Moderate Party once again the GOP nemesis

Posted 10/23/14

THE IRONY OF POLITICAL PAYBACK: Just four short years ago, public service unions - especially teachers’ unions - were backing Lincoln Chafee’s quest to be elected governor. They didn’t have a …

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Moderate Party once again the GOP nemesis

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THE IRONY OF POLITICAL PAYBACK: Just four short years ago, public service unions - especially teachers’ unions - were backing Lincoln Chafee’s quest to be elected governor. They didn’t have a really good shot of winning until a third party candidate, Moderate Party candidate Ken Block, entered the race and siphoned votes away from Chafee’s Republican challenger, John Robitaille. Because of Block, Chafee and the unions ended up winning the election.

Fast forward to the 2014 governor’s race. The public employee unions and teacher unions hate Gina Raimondo because of her pension reform. They instead support the Republican candidate, Allan Fung. “Anyone but Raimondo,” seems to be their motto.

But wait! Lo and behold, a third party candidate enters the race - again from the Moderate Party. This time it’s former Cool Moose candidate Bob Healey, running as a Moderate, who is siphoning votes away from Fung and the public employee unions.

Based on the latest polls, it looks like those siphoned votes may cost Fung the race and might result in Raimondo being elected governor. Shades of 2010 but with a different result for the unions. It seems the political system is saying to the public employee and teacher unions, “Ain’t it ironic? Sometimes payback’s a (w)itch.”

OTHER COUNTRIES MORE CAREFUL ABOUT EBOLA: While the U.S. does nothing to restrict travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the West African countries where Ebola is rampant - some other countries are taking the threat more seriously.

A lab worker who handled an Ebola lab specimen at the Dallas hospital where a Liberian visitor died last week from the deadly virus was aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean. When U.S. officials tried to remove her from the ship by having it pull into Cozumel, Mexico, Mexican authorities refused to allow the ship to enter its port. When the ship reached its first stop in Belize, officials there would not allow the woman to leave the ship for transport back to the U.S. The ship had to turn around and head back to its port of origin, Galveston, Texas, in order to remove the woman from the ship so effective Ebola monitoring could begin.

Republicans continue to press the Obama administration to restrict travel to the U.S. from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea but Obama and his Democrat supporters in Congress refuse. If the Ebola virus attacks more Americans between now and the November elections, Democrats will likely pay dearly at the polls.

HODGSON HAS LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS ABOUT KILMARTIN: Republican candidate for attorney general, State Senator Dawson Hodgson, has brought up some legitimate and troubling questions about his opponent, incumbent Attorney General Peter Kilmartin?

Why did Kilmartin violate state law by issuing a no-bid contract to a sitting state senator? Why has Kilmartin failed to aggressively enforce the state’s access to public records law? Why did Kilmartin hire five of his former Pawtucket police associates to be investigators for the AG’s office? Why does Kilmartin pay his spokesperson $128,000 per year - more than he pays 66 of the 68 lawyers in the criminal division? How much did Kilmartin know about the 38 Studios deal before he voted for it when he was a state legislator?

These are all question that should be of critical concern to voters. Without answers, voters may well decide that it’s time for a change in the attorney general’s office and vote for Hodgson.

HAS RAIMONDO STRUCK A BACKDOOR DEAL WITH UNION LEADERS? Two of the state’s largest public employee unions, the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association, have refused to endorse Gina Raimondo for governor. Indeed, it appears most of their members are leaning toward supporting Bob Healey or Allan Fung as part of the backlash against Raimondo for her pension reform that adversely affected public employees.

Suddenly, without the backing of their membership, the presidents of these two key unions - the AFL-CIO’s George Nee and the NEA’s Robert Walsh - have “personally endorsed” Gina Raimondo.

This sudden turnaround at the top level of the two key unions begs the question: Did Gina Raimondo reach some kind of backdoor deal with the union leaders in which she has promised to support their efforts once she is in office in exchange for their personal endorsements?

Raimondo has already proclaimed that she won’t support tax cuts or spending cuts. She thinks we can “grow” our way out of our economic mess. Since Allan Fung wants to cut taxes, cut spending, and allow workers to decide whether to join unions, Raimondo’s “no cuts” stance and her pledge to continue forcing workers to join unions may be the only reasons for the union leaders’ endorsements.

