turd, Anthony's got a specially formulated polish for it.

He also attempts to minimize all Mayor Laffey's great accomplishments because they draw a stark contrast to the abysmal record of his RINO hero.

Mayor Laffey's actions with respect to the crossing guards were very professional. When he took office he left no stone unturned looking for ways to cut costs. The crossing guard contract was just one of many savings opportunities, but it stood out because it was so egregious. The first thing Mayor Laffey did was inform the people of this and other excessive costs. [This is, no doubt, the exact moment when the union leaders who supported him for Mayor in '02 turned on him. These, after all were back room deals, no politician EVER talked about this in public!] The mayor then went to the 6 Democrat - 2 Republican - 1 RINO Council who supported his proposal to fire the crossing guards 9 -0.

The controversy didn't really arise until the unions took Laffey to court to block the firing! Publicity came to him because he stood up to the challenge and eventually won.

Perhaps most commonly used distortion about Mayor Laffey is that he seeks publicity. Mayor Laffey makes news because he actually gets things done. He has brought to light what his predecessors (and many contemporaries throughout the state) and their co-conspirators have kept hidden from the public as a matter of policy.

Judging by the series of Chafee ads since September, I would say that Anthony has learned his lying craft from the Senator himself.

I wouldn't go so far as to call them liars -- more like "truth modifiers" (that's a little Stephen Colbert lingo).

I suppose my retort would be to warn them not to try to make the supposed "facts" fit their pre-concieved conclusions. Yes, it's true that Laffey raised property taxes. Taken in isolation, while as a Republican, it's not preferable, it is neither morally good nor bad. The morally important question is "Why?"

What's most important, and what I truly believe that most Republican voters will be able to see right through, is (1) Laffey didn't want to raise taxes (2) Laffey made every effort possible to cut spending before raising taxes (3) Laffey was presented with the choice of filing for municipal bankruptcy within a month or raising taxes, and he choose the latter. He did the RIGHT thing under the then-present circumstances, which were truly extraordinary (3) Laffey didn't raise taxes because he felt the populace was undertaxed (4) Given a real alternative, Laffey wouldn't have chosen to raise taxes (5) Laffey has gone, and continues to go out of his way to look for ways to trim government fat. Laffey isn't going to run from his record of accomplishment, nor should he.

As for Chafee: I'm reminded of the title of Algore's new movie: "An Inconveient Truth." Chafee likes spending first, spending a lot, then hiking taxes to pay for all the pork -- and then making his desire to raise taxes so that there's no more deficit sound like he's a "deficit hawk". Chafee should be one to talk about taxes -- he's made a political career out of the mindset that the American people are undertaxed, and he has resisted all efforts for tax relief, first as Mayor of Warwick, where he hiked taxes year after year, then in the US Senate, where he's redefined the acronym RINO to the point we'll have to come up with a more accurate term. Not too many Republicans get named "Porker of the Month" twice, and a "D" from the National Taxpayers Union.

Chafee is not, nor ever has been a "fiscal conservative", with a lower-case "c" or an upper-case one. Repeating a lie over and over will never make it true. I know enough about history to know that much.

Wow, you people really ARE drinking the Kool Aid. This post has NOTHING to do with Chafee, but somehow you managed to turn it into a debate on the Senate reace. Chafee leading in all the polls must really cause you to lose sleep at night.

If you read the posts this is actually about Joe Mahn asserting that Carcieri is a late-comer on the reform front, while Laffey has been some type of uber-reformer.

So, let's break this down into small, bite sized pieces so you chuckleheads can understand. In my original post, I said that Laffey took on a small band of impotent crossing guards to generate publicity. And Joe replied by saying essentially, "oh no, it's not a small band, they were represented by a large union."

So, four questions-
1. What is the budget for the City of Cranston?
2. How much money did laying off the crossing guards save Cranston taxpayers? 25% of the budget? 20%? 15%? 10%?
3. How much was taxpayer money by Cranston to litigate the case?
4. What has been the net cost saving or expense to Cranston taxpayers as a result of firing the crossing guards thus far?

Now after you look at that number, compare what Carcieri has done with Blue Cross, taking on John Harwood (at the time the most powerful politician in the state) and now taking on Beacon Mutual.

I challenged Joe's assertion that Carcieri is a late-comer to reform and said that Carcieri reforms are substantive while Laffey's reform have been more for publicity's sake.

Please note that I do not consider raising taxes in Cranston to resolve a financial crisis to be a "reform". Maybe it was necessary, but I don't think that meets the definition of reform. He tried to get the state to bail out Cranston, but Almonte refused, so he had no other option.

I stand by my statements. NOW you can go back to somehow relating this to how Linc Chafee is responsible for the emergence of the avian flu and the Red Sox loss to the Yankees last night.

Dear Rhody,

Carcieri as a politician is laughable. However, McKay as Chair is SNL material.

Rest assured, the Governor wanted a free ride through the summer. We can tell he's not in the mood for this. Not that he can't do it, but he knows it's much different this time.

This entire exercise is about the ego of James Bennett and not much else. How do we know? The rumours are already being shopped to us and we're already rejecting them.

We as Democrats can take a "clean case" to the people. Perhaps we don't win, but the case is clean. Mr. Bennett cannot so expect to hear that Don Carcieri is actually part of the Rothchild family and a link to the Illuminati by the end of June.

