Another Republican Candidate for Governor?
Cynthia Needham of the Projo has the first official gubernatorial-race interview with Rory Smith, the political newcomer with a possible interest in running as a Republican for Governor of Rhode Island…
Providence businessman Rory Smith says he’s considering a run for Rhode Island governor in 2010 as a Republican.
“People have approached me about it and I’m certainly thinking about it, but I have not made any decisions yet,” Smith said in a brief interview Wednesday afternoon.
The East Greenwich resident and self-described “outsider” said he has not set a deadline to make that decision and declined to discuss his potential candidacy in any detail.
As has already started, lets go on the offensive for Rory and give the answer before the question starts coming out. “Why attack the man instead of the ideas?”
You know when the left hears of a “political outsider, retired private businessman from East Greenwich”, they’re just going to start calling him Carcieri. Kinda like how McCain was the new Bush, even though those two candidates couldn’t have been any more different. McCain and Bush were so different, there was even talk of McCain being Kerry’s runningmate in 2004. Four years later, he’s Bush the Third.
Here comes the same treatment for Rory Smith. Hopefully he gets out in front of that story.
Well, Patrick, here is comes, and it ain’t from the left.
I guess if he had been trying to get Republicans elected in the last few years, we should cut him some slack. But, via the campaign finance reports on the SOS web site, the only guy I can see he has helped has been David Cicilline. Not exactly what I’d call strong Republican credentials.
Then again, another barometer of his worth might be gotten from the return on investment the state has gotten from the investments the state has made as a result of his successful soliciting of the state pension funds to the tune of about 16 million dollars, so far of 20 million committed, for his private equity company, Nautic Partners.
(And I want to see the investments marked to market, not some make believe figure I’m sure they’d prefer to trot out)
I mean, let’s face it, the guy has Carcieri written all over him, and we know how that’s worked out for the Republicans, and the state, for that matter. Will the Republican party be able to give ANY money to a Republican legislative candidate this year? Even 5 bucks? I know Carcieri has money he won’t be using in his campaign coffers. Any chance he might finally throw them a bone?