RE: Opening the Year With Fatal Steps – Loughlin
Following up Justin’s earlier post, WPRO’s Dan Yorke took Rep. John Loughlin to task for adding his name to the Rice letter and thereby seeming to endorse the overall “it’s not the legislature’s fault” message that it tries to spin. Loughlin admitted his mistake and told Yorke he would be retracting his name from the Rice letter and writing his own. Well, he should have done that in the first place!
Based on what he told Yorke, Loughlin’s letter will apparently detail his attempts to work with the Carcieri administration to create some sort of matrix of funding expectations for cities and towns to follow. It will also probably express his frustration about how the Governor and his staff essentially blew him off.
I understand why he is upset, but hopefully Loughlin will realize that his signing on with the Democrats sends an inconsistent message and that he’s better off standing on his own. Further, his discussion with an understandably adversarial Yorke revealed a defensive prickliness that Loughlin needs to manage better. No one likes to be criticized, but its part of the rough-and-tumble of politics. Calmly and successfully dealing with criticism–whether from natural political allies or opponents–is crucial to the overall positive impression a viable candidate needs to project. Fingers are crossed that Loughlin will take some lessons from this episode and go on to run a strong campaign against Patrick Kennedy and, hopefully, win.
Marc,
We’re still waiting for your post about the $167K bonuses to Warwick city employees for not taking sick time and the other $500k paid to Warwick firefighters for not taking sick time.
Did you know about this? Do you agree with this.
Justin does a great job pointing out issues that matter to Tiverton. Why don’t you do the same in Warwick?
Perhaps you’re every bit as much of a RINO as Loughlin???
I think it is disturbing that folks on this blog are so against bipartisanship.
What’s wrong with Loughlin joining with another party and standing up for what is right?
Talleyho, That makes all sorts of logical sense. Sheesh. I’ve covered Warwick stuff in the past, but I do what I can, when I can. When the story broke I had other things going on (you’ll notice I didn’t post about much of anything) and by the time I could it was already well covered. Feel free to set up your own Warwick-centric blog and I’ll even link to you. Acta non verba.
>>”What’s wrong with Loughlin joining with another party and standing up for what is right?”
Right?
The Democrats in the General Assembly passed the buck to the Governor, and then accuse him of passing the buck to the municipalities?
Please.
Rhode Island’s deficit is caused by grossly excessive spending caused by a coddling welfare system and morbidly obese union compensation and benefit packages.
New Hampshire operates better schools and roads, with the same population but spread over a larger geographic area to maintain, all with no state income tax or sales tax.
The sooner RI’s fiscal house of cards comes tumbling down the sooner a possible renewal can start. Carcieri’s municipal aid cuts might well accelerate the inevitable day when the first domino of municipal bankruptcies gets filed. The sooner that occurs, the sooner the necessary restructuring can begin.
Marc: by posting the sick pay bonus scam in Warwick on your site you provide people across the state an opportunity to see the abuse that “Republican” Mayor Scott Avedisian has bestowed on Warwick taxpayers.
Being a conservative who lives in Warwick, I can’t understand why you do not call him out more often. Why is that?
Avedisian cries about the governor’s cuts yet you let him get away with these union giveaways.
Do us Warwick resisdents a favor and cover more local issues as talleyrand suggests.
This Loughlin thing just isn’t going to happen. His every attempt to stand out turns into his looking more and more like a Democrat.
Save your money for Laffey.
That’s it-attack Loughlin,who is a really decent man and has a chance to rid the state of the degenerate embarrassment serving as 1st District Congressman.
I always take the RIF/Kmareka crowd to task for being in lockstep.We don’t need that.It goes against the conservative grain.
We’ve all made mistakes in judgement at times.At least Loughlin isn’t all about appearances.
Laffey?The guy who sucked up to the illegal aliens from Guatemala by wanting”matricula”cards to be accepted a valid ID?They are-in Guatemala.Is he forgiven ?Just asking.
I found myself siding with the damn progressives on a few pieces of legislation-I wasn’t happy to do so,but their position made sense.A stopped clock is right twice a day.
I’d rather have an independent thinker who sometimes makes a boo-boo than a jack in the box parroting “yessir,yessir,three bags full”.I did enough of that sh*t in the service,and so did Loughlin.
Loughlin isn’t perfect(who is?),but he’s damn good.
So is Mark Zaccaria,in my district.
Sick in Warwick, Again, I apologize if the frequency of posting on Mayor A. doesn’t meet the approval of others. I covered and criticized last year’s budget/contract negotiations extensively (see here). This is a side “job” for me and I do what I can, when I can. There’s no concerted attempt on my part to take it easy on the Mayor or anyone else. Perhaps you and Talleyrand should make up for my apparent shortcomings and fill the void by hooking up and publishing a Warwick-centric blog. The more, the merrier.