What's really disturbing is the lack of leadership shown in large part by Chaffe and in small part by Laffey.

All Chaffe Lieutenants, except for Avedisian, have a role here. Nice way to show appreciation for an endorsement. If this were happening on my side, well, let's just say somebody would been located via a tide chart by now.

Bennett is Laffey's best buddy and he has created a scenario that will only increase Chaffee votes. How's that for friendship?

Well, as I've said before, congratualtions, you have a seat at the big table.

Bobby,
What are you talking about. For one, the Bennett connection is pure fantasy and conspiracy theory.
Furthermore, the assertion that this Michaud issue helps Chafee is absurd, if I am understanding you correctly. (and I'm not convinced I do quite understand what it is you are trying to say) I think this can be viewed as a repeat performance of the Gary Reilly debacle. In that one, the unions, thinking they were so smart, put up an idiot who got spanked by a 3 to 1 margin. The lesson there, Bobby, is what it did to the turnout in a Republican primary. It was a staggering record turnout. And, it was a huge number of independents that came in to slap the unions in the head. Now, if Carcieri plays this properly, and attracts those independents similar to how Laffey did, I would say if they come out to vote for Carcieri because they are incensed by this blatant union power grab, while they are there, those voters are far more likely to throw a vote to Laffey than to Chafee.
Your thoughts?

Anthony:

You are a revisionist.

My post about Laffey being a reformer was in response to your gross generalization that "Carcieri is the only elected official in RI standing up to the cabal of insiders who fleece the taxpayers to line their own pockets."

Your false “only elected official” statement was the catalyst for my remarks.

Carcieri is not the "only elected official in RI standing up to the cabal of insiders, blah, blah, blah."

Now it seems you want to compare the value of the reform not the fact of reform itself. This shifts the argument to a new topic. At least you finally admitted that Laffey is a reformer, which was my point in the first place. Thank you.

J Mahn

Dear Jim,

For the record: I was one of the Democrats that the Bennett people pitched with the original "coumotta rumours", how do you get coumotta out of goumadd anyway?, back in 2002. I have first hand knowledge, beyond the Dan Yorke show, of Mike Levesque bringing the rumours to the Governor's Office this year.

Here's why Dennis Michaud is not Gary Reilly:

1. Michaud has been vetted. Although a little off the beam, he will be functional, something Reilly never was.

2. Whatever labor comes along is just there for the ride in the Michaud case. Reilly was a Labor invention and lots of us didn't buy into it.

3. Reilly was a candidate looking for an excuse. Michaud is the result of the Beacon excuse looking for a candidate.

4. Turnout in that particular Primary was not that statiscally different than expected before the Reilly announcement. If it really were the case that this motivated GOP'ers, instead of Laffeyites, the down ticket numbers would be much different. Most of the overage came from Labor. George Bush got 13000 votes in the final, also a record. However, statewide, Independents in the Presidential broke 2 to 1 Democrat. In short, with all his polling below 50 and all the head to heads in the margin, Independents will break as they always do, to the challenger.

5. Michaud voters, if there is such a thing outside of Brown and Beacon, will be Chaffee voters. Although strategically they know they should vote for Laffey, they won't be able to.

6. If it really was a shot at Labor, as you suggest, some of the final races would have been different especially on the School Committee.

7. Having said that, Laffey did almost pull off coattails. But he didn't. I give him a lot of credit, it should be noted that the Laffey staff is vasty superior - by light years - to that of the Governor, for coming that close. Two years ago, the GOP was taking about gains in the House and Senate. Now, the GOP talks about holding the Chaffee and Carcieri seats while it cannot file a full slate.

8. Reilly only had the power to mess up his own race, which he did. Michaud, because he is of the wild accusation school- a Bennett 2002 trademark, can take other races the GOP would like to be competitive in right off the page. For instance, would you rather cover the New Yorker/ Floridian Mr. King or cover the guy who believes the Governor is broke, Mr. Michaud?

Bobby,
That is way too much to answer than I have time right now. I will say this however, to your point #3. "Reilly was a candidate looking for an excuse. Michaud is the result of the Beacon excuse looking for a candidate." Without question, Reilly was the result of the Laborers' crossing guard union looking for a candidate, and they found him - Reilly. In fact, in the sentence previous to reason #3 you say "Reilly was a Labor invention..."

Nonetheless, Bobby, I think you hit on it when you spoke of Laffey's staff as being light years ahead of Carcieri's, it remains to be seen what the Carcieri campaign has learned, if anything. If they properly seize this opportunity with the intensity that Laffey did, the Carcieri people can create a lot of positive publicity for themselves and generate the sympathy and, more importantly, the voters.
I certainly can't blame you for questioning the Carcieri campaign's abilities.

One last thing, I think Jim Bennett is way too busy with his own life to care about Carcieri anymore.

Hi!
I assume Mr.Michaud, who I don't recall ever meeting,has taken a stand on Patricia Morgan?Just teasing and joking!
One problem I have with the Governor is keeping her on a Rhode Island GOP Chair!Remember the GOP "state convention" at Rhodes On the Pawtuxet,June 29TH!
Regards,
Scott Bill Hirst