The Carcieri-ProJo Wars (V)

Brown University's Darrell West and Lisa Pelosi, a former communications director for Linc Almond, joined Jim Taricani and Bill Rappleye during the 10 News Conference broadcast yesterday. Naturally, some of the conversation turned to the question of, as Rappleye put it, whether the Providence Journal is "against" Governor Carcieri.

West responded by calling the recommendation, from the famous memo, that Carcieri go around the ProJo "mistake number one right there . . . I don't think they're out to get him, but anytime you're calling to downsize government, that's going to be very controversial. People are going to be phoning in news tips, dropping a dime, so to speak, and so reporters are getting good information [and] they are going to report it. There's no way to downsize government without there being critical news stories, because interest groups are going to be upset, labor unions are upset, people in the middle of state government -- who are fearful of losing their jobs -- are going to be reporting tips to various reporters . . . You can't really bypass the state's major newspaper."

In other points, Pelosi thinks that Operation Dollar Bill won't have a significant impact on next year's legislative races, since South County voters, for example, are unlikely to equate a guilty plea by a former legislator from northern Rhode Island with their own lawmakers.

West, meanwhile, said that Carcieri and the state Republican Party bear a chunk of the blame for the GOP's meager presence in the General Assembly. "You can't beat somebody with nobody," he said, and the party has failed to run candidates in a larger percentage of legislative races in recent years.