The national media has picked up the story of Rhode Island’s own James Haldeman, who is running for State Representative in the 35th district (South Kingstown).
Haldeman, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, volunteered for duty in Iraq last year. As a result of his success in building civil-military relationships between Iraqis and Americans, Haldeman is now the only candidate for state legislature in the United States to receive an endorsement from the Mayor of Fallujah, Iraq…
The endorsement from Mayor Dhari Abdul Hadi al-Irssan describes Haldeman, 50, as Fallujah’s “favorite USA colonel.” Haldeman’s translator in Iraq forwarded the endorsement to him by e-mail, said Chuck Newton, spokesman for the Rhode Island GOP.To learn more about Jim Haldeman and his reasons for running for office, check out his interview with Anchor Rising and his campaign website. [Open full post]
According to Newton, Al-Irssan said he would support Haldeman for president if he chose to run.
“As flattered as I am, I think that to serve in (House) District 35 will be plenty for me right now,” Haldeman said.
Like many communities, North Kingstown offers a summer series of children’s concerts or shows for families to get together and enjoy whilst enjoying a picnic. North Kingstown’s are at the Town Beach on Thursday evenings and my family has been going for three years now. It is especially convenient as I work in NK and the proximity to the Town Beach allows some bonus family time for me that would otherwise be spent in my commute back to Warwick.
This past Thursday, the act was the Little Red Wagon troup out of the University of New Hampshire. The five college kids that comprised the troup did a decent job of keeping the younger audience members interested for 45 minutes, despite an inadequate sound system and the periodic rumblings and grumblings of the older audience members. (“We can’t hear you!”) But the performance itself was secondary to the impression made upon me by a couple random political sightings that evening.
Before the performance, the campaign car (an old, 3-cylinder Suzuki) of Rod Driver greeted those entering the Beach grounds. He was trying to get people to sign a petition so that he could run as an Independent in the 2nd Congressional District against, he presumes, Rep. Jim Langevin (D). However, not content with a passive approach, Mr. Driver also walked through the crowd prior to the show and actively asked for signatures. Always one who believes that someone should be able to run if they want to, I signed. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll support or vote for Rod Driver!
Driver is certainly an interesting character and has run for more offices, more times than I can count. If I recall correctly, he first started out running as a sort of libertarian/moderate a few years ago. In fact, he can probably still claim to be that now, with plans for healthcare, education and campaign finance that would probably appeal to many moderate/mainstream voters. He’s also a little quirky in his approach to environmental policy–he touts both his old, 50 MPG car and his solar powered house–but his personal practices lend credence to the policies he preaches.
However, he is most defininely skittering along the fringe when it comes to the Iraq War:
The Iraq War based on lies dominate all issues. The cost in money, lost liberties and especially human suffering is inexcusable. Unless Congress says “no more” and starts impeachment proceedings we can forget the Constitution. [Emphasis mine. Taken from Rod Driver’s campaign brochure.]
This stance allows him to tout that “Langevin backs George Bush” based on Langevin’s past support for the Iraq War and refusal to vote for a pullout. It’s an interesting tactic (I doubt it’ll work), but it reveals that Langevin may be more vulnerable from the Left than the Right. In the end, Driver struck me as a nice man, but if he gets it wrong on the big issue, his stances on the little issues don’t matter much to me.
That brings me to my second political sighting of the evening. During the performance, and with no fanfare, Governor and Mrs Carcieri quietly skirted the fringe of the audience and made their way to some of their family who were enjoying the show. The Carcieri’s seemed to relish the stolen moment with their kin. Eventually, and just as unobtrusively, they left before the show was over. It seemed obvious that they didn’t want to distract from the family time of others. In short, they didn’t want to make a fuss.
In the abstract, we often let our impressions of politicians be shaped by their ideology or their stance on certain issues. This brief, public glimpse of some private moments shared by the Carcieri family reminded me that politicians are people, too. In particular, it also confirmed to me that the Governor has his priorities straight.
A cynic would say that such a subtle presentation ended up serving the Governor’s purpose as proven by the impression it left on someone like me. However, when the Governor’s appearance is contrasted with Rod Driver’s obvious, if understandable, reason for attending the show, I don’t think that politics was Carcieri’s motive. The motive was simply family time. In a situation ripe for political exploitation, he made no overt attempt to gladhand and kiss babies. Except, of course, his own grandkids!
