Is it me or does Charlie Fogarty seem awful defensive when called to the table about his generic responses?

Seems to be the pattern for all his debates, well worded response that really says nothing and makes him a candidate for any office in any state.

Charlie is sounding pretty weak. Talking over Carcieri doesn't make an argument correct.

Would you have vetoed the babysitter bill?
Charlie-Silence

Do you favor a defined contribution plan?
Charlie-Silence

As I have said on RIFUTURE maybe the best thing is to turn everything over to the lunactics and let them ride the gravy train off the rails. Then start over.
GRACE DIAZ FOR GOVERNOR 2010!

Regarding Fogarty's latest ad...

Bravo! First of all it was completely accurate, important in a race that it quickly turning ugly. Second, Fogarty was able to release it in record time after Enron Don's hateful/false attacks in his ad.

Overall this is going to be a tight race, and will likely depend on voter turnout for the Senate Race.

If Fogarty is able to carry one of the cities (i.e. Warwick, Cranston or Providence) it will be a tough fight for Carcieri.

Charlie is probably the only Democrat in R.I. who doesn't have any enemies within the party, which is both his biggest strength and greatest weakness. He's that earnest good guy who doesn't quite have the charisma to be a leader - if you're female, you like him as a friend, but probably aren't interested in dating him.
The only way I can see him winning is to take on Carcieri's social conservatism - it's also a way of standing up to the Democratic good 'ol boys (Murphy, Montalbano, Mollis, etc.) and might impress independents who aren't crazy about The Don but haven't been given a good reason to vote for Charlie. We've seen that when you get Don off message, he gets just a tad belligerent and off the grandpa act that helped get him elected.

"The only way I can see him winning is to take on Carcieri's social conservatism"

It ain't gonna happen.

Charlie is a nice guy, but you could tell in the debate that he didn't want to step on any Donkey tails. He was very careful about the pensions, which would lead the average thinking listener to the idea that, yeah, I guess he IS part of the problem in RI.

Now with Carcieri likely to clean his clock, how is it that Darrell West gets on NPR radio today to say the conservatives can't win in RI. Hey Dr. West: It happened in 2002 and it will happen in 2006. You get an F-.

Joel, what IS accurate in Carcieri's ad is the "Fogarty Loophole" analogy. Charlie doesn't dispute the accuracy of that, he just points out that he asked for Celona's resignation.
If you think the Carcieri ad is inaccurate, please tell us how. Is Charlie's great ethic reform bill of 2006 going to stop our legislators from the same thing that Celona has been charged with? I don't think so!
Charlie the great reformer, HAHAHAHA!

charlie , like all of the other people on the democrtaic ticket, would have absolutely no chance if he\they were running as independants or repubs,

the fact that fogarty has the support that he does, considering he has never had a real job in his life, shows just how many people really dont want change in ri bc they are feeding off of it. this state is going down the tubes.......

Great points all. The problem with Fogarty's "I asked for Celona's resignation" approach, was that he did nothing to prevent the corruption from occurring in the first place. In some ways, he helped to invite it to happen. If legislators were required to report their outside income, we would have known about the conflicts of interest much earlier, and perhaps would have been in a position to do something proactive to stop it earlier.

The gaping loophole that you could drive a wide-bed truck through exempted the entire General Assembly membership, where nearly all of the state's corruption problems flow from. Fogarty, who was formerly the Senate President, crafted his so-called reform legislation so that it exempted all of his pals, and so that the disclosure rules only would apply to the five general officers -- where there hasn't really been any known corruption since at least the DiPrete administration.

Celona is hardly alone in the General Assembly when it comes to corruption and conflicts of interest -- he simply managed to get caught. He's been squealing like a pig, and I'm confident that there is more to come -- perhaps sooner than you think.

Charlie's new nickname: After The Fact Fogarty
Charlie is the champion of issues AFTER they blow up into problems. Consider the Beacon Mutual case. Look at the Board of Directors. Anyone honestly think Fogarty would have fought the legislation to privatize that company? Of course he wouldn't have. Fogarty is nothing more than a good old boy product of the party machine and he's not quite the nice guy in private he likes to project in public. Just ask some Democrats off the record of course. (lol)

"... crafted his so-called reform legislation so that it exempted all of his pals, and so that the disclosure rules only would apply to the five general officers ..."

That really is a horse laugh. Most of the power rests with the legislature, which correspondingly is where most of the abuse occurs. So we're going to clamp down on ... the general offices.

After the Fact Fogarty also gets an F in target practice.