The feeling of doom is very real and stretches far beyond the blogosphere and talk radio world. Had occassion to speak with the owner of a small jewelry shop in EP. He's 1st generation Portuguese-American, has 4 employees including himself, is struggling to hold onto his business and this gentleman becomes visibly angry when the subject turns to Linc Chafee's election. This working class guy is not a union pig nor is he a good old boy "insider" (watch how many good old boy/girl insiders fill the Chafee administration) and he knows what Chafee's election is going to mean to his survival and that of his company.
Chafee always like to tout his record as mayor of Warwick. Lincoln Chafee, with his good buddy Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian pushing his candidacy captured a whopping 39%, yes the former mayor of Warwick captured only THIRTY NINE PERCENT of the vote in Warwick
The doom is very real and very legitimate.

Chafee-Fox-Paiva-Weed = Obama-Pelosi-Reid
What a mess!

Of course they will get along well. They are all puppets of the corrupt public-sector union machine, with the same agenda, the same world view, and the same craven motivations.

Maybe with the first openly leftist governor ever (Sundlun was no leftist on economics) there will be enough impetus to effect real change in 2012. With at least 10 Senate seats in conservative hand all we need is 3 more to block any budget.

Tommy,

Unfortunately, that logic only works with a fiscal conservative as governor. With a high-tax high-spend governor like Lincoln Chafee in place, you need to get to a true majority (19 or more) for a bloc of fiscal conservstive legislators to be able to stop something.

Tim,

I am curious who your Portuguese-American friend voted for the lesser seats- GA and especially local races. EP was a disaster. Did he pull the Master lever and vote D? If he didn't, I can guarantee most of his fellow expats did.

There-in lies the problem in RI. The large cohort of hard working non-public sector union folks who still vote Dem, because they think the Democratic party is for the working people. They fail to realize that the Democratic party in RI has been completely taken over by the Progressive Left/Labor crowd. If these people (and of course it's not just the Portuguese community) do not open up their minds and realize that their political philosophy is far more in line with the Republicans, then we will make no headway in this state.

More like, "A Sennse of Doom at Anchor Rising."

Correction: Tommy C is right, my last comment was wrong. Rhode Island is a 2/3 state for all appropriations bills, says Article VI section 11 of the RI Constitution...

The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the general assembly shall be required to every bill appropriating the public money or property for local or private purposes.

Madmom the gentleman's manufacturing shop is in an industrial zone in EP but I do not know where he resides. Doesn't really matter though because he's screwed either way. After that EP city hall election massacre you know his property taxes are going up and that's before RI's version of the Barack-Nancy-Harry show starts reeking havoc.

Understood, Tim. I'm not picking on your friend. Just bringing up the point that there are a whole lot of people out there who simply do not connect the dots.
Until we can show them why it is incumbent upon them to do so, we will continue to circle the drain.

It will take a massive effort, and too few people are willing to put in the hours to try and effect change.

RI up against a wall? RI built the wall which is sucking the life out of the state and no matter how the politicians present the bouquets of flowers the flowers will still wilt and die.

According to the 25 March 2010 study “State Lottery Sales Per Capita, Fiscal Year 2008” by The Tax Foundation, State of RI leads the nation #1 in sales per capita at $2,275.

That means every person living in RI can afford to waste $43.75 a week on the state lottery.

No other state in the nation even breaks the $1,000 mark or comes close!

A state population with that amount in disposable funds there should be no complaining about how poor everyone in RI is, how high the taxes are or the car tax or the high unemployment rate or lack of jobs.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/283.html

Hey Ken, all statistics may not lie but yours usually do. In RI all money spent at our 2 casino's (half from Mass. residents) are reported as "lottery".
Imagine if the billions spent annually by Hawaiian's was reported as "lottery". I have played blackjack with many from Hawaii in Vegas at the Cal, Main Street, Fremont, Vegas Club where they predominate, complaining about the lack of jobs, obscene prices, out of control taxes and pathetic schools back home.