So there you have it: two politicians spotted at the same unexpected place within an hour of each other. Both are nice men, regardless of where they stand on the issues. They, like many politicians, are made up of much more than their politics. And aren’t we all?
Ian Donnis sets up the stretch run for the Rhode Island Republican Senate primary in this week’s Providence Phoenix…
With recent polls showing the two Republicans in a neck-and-neck race, [Steve] Laffey’s Senate hopes will live or die on how well he can extend support beyond his conservative base in the state’s tiny Republican Party. Most Rhode Island voters are independents and it is they who will likewise decide [Lincoln] Chafee’s fate. And with little more than three months until the September 12 primary, the sizzling campaign — already marked by a steady stream of back-and-forth negative advertising between both camps — is about to shift into a higher gear.Despite a few quibbles here and there (for instance, Donnis goes with the “moderate” label for Senator Chafee, when Senator Chafee’s record tends to be moderate on tax-and-spend issues, but liberal on almost everything else of importance, averaging out somewhere well to the left of moderate; or maybe Senator Chafee really does seem moderate if you hang out with Phoenix staffers all day long) Donnis’ article is an excellent view of what the non-political junkies who make up the bulk of the electorate are/will be seeing as they begin to pay closer attention the Senate race as primary day draws closer. As they say, “read the whole thing”.
If readers mention in the comments that they find certain sections especially interesting or important, I’ll excerpt them for a more specific discussion. [Open full post]
In case you missed it over the long weekend, Sunday’s Projo had a very good column on school choice by Julia Steiny. Read Steiny’s column together with the recent Pawtucket Times article by David Casey describing the education reform plan put forth by an alliance of Rhode Island labor groups (the full report is available on the website of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals) and you will have read the two positions that will likely frame the education debate in Rhode Island over the next several years.
The labor groups argue that, from a public policy standpoint, individuals have no meaningful ability to overcome the forces of economic determinism…
If we really want to improve our schools, the first step is to improve the lives of our poorest citizens, and offer their children the chance to have the literacy experiences that middle-class children take for granted….Ultimately, the position staked out in the labor report is that changes in the way that Rhode Island’s public bureaucracies deliver an education are not worth considering, because individuals in any system cannot alter, in a significant way, their educational destiny as determined by their economic status. Therefore, education can only be improved by economically re-engineering society through increases in non-educational social-service spending and a higher minium wage and other such programs.
If the state of Rhode Island really wants to find the will to improve the educational outcomes for poor children in Rhode island, the places to begin are in the places where we can alleviate some of the bad effects of poverty on children.
Julia Steiny argues the opposite — that education should be the main priority of education reform. Instead of making it government policy to tell students that they are destined to fail, in any system, because of their economic status, Steiny believes in changing the system to give students from lower economic strata the same range of educational options (including the option to escape from a failing school district) usually available only to students from the middle class and above…
The time seems right for Rhode Island to try what’s known as cross-district choice. Our school population grew through the late 1990s, but enrollment is now leveling off as the last surge of the baby-boom echo finishes high school. Throughout the state, many elementary and middle schools have excess capacity, which is to say more seats than they currently need. They could volunteer to accept students from their Rhode Island neighbors, creating a wealth of choices parents don’t have now.Steiny uses Boston as an example of a school district that has improved the quality of education it provides by increasing the options available to all parents…
Boston has three different kinds of charter or charter-like schools. The city also has cross-district agreements with several neighboring school systems, allowing city kids to attend suburban schools. And within the district itself, Boston offers a growing menu of viable and ever-improving choices.[Open full post]
Though rife with plenty of remaining challenges, many education-watchers consider Boston to be the best urban school system in the country.
In celebration of America’s birthday, here are excerpted gems from previous postings about our beloved country – brought together in one posting:
President Calvin Coolidge gave a powerful speech in 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. If you want to rediscover some of the majesty of the principles underlying our Founding, read Coolidge’s entire speech. Here are some key excerpts:
There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.
