Rhode Island GOP
At the meeting of the East Bay Republicans this past Saturday, I was able to do a quick interview with the two candidates for State Republican Party Chairman, Patrick Sweeney and Ken McKay. The new Chairman will be chosen at the statwide party convention on March 19. Question: If any Republican Party members with a…
I suspect that those who orchestrated Heidi Rogers’ move of withdrawing from the race for lieutenant governor in order to ensure an easier path for independent candidate Robert Healey did not anticipate such controversy: Kara D. Russo, who lost the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, filed a legal complaint with the state Board of Elections…
Here’s Heidi Rogers’ letter of withdrawal from her candidacy. Note the text that I’ve italicized, suggesting that this was possibly her plan all along and that RIGOP leaders were complicit: First and foremost, I want to thank the Rhode Island Republican Party for their support in the primary election. I consider myself a loyal partisan,…
Several Republican candidates for statewide office made something close to their 2010 election-cycle debuts at Wednesday night’s RI State Republican convention. Catherine Taylor spoke about her candidacy for Secretary of State, presenting some very specific policy proposals regarding small business, open government, and master lever voting; and winning the uncontested endorsement…“…Over the last three-and-a-half years,…
Remarks from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, speaking at Wednesday Night’s Rhode Island Republican Party state convention…“…You cannot lose sight of the fact that where we are now is not where we started, ’06, ’08, elections where we got our clocks cleaned, where the people turned their backs on us, because we turned our…
I’ve been in communication with Rhode Island Log Cabin Republicans Chairman Raymond Beltran since his emergence at a recent Rhode Island Voter Coalition meeting, and expect to work with him as the local political machinery moves forward. It’s important, though, to counter the liberal and mainstream media tendency to sow division where there is none…
So you don’t have to, here is the “Marc’s Notes” version of where the three announced GOP candidates (Mark Zaccaria, Michael Gardiner and Bill Clegg) for RI’s Second Congressional District Seat stand on various issues. This is compiled directly from the “Issues” pages on each candidate’s websites–I paraphrased and used direct quotes to try to…
Here is the Cliffs-Notes version of the no-confidence vote taken on Giovanni Cicione as State Republican Chairman, at last night’s Republican State Central Committee meeting. Early in the evening, the Central Committee voted to reject the agenda (I’m not sure if that was intended to help the pro-closed primary folks or the anti closed primary…
And the dimension of timing has been added to the central question, which will be discussed at the RIGOP meeting tonight. Should the party close it now, just in time for the November election? Much of the authority to determine timing rests with the chairman. RIGOP Chair Gio Cicione has indicated that he is certainly…
State Senator and Secretary of State candidate Leonidas Raptakis (D, Coventry, East Greenwich, Warwick, West Warwick) has submitted legislation that would insert the following language into state law: No political party shall prohibit any independent registered voter who has no affiliation with any political party from participating in any political primary. Here’s his press release,…