Tommy Cranston,

You said; “Hey Ken, all statistics may not lie but yours usually do.”

I’m trying to figure out how you negate the very source of documented information that you so gleefully refer to when you try to spread you garbage.

Traveling to Hawaii since 1968 almost every year and living in Hawaii permanently for the last 5 years in the most Hawaiian section of my island I am at a lost to where you are coming up with these insane stories!

There are only 2 times I have heard these stories and both times they have been on “Anchor Rising Blog” under two different names. Either it’s the same person or two different people but the message is disturbingly the same totally against the Republican agenda, U.S.A constitution, values and I hope this is not the underlying message “Anchor Rising Blog” is trying politically to perpetuate.

You remind me of a parasite that revels in wallowing in the sewers of the country living off the human waste and defecation.

I wish you well Tommy Cranston in the future of your life as I have wasted too much of my time answering your intellectual being which I wouldn’t degrade my toilet paper wiping it on you.

In the future I will not reply to your comments.

Still getting my arms around the RI public sector unions/Cloward-Piven conspiracy deal. So if the PSUnions control the dems, and the PSUnions control the electorate, what's to explain the 16 years of Republican executives we're just now coming to the end of? Is/was the electorate just smart enough to keep these GOPers as firewalls against the PSUnion controlled Assembly? Or is/was it that Union funded GOTV and marketing is/was more effective at the local level? And if so, why is it that in the midst of the 2010 GOP wave, RI finally decided - after sixteen years - not to go GOP? The PSUnion state level marketing just now got good enough? Was it the Trust Chaffee signs?

Do Almond and Carcieri escape all blame for the state level economic bed-shitting that occurred on their watch? Where was our Chris Christie? Oh, right. The RI constitution allows only a Weak Executive. So then why are we so gawdawful frightened of the impending Chaffee administration? He'll be a Weak Executive too! I see, Almond/Carcieri did the best they could to hold off total C-P style French demonstrations societal disaster. Now that the last Reps are gone, we're done for.

Like most conspiracy theories, the RI Private Sector Unions Saga grew from seeds of truth. Anyone looking at the numbers can see that. But in the end, it's only a theory, and breaks down the higher it goes (the Towers fell straight down because of the digitally alighned charges!). I find the Chaffee doomsaying around here a bit ridiculous (but what would a trip to AR be without a little ridiculousness?)

So buck up, my friends. Chaffee might be in on the C/P plan (who better to institute the final storm than a former republican? He came to them in sheep's clothing!), but no politician wants the destruction of society as we know it to start on his watch (except, I guess, George Bush). We should be okay for at least four more years.

Well, Scott, even the extra-governmental bully pulpit of the governor ain't nothin'. Governor Carcieri has done an excellent job of forcing certain topics into the public debate. He's also been instrumental in being a solid source of support for various reforms — from taxation to charter schools and teacher accountability. Of course, the governor's power to implement is constitutionally limited, but with Governor Chafee likely to transform the public debate into a single side arguing with itself how much it should give itself, one needn't delve into Cloward-Piven to be concerned.

Scott we know Chafee is a tax and spender. We know this from his time as mayor of Warwick, the very city that gave him a whopping 39% of their vote last Tuesday
Turn around the question in your post
Where would we be fiscally (RI Gov's don't have any control over the economy) had a progressive like Myrth York or Linc Chafee been in office the last 8 years??
Would York or Chafee have asked for significant union concessions?? Would they have broken up the monopoly at Blue Cross with Frankie Montanaro sitting as head of their board?? Would they have taken the state health insurance contract away from BC and awarded it to United at a lower cost thus saving millions with Frankie Montanaro sitting at the head of the Blue Cross board?? Would they have broken up the card carrying good old boy network known as Beacon Mutual, who were ripping off business in this state with outrageous workers comp rates?? Two of Linc Chafee's favorite boys, former GOP Chair John he's not a double agent he's a triple agent Holmes and Georgie Nee were on that board. I believe the NEA also had a rep on that board when the Gov blew it up. Would Linc have blown it up? How about Myrth?
Everything I just mentioned were actions by Carcieri that saved this state hundreds of millions of dollars