It was not because it proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history…
…Three very definite propositions were set out in [the Declaration’s] preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed…
While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination…
It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world…
…when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live…
In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignity, the rights of man – these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions…Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish…
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776..that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final…If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people…
In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people…The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guarantees, which even the government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government — the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction…The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty…
…We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all of our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it…We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed…
This Power Line posting elaborates further on the uniqueness of the American creed:
Knowledge of American history holds the key to much of the current discussion of political issues, such as the ongoing liberal attack on Christian belief and on arguments premised on belief in God…Absent knowledge of American history, one would never know that the United States is founded on the basis of a creed, rather than on tribal or blood lines, in which God plays a prominent part. Absent knowledge of history generally, one would never know that this fact makes America unique.
What is the American creed?…The American creed is expressed with inspired concision in the words of the Declaration of Independence…
But does the Declaration have any legal status such that these words can be truly deemed to state the American creed? It does, although virtually no one seems to know it. In 1878 Congress enacted a revised version of the United States Code that included a new first section entitled “The Organic Laws of the United States.”
The Code is Congress’s official compilation of federal law; the organic laws of the United States are America’s founding laws. First and foremost of the four organic laws of the United States is the Declaration of Independence…
Professor Jaffa [of the Claremont Institute] teaches us that the Declaration contains four distinct references to God: He is the author of the “laws of…God”; the “Creator” who “endowed” us with our inalienable rights; “the Supreme Judge of the world”; and “Divine Providence.” Americans declared their independence, “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”
The Declaration states the American creed, the creed that recognizes the source (Nature and Nature’s God) of our rights.
Anchor Rising’s own Mac Owens gave a speech entitled Limited Government to Protect Equal Rights, published on this blog site, which elaborates further on the uniqueness of the American Experiment:
Before the American founding, all regimes were based on the principle of interest – the interest of the stronger. That principle was articulated by the Greek historian Thucydides: “Questions of justice arise only between equals. As for the rest, the strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must.”…
The United States was founded on different principles – justice and equality…It took the founding of the United States on the principle of equality to undermine the principle of inequality…Thanks to the Founders, the United States was founded on a principle of justice, not the interest of the stronger. And because of Lincoln’s uncompromising commitment to equality as America’s “central idea,” the Union was not only saved, but saved so “as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of saving…”
“Every nation,” said Lincoln, “has a central idea from which all its minor thoughts radiate.” For Lincoln, this central idea was the Declaration of Independence and its notion of equality as the basis for republican government – the simple idea that no one has the right by nature to rule over another without the latter’s consent…
Indeed, it is the idea of equality in the Declaration, not race and blood, that establishes American nationhood, constituting what Abraham Lincoln called “the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land…”
The United States is a fundamentally decent regime based on the universal principle that all human beings are equal in terms of their natural rights…
…the only purpose of government is to protect the equal natural rights of individual citizens. These rights inhere in individuals, not groups, and are antecedent to the creation of government…
Roger Pilon wrote the following in a 2002 Cato Institute booklet containing the Declaration of Independence and Constitution:
Appealing to all mankind, the Declaration’s seminal passage opens with perhaps the most important line in the document: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident.” Grounded in reason, “self-evident” truths invoke the long tradition of natural law, which holds that there is a “higher law” of right and wrong from which to derive human law and against which to criticize that law at any time. It is not political will, then, but moral reasoning, accessible to all, that is the foundation of our political system.
But if reason is the foundation of the Founders’ vision…the method by which we justify our political order…liberty is its aim. Thus, cardinal moral truths are these:…that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
We are all created equal, as defined by our natural rights; thus, no one has rights superior to those of anyone else. Moreover, we are born with those rights, we do not get them from government…indeed, whatever rights or powers government has come from us, from “the Consent of the Governed.” And our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness imply the right to live our lives as we wish…to pursue happiness as we think best, by our own lights…provided only that we respect the equal rights of others to do the same. Drawing by implication upon the common law tradition of liberty, property, and contract…its principles rooted in “right reason”…the Founders thus outlined the moral foundations of a free society.
