Is this any way to elect our governor?

Posted 11/20/14

To the Editor:

After a robust and unique political season, it is time to reflect upon the absurdity, improbability and quizzical results on election night. The governor’s race was arguably …

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Is this any way to elect our governor?

Posted

To the Editor:

After a robust and unique political season, it is time to reflect upon the absurdity, improbability and quizzical results on election night. The governor’s race was arguably the most colorful in our history excepting the Thomas Dorr affair of the 1840s. 

In the primary, the Democrats saw a neophyte multi-lingual carpetbagger with a familiar name, Clay Pell, enter the race. So preposterous was his candidacy he kept losing his car and forgetting the capsules of memorized rhetoric when challenged with questions. He was not even able to concretely recall when he resided in the state or when he attended certain schools on his supposed résumé. 

Equally ridiculous was the candidacy of Todd Giroux, an East Bay contractor who apparently was caught suspiciously transporting a sea creature in a wheelbarrow in the middle of the primary campaign. 

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras was also a candidate for the Democrat nomination. He detonated his own campaign by his mantra of self-aggrandizement that “He went from Head Start to Harvard” so many times that by the second debate the electorate felt alienated by Angel’s attempt at validation.

Treasurer Gina Riamondo, who is our governor-elect, won the primary by the process of elimination. Her commercials created a “Norman Rockwell” flavor about her family and their history while simultaneously being bereft of any plans or policy. 

On the Republican side, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung entered what often seemed like a steel cage wrestling match with Moderate turned nascent GOP Ken Block. Nastiness was the watchword in a campaign that was short on issues or positive discourse and long on accusations.

When the situation comedy of the primaries was over, Riamondo versus Fung seemed like a beneficial match-up to the citizens. They could have conducted a real ongoing debate on policy and political ideology. Both have exceptional résumés and advanced academics and governmental administrative experience. However, at the outset negativity started immediately when the treasurer started to eviscerate the mayor’s record in Cranston, while the mayor questioned the treasurer’s handling of the pension revisions. Both were dramatic and inaccurate about the other. So, the general campaign took off where the foolishness of the primary season ended.

What was lost to the voters was a genuine discussion of the critical issues of the Ocean State. Then quite accidentally, perennial candidate Robert Healey was offered the Moderate Party endorsement for governor. As burly as he is bright, Healey comported himself in a genuine and extemporaneous fashion in all debate forums. This overt honesty diminished the value of the repeated rhetoric and mudslinging of his opposing candidates and elevated his stature with the voters. He managed to garner 22 percent of the vote, perhaps in protest to how the Democrat and Republican were acting, yet he only spent $38 on his campaign while his competitors spent millions. His participation very likely rendered Gina Riamondo our next governor with a slight 40 percent plurality.

Despite her win, the treasurer does not have a mandate. Nor does she have many citizens who are aware of what she really stands for. All we actually know is that she has a nice American family, her kids ride bikes through Providence, she seeks recipes and she drinks Narragansett Beer. Thus, her campaign’s opaque nature was a common example of modern day politicking, which informs no one. 

All we know is that our governor-elect is a smart self-made woman in the financial industry and she can cook a meatloaf. What is now essential to discern is what she really stands for. Beyond campaign posturing, that is a mystery.

However, the question begged is why we elect relative enigmas with slight pluralities to be the governor of our troubled state. Should we incorporate a runoff election system so the voice of the people is more accurately heard? Moreover, is this any way to elect a governor?

Christopher M. Curran

West Warwick

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