Wait a minute, Loughlin is highlighted and singled out because he felt Rice’s letter was an honest effort to solve the financial problems of RI?
Isn’t that what the General Assembly should be doing? Isn’t that the reason they are there to represent their constituents?
Maybe Loughlin got this one wrong for the right reasons but I do find it very disturbing that he is called to task for taking some action.
What I don’t like about the Amy Rice letter is that it’s just a continuation of finger pointing and playing the home court advantage initiated by Murphy dumping a deficit budget on the Governor’s lap 24 hours before going on vacation.
Loughlin is right 90% of the time. If he admits an error for the remaining 10%, he’s still 100% better than people like Diaz, Pichardo, Levesque and the rest of the liberal left left left left.
I missed the point Joe Bernstein was making about Laffey.
I once supported the idea of Laffey but also have to draw some parallels of being courted much like 53% of Americans viewed Obama, the Messiah.
I’m on the fence with Laffey but as Joe pointed out, he once wanted to give matricula cards to illegal aliens that broke the law on day one of entering the US.
Does anyone take Laffey to task?
For the record, Loughlin is in my district and I will vote for him.
You’re dying to knock off Patches, but you’re willing to slap Loughlin with the RINO card?
The attempts to come after him with hard righties have failed. The toughest race he’s ever had was with a moderate – Kevin Vigilante. If you send a hard righty or Tea Partier after Loughlin, you’re only ensuring two more years of Patrick.
“Do us Warwick resisdents a favor and cover more local issues as talleyrand suggests.”
Anchor Rising contributors don’t shy away from “local” issues because they are very often actually statewide issues. It’s just that don’t always have the time to cover everything that we’d like to.
Accordingly, I would encourage anyone who has more to say on a particular subject to inquire about submitting an Engaged Citizen post. Our e-mail addresses are off on the left side of the page.
Amy Rice is a moonbat, leftist nut-job with the IQ of a walnut – which is insulting for walnuts.
I also wonder why some people have an issue with Loughlin? Why is he a RINO? Because of his idea to have the feds bail out our pension plans? Does no one else realize that was just a political trick to get Patches to come out of his shell and justify his big government nonsense?
What are his positions that are really liberal that make him Lincoln Chafee?
Same-sex marriage is probably the biggest thing conservatives would not like about Loughlin – but in that case he is simply taking the libertarian view – government should stay out of the marriage business. Agree with this or not, if I agree with him 95% of the time, especially compared with Patches, he is my guy.
Granted that anybody is better than Patches.
The problem with Loughlin is that with each passing day he’s beginning to resemble another Lincoln Chafee — a “moderate” who will “grow in office” by becoming Democrat Lite.
That is the last thing the Republican Party needs, for he’ll then have the advantages of incumbency and will work from within to keep the RIGOP on a “moderate” course, thus ensuring it’s continued shrinkage (as the decades of Chafee-Avedesian dominance have proven).
In turn, it will mean that RI will continue to suffer from not having a viable opposition party to counter the statist Democrats and their union / poverty pimp masters.
Increasingly, it appears that Loughlin has “gone native” since he’s been in the (incompetent and corrupt) RI General Assembly (can you cite instances where he’s really opposed the status quo there)?
I wish it were otherwise, but that’s how I see it.
Ragin’-I can.John Loughlin was the first state legislator to advocate that they pay part of their health insurance premiums,and took the first step by being the first to do so.He then convinced every House Republican to do the same.
It didn’t translate to the Senate Republicans,but John isn’t in that chamber.
There’s a saying about not discarding the good loking for the perfect.Give it some consideration here.
And John Loughlin has nothing in common with Lincoln Chafee.John is not a wishy washy weak sister like Chafee.He is a veteran of deployment to Bosnia as a US Army helicopter pilot-a little different than horseshoeing and being a dilletante like Chafee.No comparison at all.
Loughlin has also taken on National Grid on behalf of consumers.Not many others in the GA have done so.
–“He is a veteran of deployment to Bosnia as a US Army helicopter pilot-a little different than horseshoeing and being a dilletante like Chafee.No comparison at all.”
Joe,
I respect his service, and thank him (and all who have served).
But RINO’s John McCain and Lindsey Graham served, as has that Democrat crook John Murtha. So a military record does not necessarily impart conservative credentials.
My concern with Loughlin is not that he’s “not perfect” from a conservative standpoint, but that he’s obviously started to tack left instead of right, and we know how that can end up.