Dr. Pilon concluded his essay by writing:
In the end, however, no constitution can be self-enforcing. Government officials must respect their oaths to uphold the Constitution; and we the people must be vigilant in seeing that they do. The Founders drafted an extraordinarily thoughtful plan of government, but it is up to us, to each generation, to preserve and protect it for ourselves and for future generations. For the Constitution will live only if it is alive in the hearts and minds of the American people. That, perhaps, is the most enduring lesson of our experiment in ordered liberty.
The powerful words from and about our Founding appeal to timeless moral principles grounded in both our Declaration of Independence and the great moral traditions that preceded our Founding. It is these principles that make America unique and inspire us to be proud, engaged citizens who are vigilant stewards of freedom and opportunity for all Americans.
Happy Birthday, America!
In a ruling of unexpected scope, Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Fortunato has ruled that the Governor of Rhode Island has an inherent power to place non-binding questions on the Rhode Island ballot. Today’s ruling undoes most, if not all, of the effect of a bill intended to limit the Governor’s power passed last month by the General Assembly. The Associated Press (via the Boston Globe) describes Judge Fortunato’s decision….
Until recently, a state statute authorized the governor to place nonbinding questions on statewide ballots. In May, Carcieri, a Republican, requested that the Secretary of State place two questions on November’s ballot…The initial report from WJAR-TV discusses some content limits on non-binding ballot questions that are discussed in Judge Fortunato’s ruling…
The Democrat-dominated General Assembly on June 13 stripped the Republican governor of his power to place questions on the ballot, but only after Carcieri had moved to put the two questions to voters….
Fortunato ruled that repealing the state statute does not eliminate the governor’s power to put questions on the ballot. He said nothing in the state constitution forbids the practice. He noted that courts in other states have interpreted their constitutions broadly to maximize the electorate’s power.
Since the results aren’t binding, the referendums don’t intrude on legislative power, Fortunato said.
“It’s another device for encouraging participatory democracy,” he said.
[Judge Fortunato] left open the possibility that governors can only ask referendum questions related to their duties, which are usually implementing and enforcing state laws….The WJAR report clearly implies that Judge Fortunato’s ruling establishes that the General Assembly, as well as the Governor, has the power to place non-binding questions on the statewide ballot, even in the absence of an authorizing statute.
Fortunato said his ruling doesn’t address whether the governor or General But Fortunato’s ruling suggested that courts could set limits. Referendum questions shouldn’t be personal popularity polls conducted at taxpayer expense, he said.
Fortunato said his ruling doesn’t address whether the governor or General Assembly can ask questions unrelated to their government functions.
The unexpected decision raises a number of questions. Here are two…
- Even if you limited the Governor’s power to ask non-binding questions to matters related to his official duties, wouldn’t he or she still be able to ask just about anything by phrasing it in the form of “should the Governor of introduce legislation to the General Assembly that would yadda yadda?” or “Should the Governor sign leglislation which, if passed, would yadda yadda yadda?”
- Though I like the result of the today’s decision, I am a bit wary of the reasoning. Is it consistent with the philosophy of limited government to say that state officials have the authority to do something simply because it isn’t prohibited by the state constitution?
This comment from my post on Dennis Michaud has admittedly left me baffled:
Mr. Katz,
I am new to Rhode Island and new to the politics of the state. However, I have noticed something that troubles me. You are supporting Gov. Carcieri and several people on this board have spelled out specific offenses, offenses, which you have yet to counter.
I have been living in DC and so I am quite used to the bob and weave routine that politicians and bloggers routinely perform. Please stand up and defend yourself and your candidate rather than pointing fingers at the actions of others.
Additionally, please address Gov. Carcieri’s role in the breach of fiduciary responsibility by his appointee at Beacon-Mutual. This to me is a very serious issue. Is your candidate appointing cronies and then using his position to exert inappropriate influence?
How does one respond to such a request? I’m not sure what “offenses” I’ve yet to counter, and judging from the specific charge in final paragraph, I’d be left in a quandry over them. Either the Beacon-Mutual question is some truly audacious spin or the questioner has somehow not encountered anything other than truly audacious spin.
[Open full post]Business travel last week took me to Los Angeles for the first time in years.
My flight landed past midnight and I immediately turned on KLOS 95.5 FM (more here) after getting into the rental car – only to hear Jim Ladd was the disc jockey:
[Ladd]…is the last remaining freeform rock DJ in United States commercial radio.
