The new elizabethroberts.org is downright Obama-like in look and feel, with a tagline - "restoring hope in Rhode Island" - to match. Providence City Councilman and would-be mayoral candidate John Lombardi's site, unveiled earlier this year, also emulates the president's new media politics.

Look for more of the same, as Rhode Island gears up for its first true social-media election next year.

Sources say State Representative Peter Kilmartin, Democrat of Pawtucket, is set to run for Attorney General next year. N4N first reported Kilmartin's interest in the post in June.

Kilmartin, a former police officer-turned-lawyer who did not return calls for comment, will be able to draw on his professional background and long service as a legislator in making a case for the job.

Providence City Solicitor Joseph Fernandez isn't allowing his nascent 2010 campaign for AG to completely cast away the possibility of working in the Obama administration.

Last Friday, during a taping for next Sunday's broadcast of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers (we taped two shows, due to the holiday this week), Fernandez revealed that he is among the 350,000 or so people who have submitted a resume to Change.

Providence City Solicitor Joseph Fernandez, whose candidacy for AG in 2010 was first reported here, has a fundraiser set for Monday:

Host Committee
Kim Ahern, Mary Kim Arnold, Chris Blazejewski, Pat Crowley, Kas DeCarvalho, Jorge Elorza, Devin Driscoll, Meghan Grady, Jill Harrington, Chris Hunter, Matt Jerzyk, Lorraine Lalli, Rep.

Ohio is justly known as a linchpin in deciding presidential elections. As it happens, the Buckeye State is where Providence City Solicitor Joseph M. Fernandez, and his wife, Emily Maranjian, a white-collar prosecutor in AG Patrick Lynch's office, spent Election Day, doing voter-protection work in Hamilton County.

Speaking of Chafee, he was his idiosyncratic self during his appearance yesterday with Rappleye on 10 News Conference.

It sometimes seems like some of the gubernatorial hopefuls for 2010, including David Cicilline, Patrick Lynch, and Steve Laffey, have been preparing forever. Yet Chafee, citing a mixed message about a return to public life, is very, very relaxed about the whole thing.

Dave Layman was a bit incredulous on A Lively Experiment last week when, pressed for an answer, I predicted that Obama will win Rhode Island's March 4 primary. Yes, the Ocean State has been Clinton country, and I could certainly be wrong. Yet a new Darrell West survey suggests that my prediction is well within reason.

If the primary was held today, 36 percent of the 474 voters who indicated they were likely to vote in the 2008 Democratic primary say they will vote for Hillary Clinton, 28 percent support Barack Obama, 27 percent say they will vote for the “Uncommitted” ballot line, and 9 percent are undecided.

While Rhode Island's statewide election in 2010 remains more than 30 months away, we can expect to see a heightened level of organizing among potential candidates in 2008. And Providence City Solicitor Joseph M. Fernandez has taken an early plunge by filing papers this month, indicating that he intends to be a Democratic candidate for attorney general, with the Rhode Island Board of Elections