However, the sudden change of heart by two of Raimondo’s most vicious former bashers will keep the nagging question in voters’ minds - did Raimondo reach a secret deal with union bosses?

RAIMONDO’S LEAD”HER”SHIP PAC ADS JUST AS BAD AS FUNG’S: Last week I castigated Allan Fung for running deceptive, misleading campaign ads that tried to assassinate Gina Raimondo’s character instead of speaking to the issues so important to Rhode Islanders.

A political action committee called the American LeadHERship PAC ran an ad, presumably with Gina Raimondo’s tacit approval, that denigrates Allan Fung because “as Mayor, he raised taxes three times.”

Of course, the ad mentions nothing about the huge pension problem and budget deficit Fung inherited when first elected, or the massive cut in state revenue sharing during his first year in office. Nor did the ad mention that Fung cut spending and streamlined city government so that during his last three years, he produced budgets with no tax increases. Fung did yeoman’s work turning Cranston around in only three years.

So, Raimondo is just as bad as Fung when it comes to issuing or silently approving ads that are deceptive, misleading and that cast a totally inaccurate picture of her opponent’s service as mayor.

Both candidates need to rein in their campaign advertising managers and their other surrogates so that such personal attack ads are avoided. Rhode Islanders, for the most part, think highly of both major party candidates for governor. However, the more the two resort to non-issue, character assassination ads, the greater the likelihood voters will become disgusted with both candidates and vote for Bob Healey - whose campaign rhetoric is far more issue-oriented.

MORE FUEL FOR CIANCI’S CAMPAIGN: Following the lead of the Providence Journal, three former U.S. Attorneys General for Rhode Island came out last week exhorting voters to keep Buddy Cianci out of the mayor’s office. The bi-partisan group included Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Republican former governor Lincoln Almond, and Robert Corrente - all three former U.S. Attorneys.

Most of the dire predictions these former federal prosecutors had for Providence and Rhode Island should voters return Cianci to office are probably fairly close to reality. Unfortunately, their “piling on” to the stack of editors, pundits and politicians who have already jumped on top of Cianci and metaphorically beat him almost into senselessness is adding to the burgeoning belief among Providence voters that Cianci is being bullied.

Even Brown University has gotten into the act with its debate moderator arranging questions in such a fashion that allowed Cianci’s opponents to lambast him without allowing Cianci an opportunity to rebut.

More and more voters are starting to look at Cianci as the underdog hero who deserves sympathy because of the “incessant bullying by the big boys.”

It may well turn out to be a world-class case of political irony. Could the fact that so many well-meaning Cianci detractors have jumped on the anti-Cianci bandwagon end up being the very reason Cianci is elected? Ironically, it may well happen.

OBAMA INITIATES BACKDOOR COOPERATION WITH ASSAD: Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, announced last week that for the first time the U.S. will share with Russia our intelligence information on Islamic State actions and movements in Syria.

Since Russia has no military presence in Syria and is not part of the coalition that is conducting air strikes there, the only reason for the U.S. to share local intelligence with Russia is for Russia to pass that information on to its ally, Bashar Assad, the repressive dictator we are trying to remove in Syria.

Obama has proclaimed that he will not cooperate with Assad’s government to fight our mutual enemy, the terrorist Islamic State. It appears Obama has found a way to cooperate with Assad while trying to hide it behind “intelligence sharing with Russia”. It’s probably a smart move on Obama’s part since destroying the Islamic State should be our first priority and Assad can help, but Obama’s nuts if he thinks Americans don’t recognize it for what it.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Republican Congressman Fred Upton speaking to federal health officials as he and others push for a travel ban from West Africa to contain the Ebola outbreak:

“You’re right, it needs to be solved in Africa. But until it is, we should not be allowing these folks in, period. People’s lives are at stake, and the response so far has been unacceptable.”

The Obama administration’s timid approach to protecting Americans from Ebola may well cause a backlash at the polls in November if voters blame Democrats for the government’s refusal to issue a travel ban from West Africa.

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