Unlike his contemporaries, Ladd personally selects every song he plays. He combines music with atmospheric sound samples and social commentary, often inviting listeners to participate on the air. Most of his music sets center around a theme or storyline, such as Wild West outlaws, beautiful women or fast cars. He often adds appropriate listener requests to his themed sets; sometimes a request will inspire an entire set. His repertoire combines classic rock standards…
Oh, did that bring back a flood of memories from my junior high school (1967-1969), high school (1969-1973), college (1973-1977), and early work years (1981-1983) there during the grand days of underground free-form style of rock music radio. In those years, the Might Met (94.7 KMET) (more here) was THE radio station and Jim Ladd was THE disc jockey:
…To its fans throughout the 1970s and mid-1980s, KMET’s progressive rock radio format was what you listened to in Los Angeles if you were to be considered “hip.” Evenings were given over to Jim Ladd, whose laid-back philosophical ruminations usually led into a song – often Pink Floyd, The Doors or Led Zeppelin – that underscored his point.
KMET has stood alone in pioneering the free-form style of rock radio. Everything from folk to acid rock to rockabilly to modern jazz to pop to R&B might be heard in one well blended set…
B. Mitchell Reed was another key disc jockey I remember working at the station. So, over the years, were Jeff Gonzer, Cynthia Fox, Mary Turner, and Bob Coburn.
KMET also carried the wacky Dr. Demento show on Sunday nights! How can anyone forget songs like the National Lampoon’s Deteriorata or Napoleon XIV’s They are coming to take me away, ha, haa!, the latter of which called for opening your dorm room and banging a hammer on the metal door jam as the song played. (Okay, you had to be there!)
Those were truly special days in the world of FM radio music.
Even though some of us were too young to enjoy it at the time, the live music scene was also significant in those years, with LA clubs like the Troubadour making musical history.
During our pre-college years, I have fond memories of spending time at the house of my best friend, Mark, where we used to take special pleasure listening to the music by artists such as James Taylor (Sweet Baby James), Jethro Tull (Aqualung), The Who (Who’s Next), the Guess Who (Best of the Guess Who), Black Sabbath (Paranoid), Led Zeppelin (the 4th album), Deep Purple (Machine Head), and numerous other bands. My high school senior prom featured “Stairway to Heaven” and “Smoke on the Water” – when they first came out, not when they were being played for the nth straight year.
Several years later, all of us began attending concerts – with a Led Zeppelin show at the LA Forum being one of the more spectacular ones.
The music scene was not the only hot doings in Los Angeles during those years. The performances of the many sports teams in Los Angeles were world-class, too.
Besides seeing family, I also had the chance to drive by my alma mater, Harvey Mudd College (more here) – which provided me with a collegiate experience for which I will always be grateful.
The week before my Los Angeles trip took me out to the San Francisco Bay Area for a 4-day, 25th reunion of my MBA Class of 1981 at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
What a great time we all had seeing old friends on the beautiful Stanford University campus. With approximately one-half of the class returning to the campus, it was a chance to visit with some very special friends.
As was true even back in our classroom years, though, everyone is defining success to be what they want personally and that creates both traditional successes and unconventional successes. One of the more interesting current stories was shared with us by classmate Mike Murray, who is now involved in a global micro-finance effort to help the world’s poor through his latest company, Unitus. What an inspiring idea.
The music scene was also great fun in the Bay Area over my later years in California. I had the pleasure of enjoying shows at classic San Francisco venues like Winterland and the Fillmore West as well as at blues bars all over the Bay Area, with seeing both Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker (with Carlos Santana joining him) as two of the highlights. For several years, we attended the Dixieland Jazz Jubilee in Sacramento. In the later years, we enjoyed many shows at the Shoreline Ampitheather and at the old Paul Masson winery up in the Santa Cruz mountains. Bonnie Raitt’s first large-venue concert after hitting it big, Van Morrison joining the Chieftains on stage, Robert Cray opening for Ray Charles, BB King in several venues, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, CSN, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac, the Allman Brothers, etc.