--- THIS IS WHAT GOOD GOVERNING IS ---

So I ask, what do our deficits look like right now had none of those actions taken place??
What do our deficits look like had a different governor not held the line on broad based taxes??
All Governors can do when it comes to the Gen Ass is not to open the tax door in the budgets they present. If you don't open that door for them then it's on the Gen Ass to raise the taxes when they re-write the same budget. The Gen Ass likes to avoid having to take direct ownership of tax hikes. Carcieri has never gave them cover because he never opened the budgetary door for broad based taxes.
RI Governors are very limited in their scope of power. However they are in position to make a big difference to the good and to the bad based on what actions they take/don't take and who they hire to run their departments.
Dan Yorke gave a good analogy. Carcieri has held his fingers in the fiscal dike of this state to hold back the flood. Don't expect the same from a liberal like Linc Chafee.

Agree completely with your sentiments Madmom. If all small business owners voted and voted to their fiscal benefit we'd have a very different state. A much better state. Sadly so many of them don't take the time and they pay the price.

Chafee was interviewed on 10 Newsconference again.Taricani and Rappelye did the honors
Chafee kept flashing that nauseating smile that makes one think he might have gas or a badly fitting set of dentures.He was acting like he had a mandate and was the proverbial man on the white horse,although he could barely make himself intelligible,
His take on e-Verify and the Governor's Executive Order was bizarre.He basically said he didn't want divisiveness and that "we"all need to be on the same team.I guess he includes illegal aliens in that "team".This from a guy who squeaked in with a little over a third of the votes.
He as much as said he wants to end cooperation between local and state law enforcement and ICE even with regard to criminal aliens.ICE is no longer doing worksite raids aand concentrating on criminal aliens and terrorists.Good.About time.Worksite raids can be eliminated in favor of e-Verify.He doesn't have an issue with state vendors and contractors using illegal aliens.He whined that only five states,all in the South,use e-Verify besides RI,and then said we were in "strange" company-he oughta look in the mirror
The US government under Obama uses it.Oh,yeah.that escaped his peabrain.
I think a lot of people voted for him because they figured his father was an outstanding man,and the apple couldn't fall far from the tree.This apple isn't even in the same orchard.
Let's think:RECALL!!

Joe I also saw Chafee's embarrassing performance on 10. Loved his remark about e-verify being a bust because our unemployment numbers are still high!!??!!?? lol
Can you imagine what Brendan Doherty is thinking about when he meets with this limpwristed putz??

I've known Brendan Doherty as a result of my job since abot 1984.He's an outstanding man and police officer.
I can't imagine what he'd be thinking for sure,but I doubt it would be anything optimistic.

Look at who's on Chafee's transition team"Bob Walsh and Pablo Rodriguez-what a team!!If you can't kill every baby,then at least make sure you'll still be able to ruin their education.
And remember,where Walsh goes,also lurks Crowley with his Marxist insanity.
I can't believe Meg Curran has signed on with Chafee-I always thought she was a good prosecutor-I wonder why she's turned on common sense and sanity.
Disappointing.
Pablo Rodriguez envisions himself as the "leader" of the Hispanic community.He thinks he owns people-he's wrong.I know Hispanics who wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.
If there is a hell,he belongs there.What is the difference between him and Mengele?Profiting from killing babies.Most doctors I've met are concerned with helping people live longer and better lives-they aren't looking to get rid of innocent life as a convenience.
Guess what-one needn't be Catholic or even religious to have this attitude.
Chafee is a degenerate human.He sounds like he has brain rot.