Football was also good in those Bay Area days. John Elway was quarterback at Stanford during my years on The Farm. Bill Walsh and then George Seifert subsequently coached the San Francisco 49ers to five Super Bowl victories, first with Joe Montana and then with Steve Young at quarterback. Who could forget special players like Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott?
And then there was the wine country in Napa and Sonoma counties, a roughly 1-hour drive north of San Francisco. From the first visits in the late 1970’s when it was still much more rural until our move back East 20 years later, there were many trips where outstanding food and glorious wines were the norm.
The list could go on. Family vacations driving up the the coast line, stopping in San Simeon and Carmel or driving up the coast north of San Francisco to the giant redwoods. Remembering when Highway 101 was just a 2-lane highway – with stop lights in Santa Barbara and south San Jose – and you simply slowed down in the middle of the state when farm equipment pulled onto the road (there was no Highway 5 back then). Driving up to see my grandparents in the Bay Area. Learning to drive in my parents’ 1969 Chevy Malibu with its 350 horsepower V8 – which they still have. Tubing down a river with my buddy, Mark. In later years, living and working in Silicon Valley for 17 years. Trips to Yosemite to celebrate Stanford friends’ weddings or anniversaries. Learning to ski at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe – as an adult. Then watching my kids begin to ski at the same place – and now be better than me!
Politics was fun over the years, too. I had the pleasure of talking one-on-one in 1982 with Howard Jarvis, the author of Proposition 13, while sitting in Attorney General Evelle Younger’s suite at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. I was also an officer in the (Bay Area) Peninsula chapter of the California Republican Assembly (CRA), a group that served as foot soldiers for conservative politics across the state.
California Dreamin’….a very special place to have grown up and gone to school. Like many places, it is different now from what it was in those prior years. Regardless of those changes, there are many fond memories of wonderful times, memories that were stirred by two delightful trips in June.
On gut impulse, I attended the Republican Party’s convention last night. Given how busy I am, it turned out to be a huge mistake. I’ll put it this way: the Rhode Island Republican Party is so dull that it can suck the excitement right out of Steve Laffey. When members of the party are inclined to lean over into the press box to empathize about boredom — even expressing astonishment that Dan Yorke, who didn’t “have to be here,” had cared enough to show up — you know there’s a problem.
For one thing, the pacing of the thing was horrible. Granted that conventions involve a bit of process, such as the delegates voting for nominees, but they also ought to stir the base and create buzz in the media. I had to leave during the governor’s acceptance speech just after nine o’clock (and I’m sure Andrew will post on any subsequent excitement), but the only bit of political theatre that I saw came when Lincoln Chafee — he of the scripted hand gestures — finished his acceptance speech and John McCain’s voice suddenly blared over the speakers while a parade of Chafee supporters marched around the delegates. Of course, with magnificent symbolism, there was a mass exodus of the Chafee people thereafter. Those looking to Chafee to build the party more broadly in the state, it seems, would do well to look elsewhere.
Most notable, though, was the absense of the pot-stirring opposition. Dennis Michaud, running for governor, had some signs hanging from the balconies, but he didn’t even bother (or manage) to find somebody to nominate him for party endorsement. (According to Scott MacKay and Elizabeth Gudrais, Michaud appeared early on, but made his exit.)
Worse, Steve Laffey’s boycott of the event apparently carried over to his supporters, and like charade-candidate Michaud, he failed even to be nominated. A rumored Laffey-crowd walk-out didn’t materialize. With the only mention of his name being those made in nomination speeches for other candidates, Laffey might as well have been a member of a different party.
And that, to my mind, is why Laffey was the big disappointment of the evening, especially in contrast to the life that he brought to the convention a couple of years ago. Effective rebels find ways to highlight imbalances and injustices; they don’t assist in masking them by allowing themselves to be made irrelevant. If Laffey were truly the RI GOP’s subversive hope, he’d have at least found a way to stoke the doubts that those bored Republicans have in the party as currently constituted. As it was, we would have been better off staying home. And as it is, Republicans in this state will continue to need, as Chafee put it, “the votes of independents and Democrats to win.” Perhaps they should be invited to the conventions, as well.
ADDENDUM:
I do have some photos and video that I’ll try to add later.
